Pensativism : And the thought crosses my mind

SF Diary : A Tale of Three Districts

2011-12-30T01:51:00.000-08:00

Last night I made the plan to go for biking in the morning and then join other friends to visit a town called Sausalito, but this morning my friend informed me via phone that somehow their plan got postponed and I was on my own. Very well, that shouldn't be a problem, I thought. Initially, I was thinking about making a biking trip to Golden Gate Bridge but the idea of visiting the districts sounded more exciting . At 11:40 AM, I headed out for a day visit to three districts in San Francisco, named as Haight, Castro and Mission.

At about approximately 1:00 PM, I hopped off the bus at Alamo Square in Haight District. As per the initial plan, I was supposed to reach there by 12:15 but some intelligence combination of google maps and my (bad) sense of direction, made the journey pretty longer than it was actually supposed to be. Anyways, there I was, in front of Alamo square. It was a foggy, misty and a bit colder day as compared to previous few days, but then, any trip to SF without foggy weather is never complete. This place, sounded like a small park, at a good elevation which makes it a nice place to get some views of the city but nothing was very exciting. I quickly googled to find out what was the all fuss about this place. It turned out that this place is popular for "The Painted Ladies" which is a term used to describe the combination of four-five victorian style houses, which was painted in different colors and together they give a feel as if they are bunch of beautiful ladies and it seems that its a very famous tourist place, as there were many San Francisco sightseeing buses passing by every few minutes. I was not particularly impressed, though the park itself looked like a good option for walking/jogging if you live in the neighborhood. There were bunch of tourists in the park along with few locals who were out with their dogs for a walk. Most of these dogs were not leashed which was very unusual. After walking around the park for few minutes, I decided to walk to the Haight/Ashbury intersection which was around 1.2 miles from the Alamo square.

Till Haight/Divisadero ST, the walk was pretty quiet with few retro shops and cafes around, the real views of Haight started after this intersection. As I was approaching towards Haight/Ashbury intersection, the street was getting more and more interesting with lots of interesting shops on both side of the street. Most of these shops were either cafes/food places or some kind of shopping place like old music records, tees, old souvenirs etc. The graffitis on the walls, names of the shops gave another charm to the street. Even people working in these shops had some kind of tattoo/piercing/unusual hairstyle. I browsed through some of these shops, but things seemed to be quite expensive. On the street you could easily see lots of people in hippie attire, some of them had cats on their shoulders and others were carrying backpacks/musical instruments etc. I took a break at Red Victorian Cafe to charge my phone, had a Latte and Egg Sandwich. My tummy was stuffed and I was ready to head towards Castro District.

It was another 1.1 miles walk to the intersection of Castro and Market ST. The moment I reached the Castro and 17th and I saw the big rainbow flag waving high on a pole, which gave the indication that Castro district should have huge LGBT population. In fact, many shops/houses around had rainbow flags in this area. I roamed around a bit on the castro street. There were quite a few food places, hair cut shops around, saw a Starbucks there, went inside to check it out but it was pretty crowded, there was not even a single empty chair. After looking around for some more time on the streets, went to this place called Flore Cafe, which was also pretty crowded for Thursday afternoon. After browsing through the menu for sometime, I ordered Hawaiian French toast and sat outside in the sunshine. French toast was delicious and now it was time to continue the journey towards Mission district.

While walking on the 16th ST for sometime, I realized my phone battery is about to give up, so I sat in a cafe called "Cafe Sophie". It was a very little laid back coffee shop with friendly staff. After spending like half an hour there with a decent hot chocolate, I resumed the mission :P.

After walking for approximately 1 mile, I reached the intersection of 16th and Mission. Somewhere I read that the intersection of 24th and Mission is supposed to be a bit happening, so I walked further down on Mission ST. It was around 5:30 PM, almost sunset time. Mission ST had lots of shops on both sides of the street. These shops were like any other market shops, nothing very peculiar about them. There were many food places, dive bars kind of places , which seemed to be very established ones. Most of the people on the street, were locals, who were coming back from the work etc. Mission district didn't seem like a tourist place to me, it would be better enjoyed with friends and other people to check out the food places and bars in the area. There was nothing interesting going on near 24th ST and I was kind of tired also, so it was time to stop the tour of three districts and go back to friend's place.

SF Diary (12/29/2011)

Friday Evening

2011-12-17T03:04:00.000-08:00

Traveling is one of those moments when your fingers start to fiddle around in order to jot down something asapand when you are sitting comfortably inside a train, while the whole other worldseems to be stuck in a never ending traffic jam, you definitely feel a lotbetter about yourself , even if you are traveling on Friday evening.

Since the moment I woke up in the morning, I was in a constantconfusion about traveling on Friday evening, because there wereseveral other things that could have been done otherwise. Like, there was this chocolate and art event, wherethey were gonna serve free chocolates while you browse through some of thefinest art-work from emerging artists, and after enough recommended dose of art for the day, there was a performance at Exchange fromone of the electro band (unfortunately I can not recall their names right now). All in all, it wouldhave been a wonderful evening full of art , music, beers, dancing and of coursefree chocolates.

Until 5 PM, I was not sure whether I would be travelingtonight or next morning (thishas been converting into some kinda trend now: me postponing the decisions aslong as I can). Eventually, I decided to get my butt off the bedand get ready for the journey. OnceI was neatly and cleanly dressed, I realized that if I wanted to catch theuniversity shuttle, I would have to run as if I am participating in some 150m race. Well, by now, it has becomea usual routine and may be I will try my luck in the university racing teamsometime :P. As expected, Imanaged to hop on the bus just in time and by 5:40 I was in my office. Iput charger, headphones and some other stuff in the backpack and headed towardsthe union station shuttle stop. Fortunately, there was enough time in hand tomake it to the stop in time.

Around 6:30, the shuttle arrived at the union station, after buyingthe ticket, I looked for the track (platform) no. in the ticket but couldn't see it anywhere. Alright, it should be written somewhere on one of these tracks, Ithought. But as I passed through these tracks, hope of finding the right track for the train kept going down and before I realized, I had already passed the tracks area and was now somewhere in the waiting area . Looking like a helpless fella, I inquired about the right track at the information desk. The lady behind the counter directed meto a gate where all the passengers boarding the surfliner were supposed togather. This felt weird, as if this train was a private tour where some tourguide would lead the group and will tell us the boring history for entire 2 hourjourney. Anyways, standing in theline for sometime made me feel thirsty and in front of me there was thisshining good old coffee shop and of course (you guessed it right) it wasStarbucks. When I came back to theline, with my delicious Caramel Frueppacino, there were quite a few people alreadywaiting in the line. At 7 PM, one gentleman announced that the track number9 would be the place where we can board our train. Inside the train, I found a comfortable window seat. At 7:10, the train started its journey.

After sometime, I decided to takemy laptop out, fingers were already waiting to jump on the keyboard like a hungry man who has been deprived of the food for a long time, wanted to eat some big fat jumbo burger with fries :P. Theseare those moments, when I let fingers take the command and allow them towalk me through the space they want to travel. And then it becomes a journey within a journey :). While I was looking outside the window,I saw these busy freeways with people sitting in the car and inching forwardtoward their destination like some flock of ants. At this very moment the fingers knew what they gotta write, the ear knew what they wanted to listen, “Accidentally in love”started in the background and rest as they say, is the history you have already read in this post ;).

Artwalk

2011-12-09T01:46:00.001-08:00

I came to know about art-walk like two years back, but somehow never ended up going there, even though it happens once every month. This time, I proposed this idea to M. and he gracefully agreed to join for the evening, we spontaneously pursued Y. also to come with us and then we headed for downtown. After withdrawing some money from ATM and hopping on the bus just at the right time, we were all set for an exciting evening. Fifteen minutes of journey got us to our destination stop and by walking further for about 10 more minutes, we arrived at Art Gallery lounge, where we were greeted by two nice ladies in their late thirties/early forties. We grabbed some free lollipops and gallery map and started our tour from the lounge building itself. Here, most of the painting and sketches were mostly Latino art. After spending like 5 minutes, we headed towards further north of Spring Street.

On our way, M. ran into some lomo camera fan ladies and he talked with them about some technicalities and details of this specific camera, while Y. and I were standing beside him and looking at the antique fire department bus. Few minutes later, we entered into a gallery on 6th Street. This gallery was more about photos than paintings, though the quantity of photos were very less but the photos, as expected, were excellent. Somehow I got the feeling that these photos were taken by analog camera. Its interesting to observe that these old analog cameras were used to do the miracles which even SLRs can't do and I am very curious to know what all skills are needed to master the art of photography with analog camera (of course other than natural talent :-)). We visited one more gallery on 6th street, this one was more about paintings of famous celebrities and the ambience was pretty aesthetic. We grabbed this opportunity to capture some shots and soon we came back on Spring street.

While walking towards a theatre, we spotted this "Spring-for-Coffee" coffee shop. I had read good reviews of this place on Yelp, so just coined this idea of having some coffee. Y. and I ordered Latte, whereas M. got espresso coffee and needless to say the coffee was pretty good and strong at the same time. The coffee place, itself was pretty small. Even just four people can hardly stand inside the shop, though they provided outside seating for 4-5 people. M. somehow was not completely satisfied with his coffee and he let the guy behind the counter know about it. This guy was really nice and he asked M. to come some other time for a better espresso. Without further delay, we got out of the shop and saw this lady with awesome cute dog (unfortunately I am not good with identifying the breed of the dogs) and asked her to pose for us with her dog, she happily agreed. Few further steps, got us outside the LATC theatre. Just when we were entering into the theater, we saw this sign which said that no outside beverages were allowed inside the building. So we had to stay outside and finish our coffee first. Y. gulped her coffee down her throat like bottoms up beer. Looks like for her, coffee is like any other alcohol drink. I was taking my time in finishing the coffee. We also saw a group of people dancing on the street and chanting "Hare Krishna Hare Ram". Also, there was a car parked on the Spring street, but it was not locked because there was a dog inside the car, waiting patiently for the driver to return. Is this a new trick to avoid parking while you are away somewhere just to grab something quick ? ;).
Inside LATC, there were two-three different exhibitions, some of them were like abstract modern art, some were focussed on paintings related to "occupy" stuff. We stayed there for around 15 minutes, took some quick (but with pose) pictures.

Next on the destination was west side of Spring street. First, we went to this super market kind of exhibition where we saw some interesting stuff, which was quite suitable for wall posters. It included posters of musicians, actors, random and funny tagline slogans. Unfortunately, at this point, my mobile battery gave up on its life. After this exhibition we went into couple of other galleries where they had interesting combination of pictures and portraits. Towards south of Spring street, we entered into this sophisticated photo gallery, which had pictures of some models and the purpose of photos were to depict the human emotions through different poses and surroundings. I liked one particular painting with a guy smoking a cigarette and lying on the chair. There was another exhibition with very experimental stuff. This exhibition was pretty decent in size and it had interesting music as well.

Next, we ended up in a place full of food trucks, we roamed around for around 10 minutes and decided on not to eat anything, but then we thought of trying out some snacks. M. and Y. got some fried potatoes, cut in very thin size and wrapped around a stick. I took two tacos, we finished our snacks while walking north on main street. We saw two more galleries and then decided to go back. We had to wait for quite sometime before getting on the bus. Overall, Art Walk is a good combination of versatile galleries, though their galleries map has a big scope of improvement. It is hard to go through all the galleries just in one visit, so definitely I am going to this event few more times before I get exhausted.

Fear

2011-11-30T21:21:00.001-08:00

Have you ever wondered what is the biggest obstacle between you and the world outside ? If you would be asked to name one thing that has been keeping you from going out and do something you have been afraid of. Well, my obvious answer would be that it is the fear we all have inside us in some or other form. Different people have different kinds of fear and the extents also vary. The irony is that most of these fears are results of our irrational thinking, as in, they don't have any meaningful existence in real life but still their presence looms large like anything before us and our psyche is like a permanent shelter to them. They are born and raised with high quality pampering inside there. We have fed and nurtured them in the best possible ways and with this healthy and nutritious diet, they ought to have a strong presence inside us. Their growth characteristic is not very different from humans. Like humans, they are born as an infant and with time, depending on the upbringing they develop themselves accordingly. Sometimes, they vanish due to lack of our attention, most of the times they turn into a monstrous spoiled brat.

The question is that what are the factors which help in development of fear ? The obvious answer would be that these factors may vary from internal conflicts to external world to unforeseen consequences. I would say most of it comes from the uncertainty. If our life was a deterministic function, we wouldn't have many unknown fears, but it is the randomness and chaos which boosts the presence. Though, not always, its bad in nature. Sometimes, they help our instinct in protecting ourselves from many hazardous things like jumping from high rise building just like that. I guess in such obvious cases, consequences are more or less known as the prior, but here we are talking about those non trivial cases which create confusion around us e.g. quitting our current well established job just because we are not 100% committed to it or we are not enjoying everything about it or thinking of a divorce just because few things don't seem to be working out.

Most of the times we don't have definite answers to these questions and uncertainty is one ingredient fear loves the most, it fosters on it. Just when it senses even a bit of confusion, it is all set to make the condition worse and intense. And no need to mention that its contant presence bothers us like anything. So we all know fears make things difficult for us, but how can we get rid of them ? The most popular "Yahoo like Answer" would be to face the fear and do the things we have had fear of doing. Well it is precisely the correct answer but then if we could just go out and do whatever we felt like, there would be no existence of fear at all. Sometimes, we get courage to face them and get over. In some cases, may be, we just learn to live with them. But I believe, in most of the cases, we can't remain ignorant forever. There comes a time when we have to face them and gather the courage to fight them with all what we have got.

The Void Euphoria

2011-11-26T22:56:00.000-08:00

11:59 PM and it was over. All the excitement and anticipation you start building up like one month before the deadline, goes away into pieces in one second. Dunno whether other people feel the same way or not, but there is something very special about deadlines. Of course they force you to work your ass hard in order to get things done in time and you have to adjust your other schedules and engagements accordingly, additionally, they create a kind of anticipation and make your energy focus towards that finish line
and if you reach there, it gives you immense relief at least if not proud or satisfaction.

As a kid, I used to savor such post deadline moments enthusiastically by engaging in all the activities I had missed during the slogging time, but as I grew up, this intensity of these celebrations somehow disappeared somewhere. Its not that I do not like the idea of enjoying the free time or the deadlines excites me so much that I start making plans for another deadline once the current one is over or there is nothing out there to enjoy the free time. I don't know the exact reason, but as much time it takes for the moments of anticipation to peak, as little it takes for it to come down. Now when there are so many things to do around, there is a full bucket list which is waiting to be emptied at least a little if not anything substantial and with time it is becoming empty too a little by little. But no matter what is done and how much effortlessly things are enjoyed, this post deadline void still persists for sometime after deadline.

Indeed, these moments of void do not bring joys with them, but to me they seem like an indicator; an autonomous manager in command that lets you go off the hook for sometime but not without some thinking to do, not without some questions to answer.

Genuinely...

2011-10-22T02:56:00.000-07:00

With each passing day, my understanding of the saying "Ignorance is bliss" keeps getting an inch deeper. Its like as if I am reading the chapters of a book, each one more intense than the previous one and more I read, the more I understand the content and the purpose of the book. Though this saying has many characteristics and can be illustrated through many different examples. I am going to approach it from the perspective of "being genuine".

If you are born and brought up in a small town, life is usually simple and everything is easily approachable.
More importantly people are usually people. You must be wondering what I mean by it, of course people are always people only, they are not living monkeys. Well, true, all people are alive human beings only, who brush their teeth, comb their hair (do I ? :P), go to work, eat and sleep, but that's not how we differentiate one person from another, neither physical identity of the people define them, that only helps in identifying and distinguishing a person from the other. What defines a person, is his characteristics and qualities he possesses. Ok, now you would argue that what's the point of stating such a trivial thing, everybody knows it. Fair enough, when did I say I am walking you through an entirely new world of unexplored fantasies :P.

When I said that when you meet people in small town, you actually meet people, I meant that people meet you genuinely. You talk to them and you will see it in their eyes, in their body language. They are devoid of any hidden layers of sophistication and pretense. Their gestures are not tailor made, their language is not refined and polished. They are so much themselves only. And the only reason of their manner of presentation I can think of, is because that's the only way they know how to present themselves. Their ignorance of any specific and standard rituals of presentation makes them unique, sometimes special and at times funny. If they knew the other way and if they would have been surrounded by the environment where the other method was well practiced, I am sure they wouldn't be, what they are.

Now you must be wondering, why am I blabbering about all this ? What do I have against big town boys. Well, I am not targeting or blaming any individual or any human being for that matter. This is about the culture in general, more than about the people. In big cities, people keep running so much, they are after so much, I don't think they get enough time to be themselves. They always have so much to catch up with the surrounding that they always have something to do in order to blend with the others and in this process of being on the same page with others, they try so hard that they even tend to forget what does it even mean to be themselves. Throughout this never ending process, may be people lack or lose many different qualities or traits (of course they gain many other things like better standards of living, better opportunities, more things to explore, global exposure, professionalism etc.), one of them specifically comes to my mind every now and then is how to "be genuine". I mean, when you talk to people, it seems you are talking to different photocopies of the same identity, its so predictable and shallow at times.

What I feel is that this culture not only affects the society at the level of communication, it disrupts the whole basis, on which people connect and make relationships with others. This basis is affected by many different priors, prejudices and wrong reasons, which is why I feel many of such relationships are just like bunch of bodies without any soul. Anyways, being in the big cities for some time now I feel this culture is taking over me as well and with time I too am losing the notion of how to be genuine. Lets hope at least I do not forget when and whom to be genuine with.

-PS

The Hiking Reloaded

2011-10-08T23:16:00.000-07:00

One of the main attractions of Southern California is its never ending mountains and when you have got them around, you gotta go hiking often, otherwise you are missing on something really good. When it comes to hiking there are several difficult things you need to take care of and most difficult among them is to wake up early :P. I don't remember when did I step out of the house at 7:30 AM last time, but today it happened and it felt so natural, usually I feel so uncomfortable waking up early. Even if I try, my body is never in sync with the mind but today it felt as if I am a regular early morning person :-).

Four of us headed out for the mountains towards the east in Alta Dena. It was a pleasant sunny day with very little cold breeze touching you every now and then. By 8:15 we were on the trail. Weather was was still a bit cold for me but thanks to jacket I put on. As we progressed up on the trail, we got to see some views of the west side, though nothing spectacular yet. The trail path seemed to be pretty easy though a bit narrow. There were many people already coming back down from the hike, most of them were 40 plus (and still rocking I guess :)). Through the halfway up, the temperature went up enough to take off the jacket but nothing scorching yet. Pretty easily we covered the 2.7 miles up the mountain and now we had the choice of continuing further up towards the inspiration point or just finish the Sam Merril trail and go back down. We chose the second option as we were hiking after almost 6-7 months and after few more steps up, we reached the end of the trail. Now we were able to spot the downtown and west side of LA pretty clearly in the distance. We could even see the ocean and surrounding fog. Other than views, we could see some remainings of a hotel and rail-road which used to exist here back in early 20th century but somehow got burned in a wild fire. There was also an echo point, if you speak loudly through a funnel type thing, you could hear your echo clearly in the distance mountains, hence this mountain is called as Echo mountain. We stayed there for around 10-15 mins before heading back.

Coming down part was quick and hardly tiring. By 11:30 we were back in parking lot. Thankfully weather was pretty soothing throughout the hike. Overall it was a good workout hike. There was nothing magnificent about the views on the top but it was not bad either. Also the hike was pretty easy on the knees. I was able to do the daily chores as usual, after getting back to the home. In nutshell, it was not a bad hike to get back into regular hiking mode.

Wake Up Kid !

2011-10-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

First of all: This is a beautiful morning. Wish I could wake up early everyday without any specific reasons.

Now coming back to the post:

As a living entity we all go through different phases in life : success, failure, struggle, luck etc. Sometimes all of them happen at the same time, sometimes they appear in bunches. In this post I am not gonna talk about any of these things though. Its about a different kind of phase.

There was a time when I was asking lots of questions without seeking any answer and if you have been visiting this blog every now and then, I am sure you must have noticed this trend in my posts too. Though, I am not entirely sure if those questions were meaningful or whether they were worth even asking. Anyways, as we know that with time seasons change, so do the phases and hence in this late 2011, the era of asking never ending questions has been replaced by new phase of finding meanings and answers. Its good to have questions because it keeps the mind and spirit curious but then finding answers is like beginning an adventurous quest and who doesn't like interesting journeys. As such its October, September is gone and its time to wake up :-).

As these answers would unfold, I would try to post them here whenever and whatever I can, no promises.
Anyways, the first answer is to go back to the basics and doing it like the school days, I will provide more details later. Till then enjoy life and keep up the passion :-).

-Pensativo

Quotes - Courage

2011-08-06T00:50:00.000-07:00

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'
Eleanor Roosevelt

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.
Albert Camus

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.
Victor Hugo

Let's drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made a strange Heaven out of unbelievable Hell, and let's drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we love so much, will find dignity and greatness and peace again.
Noel Coward

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.
Orison Swett Marden

Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval.
Thomas S. Monson

Different world ,from One day to another

2011-08-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

What would you say about the person who is blogging in the morning (though the time is post noon), when he is supposed to finish something his boss needs later in the day, I would say that person is uber cool :D. Anyways, does it happen with you that one day you wake up and you feel like being on top of the world and the other day it feels like there is nobody else as miserable as you are ? I wonder about the factors contributing to such feelings. I mean, of course things around you haven't changed much from yesterday to today. You have same clothes, same house, same work, same routine..then what on the earth can cause such a big transformation about the way you feel about yourself and everything around ? It feels as if you are living in an entirley different world. Yesterday it was mean, dreadful and all of a sudden today it is so beautiful and graceful again. You keep thinking about it and I will get back to the things I am actually supposed to do right now ;-).

Till then listen to this song to pump yourslef up, louder :P

Here I Go Again

2011-07-30T00:28:00.000-07:00

I liked this song very much !

LA: Awesome, Good, Bad and Ugly

2011-06-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

It feels so awkward that even after living in LA for almost three years(man time passes so fast), I haven't written anything about this city of angeles. Well, how can I not write anything about the city I am in love hate relationship with. Let me blabber about some of the things I absolutely love/hate about LA. How should I start ?Ummm.. Lemme try to categorize things in awesome, good, bad and ugly categories:

Awesome:
-Food: If you are feeling like enjoying some hot mexican food with strong margharitas, or you want to sit back and relax your Merlot wine in a soothing Italian restarurant, or you want to munch on traditional hot dogs and burgers, LA is the place to be in. You can find a taco shop and burger place at every half a mile distance. There is Korea town, thai places, Little Ethiopia, Little Tokyo, Artesia for Indian food, Mediterenian food, just name the cuisine and LA would have all of it. That's how rich is the variety of the food LA has to offer.

Weather: You are coming from a place where it is chilly like anything in winters and hot like hell in summers, well you have come to the right place then. This is the city where you can have temperature in 70s both in summers and winters. Around 300 days of the year are sunny with clear sky. There is not much scope to complain about LA weather really.

Good:
Restaurants' Ambience:
You want the sea-facing view, hollywood sign in the back, want to sit outside in the patio watching and observing people while waiting for your order, or just want to relax in your comfortable indoor seat, you will get all of it here. There are just too many places with pretty good ambience.

Activities:
You like outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, rock climbing. No ? Ok, probably you are more into water activities: No ? Then Staples Center, Colloseum, Indian Wells kind of things are there for a sport lover like you ? What, you are not even into sports ? Man, what is wrong with you ? Alright, I reckon you are the kind of person who likes music concerts (from hip-hop to classic, you can find all genres here), or stand up comedy shows and if you are one hopeless case, LA would still won't disappoint you as there are many places where you can just roam around, relax on beaches, sit in some park/garden/market streets.

Bad:
Traffic: Hmm, similar to many other big cities, LA traffic sucks and it literally does. If you are going out during rush hour, you better get some form of entertainment with you, may be you can finish a movie on your i-pad, while you are stuck in the traffic :P.

Tourist places: So one day, you get a call from one of your friends and he is all excited about his trip to LA and wants you to take him around and show whatever this city has to offer. Well, that's the time when you start getting head-ache. You wanna know why ? Well because there is hardly any exciting place, that you can show around. Alright, if your friend has kids, you can go to Disneyland, Universal studios, Legoland or if you are into adventurous rides, Six Flags is there. If you are more into arts, you can try Getty Center, Getty Villa and LACMA type of places which would not disappoint any art lover. In case you are charmed by the Hollywood hype, I must say, you will go back from LA with a broken heart. Except few sightseeing tours, walk of fame, few small museums, Kodak Theater, there is nothing much touristic about Hollywood. If you are looking for a big city square, a center place where the whole crowd keeps rushing to somewhere, I am sorry, LA is not place to see lot of people around in streets.

Ugly:
Transportation, if you are not traveling by a car, there is no convenient way to go around.

Travel...

2011-06-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

Six months doesn't seem to be a long time, but when you notice that your last post on your blog was on December 28 and today its June 15th, it feels like as if ages have passed. Though, in my defence, many a time I tried to write something down but somehow never ended up finishing anything. Sounds like a lame excuse, eh ? :P. May be I have become just too lazy or demotivated with time. Anyways, lets come back to the actual post.

Some people like to travel a lot, some hate it. I am not sure which category I fall in. Do I hate it: Sometimes yes: All the hassle to reach the stations, airport etc., then usual delays, then dealing with irritating people while traveling towards your destination. One can come up with many more reasons to despise traveling. But,On the other hand, travel has its own joys: hassles make you explore the place and understand it better. Interactions with people teach you how to ignore people without being impolite and rude. Moreover if you are traveling alone, you can catch up on some book you have been waiting forever to read, also you get enough time to co-ordinate your thought process. Hence, based on these pros and cons, I have this constant love-hate relationship with travel. Of course travel brings lots of fun and experiences (and pictures also :P), but the most beneficial thing you get out of it is: an opportunity to recharge your batteries and change the monotonous stuff you have been going through for a while. To maintain a healthy frame of mind, at times you just want to escape somewhere and reset many things you have been doing in wrong manner. Especially when this escapade place is India, it makes the trip super-special.

I have heard from many of my friends, that people travel to India when they feel lost in this world, they think India is the place which can help them in getting everything back in place. Well, I think what these people have been looking for, is spiritual harmony, also visiting India makes them realize the importance of their own life. Anyways, that's my interpretation of why (Non Indian)people come here to find themselves. For me, its a usual trip back home, an opportunity to meet family and friends with the package of most awesome food on the earth. Though there are many questions hanging around, many answers waiting for justification, but I guess there would always be some questions and answers to deal with. May be you will resolve them soon,may be it will take time but the good thing is that while you are traveling, you get the time to put things in right perspective by evaluating all the options and by talking to people, getting their opinion or by just observing their situation, lifestyle and attitude. If not all this, at least it keeps your mind off from all the worries of the world :P. So keep traveling, keep having fun :-)

Arizona: Sedona, The Sightseeing

2010-12-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

8:30 AM it was, when my eyes opened abruptly and it was not because of any bad dream or anything like that, it was the sense of urgency to get out of hotel room as soon as possible. With in half an hour I was all ready for the complimentary breakfast, Kad was also on his feet for the free breakfast. Many people were already in the hotel kitchen, some discussing about meaning of life etc, others were busy handling their kids and family. There was nothing very interesting about the breakfast as such but then come on it was just the breakfast: cereal, milk, bagel, croissant, juice, coffee, fruits were there,what else do you expect in breakfast :P. Bagel and apple juice were my choice, Kad had cereal instead of apple juice. After finishing the breakfast, we approached the guy at the hotel reception and asked him about the places to see around Sedona. He briefed us about the few possible options, which seemed good enough. After half an hour more, we started our day officially. It was a bright sunny day though there was strong wind, that made it look like a bit chilly, but as long as sun is out, everything else can be handled :-).

The first thing we decided to do was to go to the information center and get a better idea of the things to see around. The place was pretty close only, we parked our car , then realized it was a private parking lot. I insisted on taking the car out, Kad didn't want to. Finally we came out but unfortunately we took the wrong turn, in order to save ourselves from approaching cars, we tried to get off from the road asap but in this process our car got bumped into a pole on the roadside. Nothing dramatic happened, just a minor damage near the trunk, otherwise car was working alright. After parking our car in the same private lot, we entered the information center and was greeted by one of the most uninterested receptionist ever. He suggested us few things to see around but frankly speaking, the guy at the hotel reception knew better.
Soon we headed towards our first landmark "The chapel of the holy Cross". We had to walk uphill on the road for about 1/5th of the mile to get to the Chapel. Since this place was situated on some height, it gave a nice panoramic 270 degree view of the Sedona red rock canyons (rest of the 90 degree was obstructed by the high canyons). After taking few clips from different angles and few typical/trademark/different poses we were done. While climbing up to this place, we noticed that there were lots of coins on the wall just across the stairs. The wall was the part of mountain so there were plenty of space to place the coin on the peaking horizontal surfaces. It left us wondering because usually you don't get to see this in States. Had I been in India, it would have sounded normal, but we had no idea why those coins were all around and we did not make much effort to inquire about it since there were many better things to do.

Our next destination was the bell ring canyon, which was given this name because of its shape. By this time the cold breeze was gone and it was all sunny, the day was getting better and brighter :-). View of the bell canyon was not that great actually as it was getting occluded by many bushes and trees around. Still there was substantial crowd around posing for the shutterbugs :P. We decided to give some poses too before spotting a vendor, who was selling hats and arizona t-shirts. Tees were not very interesting but we bought the hats, just to get more into the desert spirit and of course then we posed for few cool cowboy style rocking poses :D.

While heading towards the oak creek canyon, we captured few shots and stopped at few scenic vista points. Oak creek canyon was a scenic drive and we could look at red rocks from different angles from this road. Once we were done with it, it was time to grab some food. There was an Indian restaurant nearby which served decent food, good enough to fill our stomach. So far we covered the east part of the Sedona. Now, we drove off towards the west Sedona, which was even more promising with better high mountains and canyons around. We entered into a loop road, which gave somewhat grand canyon kind of view of these red rock canyons, you could see a very different, red rock formation from this road. Some part of this loop road, was not even cemented, that muddy red soil road made the surroundings look more beautiful, because with the bright sun above, the red color of the canyon and the soil was pretty vibrant and appealing. After stopping at few places, we entered into () national park to get the view of Cathedral rock. The park was just beautiful, it had a river flowing alongside the cathedral rock which made the park even more scenic and serene. We walked along the water for sometime, enjoying the silence with the sound of the water. By the way have I ever told you that I love the sound of the flowing water.

By the time we got out of the park, it was almost sunset and like every other place, Sedona also had a sunset view point and like all other places in Sedona, it was also close by only (well then everything in Sedona is within 5 mile only :P). It seemed that all the tourists in Sedona merge at this one place at this time of the day. Sunset was majestic as you already know , it gave different shades of color to the canyons and the sky. (I love the sun, it is like some dancing ritual. When it rises, people rise with it, start dancing slowly and as the day grows, people dance better with high beats on, and the dance becomes slow again with sun settling down). Anyways by this time, we were done with the sightseeing for the day. In the evening we went to this red planet cafe which had a very interesting theme. The place gave the impression as if we the humans(they called us earthlings) have entered into a different planet called the red planet. The food was ok, and with the satisfied tummy we returned to the hotel room, with smile on the face and "Merry Christmas" words on the lips :-)

Arizona Diary: The Beginning

2010-12-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

The alarm clock was ringing out loud, so loud that I could hear it clearly, even from the bathroom with shower on. It happens most of the time, whenever I put alarm, either I wake up before it starts or I keep sleeping without even hearing any alarm bell. I had two hours to pack all my stuff and nothing was done yet, first took out the clothes from the dryer then put some warm clothes, some tees, some jackets and few other essentials in the bag, still got the time to charge the camera and I was done by 9:30, that means it was time to call my friend and ask him if he is about to reach LA, but it seems that he had something else in mind. He was supposed to reach here by 10:00 in the morning, and to make sure that he reaches here in time, he had to wake up by 7:00 and he did too, but then he realized its holiday and how can anyone wake up at 7 on an off day, his laziness made him sleep for one more hour. You would think that one hour is not a big deal, well just wait and continue reading then: he headed off towards the rental car company and reached there by 8:45-9:00. I guess, at that time, it seemed he will make it to LA soon, but then we don't live in such a simple world, do we ? Things have their own twists and turns: he booked the car from a different office of the same company and the other office was on the other side of Santa Barbara town, well fun fun fun, I guess by 11 he made it to the right office but by the time he got there, rental guys were out of the cars and nothing was available for a long time, finally he got a car at 2-2:30.
Meanwhile in LA, I was done with the packing and this endless wait was making me nuts, so decided to go out, it was a clear sunny beautiful day, I walked around for a mile, then had lunch, got some blank CDs and some groceries too. It was already 1:30 PM, to kill some more time burned few CDs and then I realized that I left my hiking shoes in the locker room of the gym, which for your information was closed during winter breaks till 2nd January, well I expect such things from me all the time :-), so went to Big 5 store to buy the shoes and some other stuff, finally by 5:00 PM, Kad also made it to LA and it was time to load the car with all the stuff and embark on the journey towards the endless desert of Arizona.
Everything was not over yet, when I called the hotel, the lady at the reception told us that they close down by noon and come back at 6 in the morning, in nutshell, no possibility to check in between 12 and 6 AM. But when we told her that we are traveling all the night on Christmas eve, she made sure that we would be able to check in whenever we can. The rest of the journey was more or less effortless, it was almost full moon and we kept going deep into the darkness of cold, empty and never ending desert and though in the night not much of it was visible but it was a serene drive in its own way, whatever little was visible, was enough to know that the next few days are going to be very interesting. Just before we were about to reach the hotel, the cop car stopped us for over speeding but then let us go with just a warning, because he didn't want to give any ticket on Christmas eve. Well yeah, I believe, traveling on Christmas eve was not that bad at all, in a way it only helped us. 3:30 AM, we checked in , tired but excited, after-all what we were going to see in next 3 days, was not just sight-seeing, it was about experiencing the Arizona desert and try to see its beauty beyond the red rocks and after knowing what Will Rogers said about Arizona, it was definitely going to be one hell of a experience.

"The trip across Arizona is just one oasis after another. You can just throw anything out and it will grow there, I like Arizona. " ~Will Rogers

Time - Pink Floyd

2010-12-21T11:04:00.000-08:00

The more I listen to this song, the more it fits well, no doubt it is one of the most beautiful lyrics ever, after all its Pink Floyd, here it goes:

Lyrics:
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

BREATHE REPRISE
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

Here I am on the road again, this time with a mission !

2010-12-17T11:33:00.000-08:00

Many a time we keep wondering and lamenting about the fact that how the current situation is so different from the past, those good old days have vanished in a moment and our present is nothing but just a shadow of our past. Ok, each of us feel this way at some point in time. I have been feeling something similar about my blog for quite sometime now, but then I wonder that what is stopping me from the writing: motivation, time, writing skills or something else. Writing skills, come on, did I ever care about it ? :P. Time, I always believe, is an excuse people use to focus somewhere else. Motivation comes from within, so if I won't do something about it, it will never happen, we can either keep waiting for some miracle or take some action. Today on this rainy day, when I am supposed to work, dunno what prompted me to visit this blog and I see the steep curve going downhill (138-81-34-16), man if it keeps going like this, the day is not far when it wouldn't exist anymore. So being aware of the fact, that there is something wrong with my blog, this quote from Anne Frank, is echoeing in my ear again and again today:

"If you know that there is something wrong then why don't you work towards it and make it right."

Well Here I go with a mission to surpass the 2009 count and finish 2010 on a happy blogging note, that means, 18 posts to write in 14 days. What do you say? I say, Yes We can :D.

So let the pen talk, let the thoughts wander, let the finger dance, come rain, come sunshine, come storm :-), the countdown begins now :D.

Empathy II

2010-12-06T05:44:00.000-08:00

Before you read this post, please go through this one
http://pensativism.blogspot.com/2009/01/empathy.html

As this post is just an extension of what I said before, as soon as I thought of writing a new one, the ghosts of the earlier post appeared all of a sudden and made me revisit it and I guess in a way it turned out pretty good only, as it saved lot of energy and effort by not writing the whole thing from the scratch again. In general, the journey of reading old posts, make me feel both good and disappointed at the same time because on one hand, there is this feeling of being an improved writer, whereas, on the other hand there is embarrassment of posting that old immature, grammatically incorrect post. But "Empathy" was a different experience al-together. I was actually surprised by the clarity of thoughts being reflected from the words. I would say it was a very fine and honest attempt to deal with a very sensitive and complex phenomenon.

In "empathy" I mentioned that I had a peculiar and in absolute terms very inappropriate reaction towards people's problems. For me those problems fell in two categories: Too difficult or too trivial, in the first case I usually didn't have much to contribute, in the latter case I came up with my preconceived ideas and none of these two outlooks were very helpful for the person and when this realization happened, it was too late in most of the cases. Anyways, "Empathy" was written almost 2 years before and based on the concept of aging, I am definitely inching towards becoming a wise middle aged man :-), therefore naturally my reaction towards people's problems is not a set of two possibilities anymore. Now our human curiosity would naturally poke us to know the actual size of possibility set, well I would say that it is most likely that this is no longer a set of discrete variables , rather it spans over the space of continuous variables. Fair enough, it makes sense, as each person being so different from each other makes this space so huge.

I know that next question that is gonna pop in your mind is that I have this infinite space of possibilities, would I able to figure out the subspace to which a specific problem would belong to ? Hmm, in many cases yes, in many cases no. If the problem does not belong to the inner space of human beings (in other words, its not something abstract) , then like many other people, I may have my point of views on the situation. But if the situation deals with the dynamics of inner human complexities then it is most likely that I would have no clue of what's going on with the person. Usually these kind of issues are associated with some kind of pain the person is going through. This pain, may or may not be reasonable according to us, but we should understand the fact that it is unsettling many aspects of other person's life, hence even if we can't understand even a small bit of it, one should never think of it as something that can be given a pass without paying much attention. With time, I have realized that we can understand the true nature of any kind of pain only if either we have gone through it or we have experienced something as a witness and know about the symptoms and remedies. In any other case, we can come up with many possible reasons, arguments, examples to deal with the problem but that would be like we are trying to diagnose the yellow fever as if it is just a normal headache, just imagine what would doctor do to his patients, if he starts diagnosing every yellow fever this way.

Another important aspect we should consider is that we are approached by only those people who trust us and consider us as someone who can understand what he/she is going through and of course most of them are our friends only, so we can not just give some random advice just to get done with it, that would be like one of the worst possible things to do. The first and the most important thing is to be with the person in the moment by paying full attention and making him/her realize that in that moment two of you are in a zone with 100% attention from both sides, next part is listening to the person, it would be most likely that the pain the other person is going through, would be unfamiliar to us, hence naturally we can't empathize with the other person. In such cases we should treat the situation as a journey not as the final stop. What I mean is that we should show some genuine concern towards the person and make every effort to try to understand and know more about the specific pain person is going through. This would not only help us in understanding more about the person's problem but would also make other person more comfortable in talking to us (and we know that sometimes just talking can do wonders). Just the feeling of someone being there and able to understand what he/she is going through makes a lot of difference. So being the co-passenger in this journey brings experience and knowledge about the person and the pain he/she is going and eventually there is a possibility that we may come up with some important facts, observations, solutions that can help the person in dealing with certain aspects of their problem.

In summary, sympathy, we know not many people like it. Empathy, is not always possible to feel. Hence we should try to become co-passenger in the journey by understanding the nature, cause, symptoms of the problem. May be we would be of some help this way. At least our genuine concern and interest can support, inspire and provide the strength to the person while he/she is trying hard to get rid of the pain.

The Change

2010-11-09T04:16:00.001-08:00

This post is gonna be very confusing as I feel that I have absolutely no idea what am I gonna write. After a long but not so hectic day, I was watching the new episode of How I met your mother, a typical Monday routine of mine. Well am not gonna write about the whole episode itself so if CBS guys are reading this blog (as if my blog is so popular :P), they can save their valuable time by not reading this post.
In today's episode they showed something about people changing with time and this thing reignited the confusion that keeps visiting my conscience every now and then.
As you know that with time we develop a mental image of a person in our mind, here am not talking about the outer appearance, it has more to do with the characteristic image of the person, As we know that with time people's personalities, characteristics and choices go through so many transformations. Sometimes it changes to the extent that for us it becomes so hard to believe that this is the same person that we used to know. Well one can always argue that the change for the betterment is always good, no matter in what form it happens, but then there always remains a question mark about the judgment. Well I guess it always needs certain period of time before we can decide whether this is for something good or bad. Fair enough so if it appeared to be good after sometime, are we gonna accept it greet-fully ? Well then my argument would be that as a human being we want certain things to remain the way they are, that's how we associate with those people's existence and identity and if that identity itself is changed, can we say that we are aquatinted with these people anymore ? Some people would answer this question by re-iterating the well known fact that "Change is the law of the nature" or "Change is the only constant thing in life", so the conclusive remark would be "accept things as they change with time". May be these people are right because at times, I don't think we have any alternate option .

(Well many a time it has happened with me that I have raised many stupid, silly, mind boggling questions without any consolidate answers, but from now on I am gonna try to express my point of view as much as possible).

In my opinion, a person can go through many different kinds of changes:
Physical Changes: Its inevitable, usually acceptable if we are close to the person, becomes intolerable only if we have just physical attraction towards the person or if the physical appearance changes drastically to some extreme level.
Habitual Changes: This is very minor kinda change, may be at this point person is more interested in Cycling, after certain time, he may be more into Swimming or Golf etc. usually these changes don't cause any trouble. Sports is just one instance, in general it could be anything.
Personality Changes: I think these changes are well received or detested depending on the kind of changes one goes through, like someone who used to be very shy, studious, hard working fella, becomes an outgoing, party goer, less interested in academics with time.
Characteristics Change: The danger alarm starts ringing when we talk about this kinda change ( and we are talking about the extreme situation here, when most of the qualities person used to possess, have gone through drastic changes). In this case it becomes very difficult to deal with the person in the same way we used to not so long time back, because the person appears to be someone totally different, someone you never knew before. Of course most of the time it is greeted in a very critical manner, because we had this image of the person in our mind and now we are seeing an entirely different person and usually it would be labelled as the eccentricity (except in very few cases where it receives a warm welcome from everyone around). But if we analyze it rationally, we can say that we should leave this judgment to the person himself. Of course we have right to express our opinion, but this kinda change is a huge thing and before forming any kind of opinion we should consider the situations, circumstances and consequences also. The best thing is to leave the decision on the person himself. He is the right person to judge what is good or bad for him and I believe with time, people become aware of the "good" or "bad" term they want to associate with the process of change. If it is good, lets keep it that way and let people make their judgment and if it is bad, I guess there would still be a slim chance of roll-back at least. It may sound very selfish deal for the people around who care for us, but as we know that in most of the cases we have the right to choose what we want from ourselves, and there are decisions that we have to make for ourselves :-).

PS: One change that I can label as "good" is that now I review the post at least once before publishing it.

Says the...

2010-10-24T05:21:00.000-07:00

May be you like the dust,
or you chose to see me rust,
but for me my beauty is a must,
you can experience it by just taking me in the hands again, let it just be a gust.

(Says the pen)
---

Those who can see it,
will appreciate it, but only if they can see it.
If they will try to look for it through their eyes,
I am sure they will never find it.
If they will look beyond what their eyes see,
am sure they will find it.

(Says the beauty)
---

Stillness of empty spaces,
Sunshine poking in through the blinds,
these things make me serene,
but without anyone here, it makes me like an empty vase without any life.

(Says the room)
---

May be it left you long time back,
As elusive it is, as anything can get.
If you stay you may not get it,
but if you leave, you will not get it.

(Says the patience)
---

They say they know me,
may be they are right.
Explanations will not answer the questions,
so better save yours and everybody else's time.

(Says the human nature)
---

They assigned so many tags, labels and qualities,
I was liked based on the weight of these things,
and I was known based on how unique these things are from others,
but they never understood that one can feel me only if they can remove all the masks I am wearing.

(Says the character)
---

May be it is green,
may be it is red,
You wanted yellow,
mix both red and green and you'd get what you want :).

(Says the color)
---

Forget the numbers !!!

2010-08-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

Few days back I received this forwarded email, usually I don't read such emails until and unless it sounds very interesting but this one was from someone whose email I can't ignore as it is always something motivational/inspiring/important. Hence well aware of the fact that this time also it would be something special, I downloaded the attached pps file and the sense of being overwhelmed grew with each and every time I clicked to proceed to next slide. I can't attach the pps file here but just to give the idea, it was about the age and numbers associated with it. The society that we live in, has made certain customs and though there are no stipulated rules anywhere, there are implicit guidelines that each of us is supposed to follow and those who do are called "normal" people and are also rewarded as fellas who are integral part of the human society and many of those guidelines are associated with our age. For example start school at 3-4, get over with school by 18, get married before 28 and blah blah blah. And then there are things like if you have to do something, you gotta start by this age, for instance, once 27-28 years old, tennis players lose their flair, cricket players are not suitable for the game once they turn 34-35.

I agree that these numbers are based on some facts, stats and the physical/mental involvement required to do the job but still they do not consider the most important factor: the zeal and dedication person is ready to put in regardless of what his/her age is. I don't need to give many examples of those people who have defeated age and have excelled and continued as long as they wanted.

Talking about numbers remind me of many instances when we are asked those questions: "Soon you would be 28, when are you gonna get married ?". "Do it now, otherwise who is gonna marry a 30+ age guy ?". "Are you still gonna be in school at 30 ?" and then those expressions from people: "Oh, I am too old to play this", "I don't think I am supposed to do all this at this age" and then there are these ones: "We have been together for like 15 years now", "I have not been there for 10 years now" and many more like this.
Well indeed these numbers make things look big and with each bigger number we can feel the intensity/complications/limitations but in the end what matters is You and your zeal/intensity to go on. We gotta understand that life is not some race that you have to win, even if it is, you gotta run at your own speed. I may sound repetitive here as I may have written it many other posts that life is not worth sacrificing even for your closest ones, you are the most important entity in your life and you should live it the way you want and no matter what other people say, you should not be trapped in the game of numbers. Do what you can and you want to do. Involve yourself in the activities you enjoy. Keep yourself away from people who talk negative, make you feel depressed and this is very important. Surroundings make a huge impact, people around make life more joyful and entertaining but they make it worse also at times. In every aspect of life (career, relationship, activities) one should carry on as long as he/she wants to. Any kind of number(Age/duration etc.) should not come in consideration, value of present moment should be considered not the weight of the numbers.

Ek din...

2010-07-26T02:16:00.000-07:00

I have always believed that the most difficult thing for any person is to deal with his own inner conflicts. No matter how well we manage with the situation in the real world but I have no clue what formula one should use to deal with their inner demons. They are like parasites who have inhabited themselves with in us quite comfortably. They do not obstruct our so called regular life but within they keep biting and spreading all over us gradually.
The most ironic thing is that whenever we want to resolve them, they make us more confused and all our pondering seem to be only boosting their presence.
Most of the time its like never ending story that keeps going in circles, because there is no time limit attached to the situation, other times we have no choice but to make a choice, and regardless of how wisely we made that choice, we can not guarantee whether its the only right choice we could have made. May be everything does not have to be right or wrong.

In these lines, a person, who is not sure of everything that is going around and himself, is telling about the confrontations he had with few things he wanted to do, is still doing, but he is not sure whether he wants it anymore or not.
Here we go:

Ek din haadsa yun aisa hua,
Saamne tha mere wahi puraana khwaab khadaa,

Dekha tha use maine pehle jaane kitni baar,
sajaa, sawra hua, liye man main umangain hazaar,
Kisne socha tha, woh is baar aayega aise ,
Woh hansta khilkhilaata roop, kabhi uska tha hi nahin jaise.

Murjhaaya saa uska chehra, adhoori si woh aankhain,
Anginat, ankahe prashnon ki uljhi jakdi hui woh salaakhain.

Minnatain usse ki hazaar, ki hal kare woh yeh prashnon ka maayajaal,
Par tas se mas na hua nishabd aur gumsum sa woh vishaal.

Thakaa haara main aakhirkaar hua behaal,
samajh main aaya ki nahin kuchh kar sakta main, pataa nahin kya hai nirdayi swapna ki chaal.

Aise aaya khwaab woh ojhal hoke baar baar,
Pal beete, din gujre, par nahin badla swapna ka woh kathor vyavhaar.

Aise hi ek din, phir se hua swapna prakat,
leke haath main aaina, kuchh samajh nahin aayi yeh maaya vikat.

Aaine ko saamne laake woh kehta hai,
Chuchaap gaur se dekho is aaine main kaun rehta hai.

Pratibimb ko dekha toh apni jhalak ko hi paaya,
kintu us jhalak main khud ko nahin kahin dhoondh paaya.

Nazrain toh wahi hain par bhatki kahin aur hain,
shaayad armaa wahi hain par Zustzu koi aur hai.
Galat nahin hoga agar yeh kahain hum gaalib,
ki khwaab toh wahi hai par sapne kai aur hain.

Ab yeh khwaab jo saamne aaine ke saath khadaa hai,
samajh main nahin aata ki usko poora karne ka dum utna hi bharaa hai.

Uske poora hone ka samay hoga par intezaar nahin,
Uske kho jaane ka darr hoga par ghum nahin.

Kahin toota agar, toh shaayad aaye na woh phir kabhi,
Aaya bhi toh pataa nahin mann se itna lagaao kar payaaenge usko tabhi.

Par in sab uljhanon ke beech main woh stambh roopi swapna khadaa, pooch rahaa hai vichitra prashna badaa,
Woh beech main hi chhoote yaa manzil tak jaise taise pahunche,
Chhodega woh humko bhi jahaan, jaayenge hum wahaan se kahaan.

In the End...

2010-07-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

This day is so beautiful, sun is amazingly bright,
Happy faces all around are bringing such a graceful sight.

Some are running, others are walking or just talking,
Am so involved in their expressions, as if mentally I am stalking.

Different looks, shades and varieties of appearances,
still something seems to be the same, despite of all these differences.

Everyone is so unique based on their resume and profile,
But we find so many connections, once we start walking their inner aisle.

Some of them discussing about the exquisite cuisines from world wide,
And then there are others who are boasting about the tasty tea they bought from the roadside.

I see them playing in a field, lush green grass,those joys of diving
Somewhere I see them playing in those narrow streets, dirty roads, those moments of sliding.

Thousands may be the reasons to make them feel this way,
But happiness or sadness are the only states in this fray.

Their talents and capabilities may be like two opposite poles,
But the ambitions and cravings are so similar if we look deeply into those goals.

The roads they walk on, have their own name,
The path they choose, may be the deciding factor in the final fame,
They try hard, work harder and play so many different game,
no matter how all this seems to be so different, but in the end my dear its all the same.

Elling...

2010-05-08T04:45:00.000-07:00

Another sleepless night and this one did not do any good either. Anyways got a chance to watch this Norwegian movie called "Elling". In literal terms it was about two mentally challenged persons who were allowed to live out in the real world but on a trial period with frequently being inspected by a Spanish social worker officer. These two people Elling and Kjell who were also the roommates in rehabilitation center,initially had difficulties in coming up to terms with outside world. Elling found it difficult to go outside the home and roam around comfortably, answering the phone properly, dealing with the strangers. He was kind of a loner, had always lived with his mother till she died, and never had any real friend in his life. On the other hand Kjell cared about nothing but food and women. He had issues with controlling his excitement and temper otherwise he seemed to be quite normal for most of the part of the movie.
As the movie goes on characters become more expressive, Elling learns to talk on the phone and also engages himself in outdoor activities, Kjell meets a woman from the apartment upstairs and things work out well between them. Ultimately it all ends well. But that's not all about the movie. Story itself doesn't tell much, its the portrayal of characters and the treatment of the movie that keeps you captivated for whole ninety minutes. "Elling" is a cinema about experiencing the characters, though its a movie but even not on a single point you would feel like they are enacting a character, its real to that extent and the plus point about the movie is that it does not depend on any sympathy towards these mentally challenged guys or their out of world crazy hyper-activities, it capitalizes on the real substance and the elemental cinema that fortunately still exists.
This movie sends a strong message that in life it is not all about proving yourself or chasing something or spreading your cool and smart factor all around. Neither its about living a normal 9-5 happy-go and lucky life with people, friends and colleagues. Its about discovering yourself and looking beyond our deficiencies. Like in real life, Elling and Kjell did not find a god-father who transforms them into someone else. They are still the same people in the end of the movie, they still have the issues they started with but with some difference and that's what is reality.
We always make it a challenge for ourselves to survive. Among the crowd we are so lost that we are always trying to cope up with everything that exists around us. Moreover our actions are so dependent on others that life depends on a metric that is based on the performance and actions of the people around us. But in all this muddle, we forget a crucial concept that matters (or used to matter at some point in time) the most is to fight our own inner demons, to win against ourselves. Its not about being better than others, its about getting past our bottlenecks and keep going ahead. May be the path set for others is not the right one for us, but it takes courage to keep walking and leaving all the uncertainties behind to find the right path eventually. Living up to others' expectations is good but what about our own dreams and set benchmarks. We should not feel despair because others did better than us, a better realization would be to think about what we expected from ourself and how we could have done it up to our true potential. May be sometimes other people raise the bar but most of the time we let ourselves take surroundings take control of our actions.
BTW just saw that this movie was nominated for oscars too...with that note I will once again try to sleep, thanks for patience while reading this post. Have a good night, sweet dreams or good day. happy living and yeah be yourself :-)

Uncertainty Quotes

2010-03-25T00:55:00.000-07:00

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. - Vincent van Gogh

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity. - R. I. Fitzhenry

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise. - BERTRAND RUSSELL

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.-FRANK HERBERT

If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.- Tom Peters

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing,
through the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase.
-William Congreve

To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.-Chinese Proverb

Faith means living with uncertainty - feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark. - Dan Millman

I used to be scared of uncertainty; now I get a high out of it. - Jensen Ackles

Quotes: shadow

2010-03-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself.
-Pythagoras

Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
-Aesop

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
-Abraham Lincoln

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
-Plutarch

Where there is much light, the shadow is deep
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

And here is a beautiful poem
**************************************
How does a part of the world leave the world?
How does wetness leave water?

Dont' try to put out fire by throwing on
more fire! Don't wash a wound with blood.

No matter how fast you run, your shadow
keeps up. Sometimes it's in front!

Only full overhead sun diminishes your shadow.
But that shadow has been serving you.

What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is
your candle. Your boundaries are your quest.

I could explain this, but it will break the
glass cover on your heart, and there's no
fixing that.

You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.

When from that tree feathers and wings sprout on you,
be quieter than a dove. Don't even open your mouth for
even a coo.

Mevlana Rumi (1207 - 1273)
******************************************************************

Sleepless in NYC

2010-03-15T01:57:00.000-07:00

Its 5 AM here...and we are supposed to leave the hotel by 8 in the morning and my eyes don't even want to blink, this trip has been crazy so far, ill-planned, badly executed and on top of everything weather has played its part pretty well by spoiling it as much as it could. Though we have been able to have a few moments of euphoria but we could have had better time.
For last few trips we (our group) have done pretty bad in terms of planning and execution in particular. The worst part is that our plans leave no buffer space to ease on the travel fatigue. It has been another one of those trips where you get more experiences than attraction views :-). So here are few pointers I would always keep in mind before planning any other trip from now on, and these are the steps to be followed in sequence :

- Google about the right timings to visit the place.
- weather.com: check if the weather is in the favor or not.
- Travel arrangements: Make these plans according to your schedule, especially keep your sleeping cycle in mind.
-Along with the planning for attractions, you should also figure out all the transportation logistics.
-Sit with all the people visiting with you, and let everyone know about the planning, reach a common consensus on what to visit and what to leave.
-Buffer Day: It has to be there, rather than doing everything in a hurry, I would prefer to take a day off, stay in the hotel, go for pool, SPA, hang out in the hotel bar-lobby and then easy walks near by hotel in the evening. Vacation is supposed to be enjoyed. It should give you joy not the head-aches.
- If you are on a short trip, allocate enough time to each attraction, its better to leave some places and come again rather than visiting everything in hurry.
-Have something to eat in the night.
And last but not the least, when its 5:30 in the morning, you should stop blogging and start counting the sheep :).
Good night, good morning..whatever suits...have a good day, enjoy life :)

Who am I ?

2010-01-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

Originally from India, I am on my journey as a PhD student in Los Angeles, California hoping to finish it in coming years ;). I like this place, my work and everything around. As a student there is so much to learn in the university and people around, there is flow of motivation and energy from everywhere. Though there is always a danger of stagnation but one has to be enthusiastic enough to be ready for exciting opportunities.
Other than the work and study, I spent quite a lot of time hibernating (sleeping), reading blogs, interesting articles and writing posts in this blog. On and off I go for hiking, play tennis, cricket and badminton. This year I want to learn Spanish on my own. Lets see how it goes :)

The Brooklyn Follies !!!

2010-01-09T01:24:00.000-08:00

I read this book recently, it was about a person who comes to Brooklyn (where he used to live before) with the intentions of committing suicide after taking early retirement from his insurance agent job. Sounds pretty depressing eh? But lets not make any conclusion here and read the rest of the post :).
The protagonist has quite a bunch of relatives in Brooklyn, some of them come to meet him whereas he bumps into others few somehow. With time he gets involved in the lives of his relatives and other new people he meets. This involvement not only keeps him busy but helps him to start a new chapter of his life. He is a wise old man though his own marriage is not a success and his daughter doesn't held him in high regards. But he finds comfort in his nephew's company who once a graduate student is working in a bookstore now. This book mainly revolves around these two people and how their broken life gets another chance.
This novel by Paul Auster is well written, progresses at a steady pace, keeps you interested in the story (for the first half at least).
I specially like the first part of the novel in which Paul Auster is at his usual best. This part tells us that no matter what we are today, how safe and prosperous we are on the current day, we should always be ready to take the blows because nobody knows what's there in the storage for us. Anything can happen with time, things would go wrong if they have to, but we have to be strong enough to have patience and courage. Though the first half of the novel is more about falling apart but the way it happened was interesting and well presented by Auster.
In the second half (most of the times) author is collecting the broken pieces and arranging them in the order. Though this part is predictable, a bit stretched and there is not much charm left for the readers but Auster still makes sure that the reader still remains associated with the story. The second half is more like any other fiction story where things start with some glorious past, pathetic present and very little hope for the future and then the fight goes on to change the destiny, in the end everything finishes on a happy note.
This is the second novel I read from Paul Auster. I would say that the first one (Travels in Scriptorium) was amazing, this one did not live to the expectations but was still worth reading :)

Burma VJ: Eye opening relaization

2010-01-08T23:51:00.000-08:00

Screenings of documentary movies have started today in the university with the movie Burma VJ (http://burmavjmovie.com/). It was a movie based on the circumstances and oppression in Burma, a country ruled by military generals. The interesting thing about the movie is that it is based on the surreptitious and illegal (according to the country law) footage collected by reporters. These reporters made serious and brave attempts to collect the footage and send them to the outside world either by uploading it on the internet or by smuggling. Due to their audacious attempts the world could see the atrocities being tolerated by the Burmese people. Movie was seriously heart wrecking and depressing. The most disappointing fact was that all the efforts could not bring any change and everything became as it was before. The special thing was the initiatives taken by the monks who came out to support the helpless citizens. Whatever happened with those religious leaders was wrong. It is true that these uprisings could not solve the problem but at least it helped in letting the world see the true pictures of events occurring in Burma.
All in all its a remarkable movie. Hats off the reporters who took the challenge of filming the brutal occurrences and standing ovations to the monks who stood up for their people. whatever may be the outcome but at least they tried, more importantly they had the courage to come out and speak against injustice as we know that courage is one of the rarest qualities these days. We could find the people with lots of self confidence, motivation and sincerity but standing by something that you believe in is not easy at all. Overall it was a great experience to watch the movie. I am sure after watching the movie you are gonna sit alone for a while and think about our own human race. What we have done with ourselves, how-come we keep forgetting what does it mean to be human.
A must watch documentary.

Ideal routine...

2010-01-08T01:26:00.000-08:00

For last some months, I tried to follow the "Ideal bachha" routine. Wake up early in the morning, have breakfast and then reach office early, finish everything by evening. To my surprise initially it came all good; seemed that this is the way am gonna live from now on; but then after sometime the reality that has been waiting for a long time to show its colors, came out finally. Work pressure increased a bit and it became difficult to sleep early; eventually it led into late night sleeps and early wake ups (Thanks to morning classes...arghhhh). This lack of sleep didn't help the cause, therefore gradually "go to bed" time kept getting late and late. So it became like someday sleep early, other days sleep too late. It created more problems of fatigue and uneasiness.

This "Wake up sleep down" confusion continued for quite sometime and once the exams were over, it was time to reset the batteries and re-charge everything. It was only a matter of identifying your working habits, your actual active timings in the day and everything became normal again.

Sooner or later I had to realize the fact that every person is different. The same ideal routine does not work for everyone. What matters is that you should be able to finish your activities in time and live happy and healthy life. All it takes is making certain adjustments and a smile for yourself :)

This year...

2010-01-08T01:01:00.000-08:00

Tired but sleep is still at a distance. One week has already passed since the new year eve and I haven't written anything about the TODO list, how lazy people become with time :). Here it goes:

Have to be more organized: no matter what you do, being organized in your routine always helps.

More utilization of time: Once it slips, we can't get it back; in my opinion it is one of the most scarce resources we have, should utilize it in a better way.

More reading: As far as I can remember last year I read only a handful of books (less than 5 actually), that is by any measure much below par, hopefully this year is going to be better as there is such a huge university library waiting for proper use :).

Be active: This is one of the areas in which at least second half of the year saw a significant improvement; signs are good; I am sure this year would be better and more fruitful; fingers crossed.

Alcohol: Is no fun if taken very frequently. It is a good friend whom you could meet once in while but not a great room-mate.

Translation: Last year, was more focused on certain activities but the intensity was not there in the right direction; this year I hope it won't be the case.

And last but not the least, the typical A MUST resolution that is there in everybody's list: yes right guess, related to weight only. In my case it has to be gained (SIGNIFICANTLY). Lets see what happens :).

Good night everybody, may your all resolutions come true :)

Welcome 2010 !!!

2010-01-06T00:59:00.000-08:00

Twenty Ten (as most of the people would call it) is already here with new hopes for the bright and prosperous year ahead. People would make tons of resolutions for this year, though its evident that we forget most of them by the end of the year.
Sometimes I wonder that what could be new this year that was missing in 2009 ? Can this change in calendar really bring some new light to the way we live? Did it make any difference in the past years? For some may be yes, others would disagree.
Well don't know what you think but in my opinion it makes some difference. Here I am not talking about some science or astrology, it is just a perspective to look at the impact of new year in our lives.
In most of our professional associations we have some kind of yearly/half yearly evaluations or some kind of reviews, these things help in shaping the course of our future plans and as a check-post to see if we are headed in the right direction. But in our personal activities we hardly care about the way we are living (diet consciousness, daily issues are other matters). So the change in the year is like a good opportunity to sit back and go in the flashback for a while, see what we could have done differently (or rather say in a better way), moreover it helps us in cherishing good times and letting go of bad things. You must have remembered some particular calendar years as some magical fortune with some bad memories (I hope its not the case:)) in some other years.
In summary, on the surface level nothing changes much, we have to do the activities we have been doing, sun would rise from the east only and what not. But as I said it helps in associating the tags with the events that occurred in our life during the year and more importantly it is there for self evaluation and review process :).
Happy new year folks, may your (and my :D) dreams come true and you smile more than you ever did before :-)

PS: Of course how could I forget one extra day we get for the celebration to go crazy and greet our dear ones :)

Expectations minimization :)

2009-11-30T02:49:00.000-08:00

“The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations.”
Eli Khamarov

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.”
Dennis Wholey

“Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.”
Elbert Hubbard

“Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations, and small needs.”
William Howard Stein

“When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.”
Stephen Hawking

"Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation."
Charlotte Bronte

"What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast."
May Sarton

"I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine."
Fritz Peris

Realization...

2009-11-22T04:25:00.000-08:00

It must be June, when I learned about The Fray's concert being held in Irvine on July 29th, interestingly the concert from Coldplay was also scheduled at the same venue and we already had the tickets for Coldplay's, therefore I knew that chances of attending The Fray's concert are too bleak, considering such a short span between the two concerts. It was too much to expect from people to be excited about both the shows, so ultimately I gave up the idea of Fray's concert but it was a difficult decision to make. Since then the urge of attending one of their concerts asap became intense only and the only thing in between was the inevitable WAIT but then luck had its own plans and after two months in September there comes the news of The Fray coming to our university. Whoppie, is it really happening, so soon and that too I don't have to go anywhere, was my expressions. On the very first day of ticket sale (or rather I should say, first half an hour) I bought the license to enter the hall that would put an end to this long lasting wait, for some days my status messages were all about THE FRAY and the 19th November.
And finally there comes the day, the show is in the evening but the excitement is already building up. Revising their music again and again, listening to "How to Save a Life", "Cable Car", "Never say Never" and many more songs to build up the momentum, whole day is spent on them and why not after all its The Fray, the band that was so unknown few years back.
I came to know about them in 2006 when I happened to listen "Cable car" on the radio and then of course the masterpiece "How to save a life". For quite a long time I got addicted to these two songs and liking of these songs made me explore other songs as well, eventually listening to Fray's music became an usual habit, I dunno how many times I put my gmail status bragging about their songs, don't even remember the number of occurrences when I recommended their songs to other people.
That was the craze for this relatively unknown but an awesomely rocking band, and today it the day when finally I am gonna see it LIVE. Yuppie, here comes the evening and I am all set to enjoy one of the most satisfying music experience. By 8 we are at the venue, idea of buying some beer sounds so good. Decent crowd turns up for the show, most of them are of course youngsters and the good thing is that crowd seems all excited too.
As it happens in most of the events, there comes a band to cover for The Fray, oops they are getting some warm welcome as well, dunno how people know them but their music doesn't sound decent at all, most of the crowd seems to be praying for their departure as soon as possible, finally after nearly 45 minutes they have decided to leave the stage to be occupied by the masters, crowd is all on their toes to experience something that they are gonna remember for a long time, after some wait, here they enter, the grand entry of great band, everyone giving them a big standing welcome and they are also all set to make everyone go crazy with their magical songs. Here they start with All at once, everyone so cheered up and elated that no one is going back to sit, so engrossed in the music that it seems that this is the only moment they have and it is going to be there with them forever, first song is over, here comes another one and the next one, then the next after that, but what is this? why are these songs not lifting up my mood anymore, is there something wrong with the band or is it me ? Dunno but as they are keep playing the intensity of excitement is going down (exponentially I would say), dunno why all these songs who have made the days so many times seems to have lost their charm all of a sudden.
And the show continued this way only and except some very few peaks of euphoria the entire event seemed to be like just another ordinary show, the disappointment of not being able to enjoy the Fray's concert prevailed for quite sometime but then in a way it was sort of realization as well. Its true that all this time I have liked this band pretty much, their songs are really good but its not the band I like as much as I think , dunno how-come I was unaware of this fact before, may be the addiction with their music somehow ignored the reality.
But this is not something new experience, many times it happens with us that the things which we crave for so long and desire from all our heart elude us quite often and in the end we wish that it would have been better had the things could have just passed by, and that's why they say that sometime not getting what you want is a stroke of luck but then if you don't get it, you won't realize it, at times you do though.
In nutshell let us swim with the tide and enjoy our ride :D, if you want what you have, is wonderful, if not anymore, there comes the realization and if it passed by and you are happy about it, there you go, you are the lucky one but if you missed it, then now you know that you are not missing much :-).

Night musings...

2009-11-22T03:15:00.000-08:00

-Desperately waiting for this semester to get over, so that I can grab some books again :).
-In recent past I have got this feedback from multiple people about proofreading the posts before posting, after some heavy loss now its necessary to spend time on proof-reading and verifying the things, after all analysis phase is as important as the preparation phase.
-Doing something in hurry won't take you anywhere. Things take time, so be ready for it, don't rush, it will only create panic.
-Assumptions are deadly, they are not going to help your cause, seek for truth, delving into hallucinations would harm only.
-If you are not clear what are you going to do today, alas you won't get much out of the day.
-Mind is the most unstable entity, dunno how to keep it in control.
-Identification of the problem is never easy and in fact the most difficult step in resolving the issue, once you are able to identify the problem, more than half the job is done B-).
-Balance (any kind of), if it is absent, you are of course missing something and it will impact everything you are involved in.
-Getting lost is inevitable, but then coming back on track is what matters.

Probably I should sleep now :D

2009-11-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

Its not that I believe in every quote mentioned in this video,
but still a nice one..enjoy :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smhK8l2SF-s&NR=1

JLT

2009-11-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

Wandering mind :

- Have to work on fitness with age catching up :P, Pain here and
there is not good for healthy life.
-No cricket skills left anymore, Time to say goodbye to game
and work on promising Tennis career..lol
-Try to bridge the gap between waking up and getting off the bed :P.
-Look towards career from long term perspective, there is so much
going on in Computer Vision Industry.
-Time to brush up on technology, there is lot to catch up with the industry :).
-Get rid of useless courses asap and focus on the real stuff.
-Have patience, things take time, don't give up.
-May be Yoga would help a bit..ha ha
-look at your screwed work life balance, utilize the time more constructively.
-Its been a long time since I finished some book, December is coming, there you go :D
-This blog is losing (or in fact has) its charm, do something...no write something...he he
-Yo!!! hone the cooking skills with international food experience :D :D
-Driving :O .. hopefully I would learn it :P

The journey ...

2009-11-08T23:03:00.000-08:00

At some point in time you must have noticed that there are few questions which keep bouncing back every now and then.
Some of such questions, that I am sure, must have crossed your mind as well many times are ....What is the meaning of our existence ? Why are we here ? Do we have a purpose to solve? And in the first place is there any significance of our planet's existence? These all question are intertwined with each other and all have a common thing...search for truth.
Questions like these have been studied thousands of times from different angles and many intellectuals have come up with so many interesting and different perspectives on these topics. Still our curious mind wander in the dark alleys searching for some truth, no matter if that investment yields in nothing most of the time.
Its evident that since the beginning of the mankind we have always been seeking for the truth and because of this constant search the world is the way it is and the way it would be. It is a part of journey that has been going on. We don't know when did it start. neither we know if it is going to end. But isn't that beauty of this journey? The word itself is mysterious. Source and destinations are not important to define the word "journey". It does not have any pre-defined route to take rather it shapes itself as it goes on. All we are concerned with the ways of making our part of the journey a happy living by some or other means and that's fair enough, everyone has the right to make their ride better, and enjoy the stops that come in between. But in this process we commit a mistake of mis-interpreting stops as destinations. This labeling distracts us from our ultimate search and complicates things for us. This ignorance of us leads into chaos and eventually into plethora of emotional moments let them be good or bad, when they are good we feel happy and everything goes according to what we want, other times they make us feel sad and causes every kind of trouble in life. In nutshell these destinations let us experience bitter sweet symphony of life and that is fair enough at least from human perspective there is nothing wrong with the emotions. If there is something wrong then it has to be with the labeling, the mis-interpretation. Our ignorance makes us forget the truth and that is that there are no destinations of our journey. What we think is the beginning, is not true. If we can't decipher the beginning and destination part,that is fine, not knowing something is better than ignorance, at least we know that there is something we have to seek the answer for but ignorance is evil. If we realize the importance of journey and the truth, that this journey has to go on and what we think is our destination is wrong, makes the whole things a lot simpler. Just like a train travel, our journey has many stops, enjoy their experiences but do not stop there, after all you never know what lies ahead ;-).

Compliments...

2009-10-31T00:16:00.000-07:00

Compliments, ain't they very elusive ?
How do you make out the difference between the actual compliment
and a passing remark ?
Well actually I wanted to talk about the differences between the general remarks and constructive feedback.
Many times people just come up with the words like "very nice", "good", "well done". These remarks alone don't leave much impact until and unless they are well supported with some specifics.
For instance suppose you are just finished with a presentation and one person approaches you and says "That was a good presentation, Nice job". It gives you some relief that at least someone really liked your talk but this form of appreciation doesn't convey much. May be the guy really liked the talk or he is just making some remarks.
Whereas, if some other guy says "Nice presentation Mr. .... ,
the content of the slides was great. Specially the part where you explained....." , here you really know that the guy has paid attention to your talk and you actually come to know about the positive points of your presentation.
Moreover, In this case you can actually take the conversation further ahead and talk about things.
Sometimes a small feedback (usually positive) also helps a lot and take it from me that it can make your day too. But most of the time you should be careful to differentiate the true appreciation from a normal routine praise.
Because many a time these general remarks can be misleading too and may not help you at all.
After all knowing the truth is something everyone should look for :-)

Ever thought of.. ?

2009-10-30T23:57:00.000-07:00

Hey you,

Ever thought of .......
going crazy for nothing.
Going out without knowing where to go.
Watching some random movie out of nowhere.
Laughing on your own jokes for no reason.
Pick some random book from bookshelf,
even you know that most probably you are
never gonna read it.
Buying things for yourself even you don't
need to or as such want to.
Not being conscious of surrounding and be yourself.
Running away far far away from everyone and everything.
Ignoring what people think of you and believe in yourself.
Doing something spontaneous and wavering from regular schedule a bit
.....................

If you have, then bravo you have already started living actually :-)

Impact of social contacts ...

2009-10-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

Finally after a long time these fingers are feeling like moving in this space freely.
It seems that the flesh has taken over the meaning and sometimes its in the right spirit to take a break and just follow the instincts :).
Anyways lets not digress from the main post anymore and lemme begin talking about the social networking or online contacts.

For a long time I was of the opinion that these kind of contacts survive for time being and once the initial phase is over, people start walking in different directions. The closest resemblance I imagined was like getting to know a new sport and being addicted to it for a while, once you are done with it, its no more fun. However my hypothesis ignored the fact that out of all those sports and games there are at least a few that we like being addicted to forever and cherish the joy they bring you every now and then.

After being in healthy contact with many people who met me through this medium and also through the observations I realized that the humans can connect in many different ways, they need not be there in person to have some meaningful conversations or you need not arrange some one-on-one in person meetings over tea or coffee to know the other person. There are instances when you meet many people daily in your real life but still you don't develop any attachment even after years.
Moreover Many a time it happens that the people do not express themselves in front of their acquaintances because of several possible reasons but knowing the fact that the person sitting on the other computer would not have any judgments or bias towards you helps a lot to be yourself. Studies have shown that its easy to talk with people who are not very familiar with you, because most of the time people are quite fed up with their surroundings and their cravings for a change and the feelings of being understood and getting associated with some new people makes it easy to get the conversations start and if you find some common interests or it clicks for some or other reason you let it develop with time and then let the time take care of direction of winds.
Whatever may be the reason, but the success of such tools have been tremendous, there are people who who first meet over internet and then organize regular in person get together to meet frequently, what a nice opportunity it would be to meet with some new people who share something in common with you. From friends to business, social networking has shown its impact on the society and has provided a solid platform for people to share the feelings from common cold to serious concerns with others. I have heard of many cases when such contacts have transformed into real life long term relationships.
In nutshell, it has to start in some way, doesn't matter if it is online or offline.
The important thing is to be with the people you feel comfortable with and keeping in regular touch with them.
The key is not to get overwhelmed, be realistic and leave the rest on the time :-).

I Like...

2009-08-31T00:07:00.000-07:00

Silence:
It talks when you are lost in the voices.

Eyes:
They look inside when you can't see anything around.

Reflection:
Searches for you in the mirror when you are not there.

Diplomacy:
Makes you realize how materialistic one can get.

Hypocrisy:
Then you come to know that whatever you think of yourself, you are no different.

Time:
You know the usefulness or uselessness of your investments (of any kind).
Most of the time its about uselessness though :).

Uninvited Suggestions ...

2009-08-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

Art of interactions, precious suggestions, conversation mantra..these few titles came across my mind at first while beginning this post, then I realized the fact that this post is gonna be all about the current title.."Uninvited Suggestions".
With this post the pattern of my recent writing continues, i.e. jotting down something that kept rebounding inside the walls of short memory for a while, here it follows:

As a social animal we have the tendency of becoming way too overly-concerned and as a consequence we try to help other people with all our wisdom and maturity, all of a sudden our inside Athena comes out with her ever pragmatic and intellectual pieces of advice. Alright, but still one question remains open that can certainly be the topic of an intense discussion and i.e. who on the earth needs your piece of s#$t. No matter how prudent you are with your suggestions, why should you even bother to come up with anything in the first place and if you are too desperate to get some WOW kind of responses with your shrewd ideas then hello.. this is not the right house, please ring some other doorbell. In fact, as a matter of the fact why don't you just SHUT UP and mind your own business. This is absolutely a valid question and once it pops up, definitely it makes you aware of the sin you are gonna commit i.e. coming up with your valuable suggestions, if they are not sought after in the first place.

You must have heard the stories of uninvited guests being treated inappropriately by the hosts, similar is the case with your valuable opinions. Our mind is the host for all the thoughts that reside there either in active, inactive or dormant state if we talk in the terms of the states. Also if considered in terms of balance then our thoughts may be synchronized, intertwined or isolated pieces in themselves.

In our house we invite people for the parties and other different activities. Sometimes we seek help of other people while moving in or in the need of some fixes, and in these cases we greet our dear guests with a big smile on the cheeks and provide them with some high quality treatment BUT BUT if you are not in the right state of the mind and quite unwilling to welcome anyone at the moment, then god knows how ignorant you can actually be with your uninvited guest.

Similarly when we need some help with our decisions and there is some confusion with our current stand on the situation, we seek some people who fit appropriate according to the situation, the suggestions of those people are like the invited guests and hence are well received and honored if they come by. BUT BUT if you intrude in the unwanted territory where nobody cares about your valuable observations/opinions, then your ideas are as similar to an uninvited guest for other person's thoughts and there is a high probability that your ideas would be scornfully looked at and miss-treatment is also not very far. Most of the thoughts in other person's mind would focus with all anti-energy against your suggestions and eventually your thoughts would be discarded either with polite kick or harsh remarks, both of them are same because the impact is same in both the cases.

Therefore the moral of the story is that do not try to get over-concerned with people. The god has provided the capability of thinking to everyone and hence everyone is capable of deciding about right or wrong. There are some other ways of talking to people and letting them know if they are heading in some wrong direction, take those detours to help them but do not just impose your suggestions on them for many reasons.

Gearing up...

2009-07-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

First two weeks of this month were very disappointing. After attending CVPR conference I was quite pumped up for exhausting all fuel into research work but dunno why nothing substantial came out from all these days. Somehow the right spirit was not there to carry on the momentum. Lack of synchronization between work and routine made the days dull and I guess this was the major reason of body breakdown for a while.
Sometimes its difficult to understand that how come we lose focus even if we know the importance of time and work. In my case I get too involved in things. Sometimes it helps in making up for lost time but many a time it becomes cause of self created distraction only.
Many people get affected by surroundings. If it is proper, they benefit from it and if not it works other way. Though in my case it doesn't really matter but then self distraction sometimes becomes more harmful and if it stretches a bit, it affects everything from inner functionality of the body to outer activities, behavior and interactions.
So in nutshell, it seems that there needs to be done something to deal with this issue.
The good news is that the procrastination habit is gradually losing its ground :D and the the lay down phase is over, so its high time to gear up for some real action :).

The Visitor

2009-07-12T04:46:00.000-07:00

After a mediocre day and a decent dinner outing of Bengali food, there comes trilogy of Saturday night cinema. The first of them was an horror movie "The Innocents". The screams and breath-holding moments were absent from this movie, after horror it was time for some comedy and last but not the least there was the movie called "The Visitor" which was the movie of the night. It's about an aged professor who is managing his existence by teaching the same subject for 20 years in the university and making many unsuccessful attempts of learning piano. But things change for him when he unwillingly attends a conference in New York where he owns an apartment. To his surprise he finds some people already living in his apartment who were somehow tenants in the house. The professor allows couple to continue living in the apartment and this decision brings a blissful change in his mundane existence as he gradually develops friendship with the couple.
This movie depicts many different angles of human characteristics. There is a professor fed up of doing the same thing for years, living a life without any excitement and seems to have lost all the interest in the things which usually matter for an academician. Interestingly enough his friendship with couple who are illegal immigrants from Africa kindles new interest of music in his routine, something that amuses him and he is also able to associate himself with. His character depicts the saturation phase of a person's life in the middle age when people do not have to work day in and day out to establish themselves. The same kind of routine brings the need of change and once again these folks try to re-invent themselves by trying out different activities.
The challenges faced by illegal immigrants are meticulously portrayed in the movie and the actors also have done full justice to their characters. The couple guy's mother also plays an important role and her character is composition of strength, determination and patience. The essence of the movie was the way all characters associate with each other though they have no common background and their social status also differed a lot. This movie conveys the message that you don't have to be of the opposite sex or to be attracted physically to connect with other people. Nor you have to have same ethnic, social or monetary similarity. Human bonding can happen in many ways. My favorite scene from the movie is the one in which two people are in the bed, just holding each other in the moment of need. It signifies the importance of just the presence of someone when it matters a lot for you. All in all this movie was worth the investment of the time.

Online chat patterns..........

2009-07-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to observe the way we relate with other people. The way time shapes everything and the diversity of possibilities all interactions possess is worth wondering.
While observing my online interaction patterns, i couldn't stop wondering at certain facts:

- I hardly chat with more than 90% of the contacts present in the list

- only 2-5% of all contacts chat with me regularly.

- Those who send me messages very frequently have low priority of getting response immediately.

- People to whom I send messages, but do not get reply very often, have high priority of getting more messages from me.

- I rarely initiate conversation with people who have "busy" or "invisible" status tag.

-Whenever I want to talk to people online, I look out for those buddies only who send me messages very frequently but have low priorities with my replies. Seriously man, no matter how much I take them for granted, they are the ones I actually talk to :P.

-Status messages, don't convey much :P, but still may be informative at times :D

Camus's Wisdom

2009-07-07T23:51:00.000-07:00

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.

Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.

Don't believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them. All they really want is to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves.

Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day.

If there is sin against life, it consists... in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

Bad Memory.....

2009-07-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

With age it seems that my memory is fainting, I keep forgetting so many things these days but it was surprising even for me that I forgot my niece's b'day. Its just too much, considering the fact that I am usually good at remembering important dates. Was it temporary lapse of memory or am I becoming so careless..gosh, because if I can forget that little angel's b'day I can forget anything else on this earth. Was it because I didn't keep the track of the dates while I was out for long weekend ? I hope it was just one time mistake that would make me more concerned about remembering important dates, hence I would never repeat such things ..sounds so promising, but if I recount some recent instances then I would have to say I am big time nut..I forgot brother's marriage anniversary date, last year I forgot my sister's b'day.
All these signs are indicating to only one thing. I take the family for granted and ignore my own people without even realizing it. Yuck, being self centered is bad thing..its high to re prioritize the priorities and not to forget these small but important moments.......

Reading Bucket...

2009-07-07T17:47:00.000-07:00

The Plague: After reading The Stranger, have to read this one too.

The Color Purple: Life from different angle, hopefully would read it soon.

Leo Tolstoy's work: Very simple, still intense...

P.G. Wodehouse: My Jeeves' series is still not finished completely.

2009-06-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Waking up at 4 in the morning is certainly not something one enjoys. Being a nocturnal creature I would have preferred to stay up all night but these are the different days when eyes itself start blinking irresistibly in the night. My room-mate made sure that I wake up at time. Thanks to him. Three hours sleep was enough for the time being. After finishing regular morning activities and putting laptop in the backpack I was ready to depart but there was still some time left for the shuttle to arrive. While waiting I could have had breakfast but it was too early for me to gulp down anything hence I rather tried to wait patiently without making any noise because another room mate was sleeping in the same room. Though sounds of zip locking must have done enough to disturb his sound sleep. After sometime somebody knocked the door that gave the indication of the shuttle's arrival.
The shuttle guy seemed to be an Indian. I don't know why but he was bit confused and restless as if he had to board on a flight asap. Three passengers were already sitting in the shuttle and he picked two more persons after me before reaching the airport at 6:30. Checking in turned out to be pretty peaceful. Security check was also not a hassle. Soon I boarded the plane and was sitting in my Aisle seat comfortably. But the comfort did not last for long as I was committing a crime of traveling alone hence I was prosecuted twice to switch my places with other people. No complains, now I wished that people sitting next to me were not active enough to go to the rest room again and again and for my relief, none of them requested even once :). The lady sitting in the middle seat kept reading a book and the lady in the window seat kept sleeping for most of the time. I too spent most of the time sleeping as I had catch up with the sleep and moreover there was nothing better to do. From now on I would remember to carry a tiny bag kind of thing that can be used to keep earphones, pencil, chewing gum and other stuff and yeah some movies and songs in the laptop also would make the travel better.
Rest of the journey was also smooth, flight reached Miami at projected. Though it was already evening when I got out of the airport and while coming to the hotel it started raining already and prospects of going to the beach seemed quite slim but once I was in my hotel room, rain stopped. it took no time in changing clothes and with in no time I was on the beach.
There was moderate crowd on the beach. I walked for about a mile then sat at a point and headed for 41st street shopping area after sometime as I had to eat something. Roaming around in the market was fun although it was bit humid as compared to LA and water of the sea was also not as cold as it is in LA. I could see many conference people walking around in the same area though majority of the people were local who speak some language that is not Spanish for sure.
In the night I planned to see around in the hotel itself. It was a nice weather in the night, all humidity from daytime turned into cool breeze. After having two Long Islands I came back to the room, tried to write this post but dunno when dozed off, but since there is a time difference of three hours between LA and Miami, I woke up at dinner time according to LA with all hunger and now its 1:30 AM here(in Miami) already, have to wake up at 7 in the morning, hopefully I would listen to the alarm and first day of the main conference would be exciting :)

Eternity or serenity

2009-06-18T02:00:00.001-07:00

You can..

compromise and make everyone happy,

make adjustments and settle everything,

be diplomatic and be at peace with everyone,

have patience and handle every matter,

ignore everything and live in the bliss,

pretend to be alright and continue that way,

try to extend it as long as you can,

or.......

just say what you want to say and become free....... :-)

After all what does one want..eternity or serenity ?

I need to........

2009-06-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

This blog is on the verge of disappearing.........hope I would be motivated enough to rescue it :)

Its Time to...

2009-05-31T17:33:00.001-07:00

: understand the fact that time is a luxury everyone can't enjoy.
: Concentrate hard on real matters, something called research.
: Re prioritize the priorities to maintain everything on track.
: Believe in your own abilities and instincts (Something that eluded me for a while). In the end we are the only one responsible for all outcomes.
: Keep an eye on learning curve.
: Stretch the limits to the point that it becomes the true joy.
: Smile, never lose it :).....Enjoy the work and the daily routine:
Happy living ....

Kadam Kaamyaabi kaa...

2009-05-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

Duvidha yeh ajab hai
Kabhi kabhaar door khade hue ajnabi bhi apne se lagte hain,
toh aaye din paas rehne waale apne bhi begaane se hote hain.

Is bhaagam bhaag main jaane kitni daud lagaayi
aankhon main paale hue in sapnon ko poora karne,
Lekin kabhi ek kadam anjaane main bhi
uski or,jo hai asli manjil, nahin aage rakha.

Kiye hazaaron jatan use khojne main jo hai hi nahin,
Aur jo hai har pal saamne, wahi nazar-andaaz hai.

Maanke khud ko Veer bahadur aage toh badhte aaye hain,
Isi jaldbaazi main peechhe naa kitne aashiyaan chhodte aaye hain.

Koi kasar nahin chhoti hai, oopri parat ko nikhaarne main,
kintu andoorni yeh kharonche achaanak se ubhar kar aati hi hain.

Khoob dikhaaya josh, daava hai adig aatma-vishwaas kaa,
Kitna bhi tum chhupaao miya par shaayad bharosa kuchh dagmagaaya sa hai.

Chale chalo badhe chalo shaayad kaamyaabi kaa woh mauka aayega hi,
Kintu kya kabhi dainik santulan ke santosh ke saath apni yeh kaamyaabi kadam milaayegi

...

Still more

2009-04-13T02:13:00.000-07:00

Why do people praise you openly..but all your bad qualities are revealed in your absence..
why all the comments you receive on your post are usually positive..why doesn't one say..its horrible..badly written..why are we so fond of listening good things only :P

I wonder why...

2009-04-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

I wonder ...

why people are categorized as good or bad...it should be as either you like them or you don't like them...

why people are so judgmental about others..let others be what they are...

Why someone has to follow some conventions or rituals.

Why are we so concerned about others' activities..Gosh have some life, focus on yourself..enjoy your space.

Why is it so hard to get early in the morning..lol

Why is it necessary to give explanations.

Why is it so hard to explain sometime.

Why is it so important to follow some path and always do the right thing.

Why is it so important to become successful in everything you do.

Why is it too hard to find your true interests.

Why are there so many choices at times and sometimes there is nothing.

Why do you have to be so professional and artificial in daily practices.

Why is it so difficult to be what we truly are.

Why on the earth we are so concerned about society or people for that matter.

Why do we have to persist in the first place :)

Let it Be

2009-04-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

I guess this phrase has been title of my posts before as well, but I can't help coz its so enticing that one can keep writing about it. Anyways title of this post should not exactly be "Let it be". Its more about "not imposing" yourself too hard on something.
At time it happens that we want something but don't get it..umm lemme be more specific here and try to put things in context. Without right context this post won't make any sense. This is about psychology of human nature and hence this post is restricted to interactions with different people.
We find that we interact with different people in a different way.With some we are friends, with others we just talk and there are many with whom we just keep waving hands whenever we meet. So what's the decisive factor in our interaction with all these people. Well there may be several reasons and motives. May be its just your nature or chemistry with others or just some other motives or business motives or professionalism. But the category I wanna talk about is one with which you want it to be some other way but it is not. Sometimes we want it to be the negative but there are no reasons to justify your actions and if want it to become more frequent and pleasant then too it fails only. There are some people with which we try to have some conversations but words don't come out and with others you just keep going on. No matter how much you try to intensify your involvement but it never works. You have been in touch for a long time still there is no fluency in your interactions. It seems so forceful at times. Though you make every effort to make it work but no approach seems to give the outcome you want.
Well we need to understand that our bonding with others is based on some level of comfort-ability with them. You meet people and with time the interactions unfold both sides of every person and you also become aware of the direction its going in. May be you would go long way, you may also just remain on small talk terms or may be you would become great pals, but you can not make any guesses before even beginning. It takes shape with time and you would also know the truth. Hence the important aspect of our interactions with people is to understand the nature of relationship we have with others and behave accordingly. Imposing yourself on something won't get anything but frustration. So just be honest with ourselves, involve as much as you want but at the same time try to understand whether other people also have that much space for you or not. Sometimes it doesn't work the way you want so let it be, smile and enjoy your time :)

Words and Silence

2009-04-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

Words..
Ain't they distracting,
too loud and noisy,
Still why do they make such a big difference.

Silence...
Isn't is serene,
calm and beautiful,
Still why is it ignored so much.

Words remove resistance,
silence enjoys persistence.

Words make your feelings melt,
Silence makes your existence felt.

Words oh can make you everyone's hero,
Silence may come out as winner instead of being zero.

Words can favor you a chance,
Silence can make you feel like dance.

Words they say what they say,
Silence they exchange even if you wanna stay away.

Words can make the conversation stable,
Silence can transcend it to different level.

Words, being expressive, aggressive, sweet , can make you win the race,
Silence, being cold, calm,sometimes bitter and painful can still be an ever-lasting grace.

Am I ?

2009-04-06T23:47:00.000-07:00

Somewhere on this planet,
walking on those roads,
finding something even I don't know about,
Am I lost or is it just an illusion ?

Playing in the sunshine,
With people all around,
Watching all those birds flying,
Am I overwhelmed or its just matter of the moment ?

Sitting in the bar,
Having cocktails with mix of rockstar,
Rock music in the air.
Am I so loud or have become comfortably numb ?

Looking outside of the window,
Mountains touching the sky,
Floating with this cool breeze,
Am I flying too high or is it supposed to be like that ?

One day off

2009-04-06T03:47:00.000-07:00

Previous few weeks have been full of so many activities. Outings, submissions,Discussions, Projects, meetings, classes and all. I wonder if I missed anything all these days other than not having time to call home and talk to my little angels :). Anyways its been too much, so I decided to put everything off for a while and does that mean that I run off to some place for a while, or just break myself into some activity that I would love to do anytime. No nothing like that, In fact I decided to do no activity for a day. That means one day off, just for myself.
Well I am sure that you all would also agree that sometimes just staying home, doing nothing much just relaxing brings a big relief from all hustle bustle. We meet people everyday, discuss blah blah with them, involve in lot of activities that we like to do but isn't it interesting that sometimes we just want to be with ourselves. Cooking something for yourself, doing your laundry, cleaning your nails, socks and other stuff, arranging your closet all these activities make so much sense and brings a special joy of living.
I think its joy of spending time with yourself and taking a break from rest of the world, let it be other people, work or the places you visit regularly. In these moments all you want to do just take a break and recharge yourself for the next coming days. Seriously I dunno when would I have such a day next at least it doesn't seem to be there for next few weeks for sure.
So All I wanted to do today was just to relax at home, sleep in daytime.(yey it happened after ages :D) and do your stuff(it involved writing this post too :D)... All in all I enjoyed the day and am again ready for another go with regular schedule :). Hope I get more of such days. Anyways I guess other people would be on the same page with me on this topic..and they too get these kinda one off days regularly :)

Enjoy Living.

Acceptance v/s Resistance

2009-03-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

They define: the warrior is the one who has the courage of keep fighting no matter to what extent they have to take himself. They are correct because that's what defines a true fighter, but then there is end to everything and it os one of the few inevitable things. Apparently one can reach his final destiny in many ways. Some leave it in between during the phase when they are almost at the top of the world. Everything going around is like a dream for them, others when they feel its time to go or when they are forced to quit. The question is that how can be find some measure to decide when its time to say good bye. Isn't it against our fighting spirit to surrender and just give up our dreams or wouldn't it be a pragmatic decision to evaluate all your options and decide your priorities accordingly?
In my opinion its not easy to draw that boundary. I know its important to take the best possible decision by considering all the factors and then stand by them, but how can we justify our own decisions, is there any standard evaluation tool that can give us some number and threshold value based on which we can take our stand, of course such a system would make a big difference but then as we know getting something absolute is not as straightforward as we think. There would always be some free parameters that would make our whole system vulnerable and strong at the same time. These free parameters decide the trade-off between different decisions we want to make. In different situations we can fine tune required variables to achieve our target.
But the irony is that coming with the correct values of these parameters for our system is not an easy job for sure, there would always be some chaos that would welcome us to the period of indecisiveness.
I find it pretty difficult to these all of the aspects of decision making system, sometimes it seems so wise to accept the reality and move on with whatever you have in hand considering all the available options but at other occasions it feels as if surrendering would mean we have lost our fighting spirit. It would be so coward of us if we surrender at any point of time in our life. Clashes of ego v/s wisdom torment you as much as possible.
Sometimes most of the people would suggest to behave according to your wisdom but then there are times when you achieve something when you challenge your ego, every bit of it.
But then one should be sensible enough to choose one as both paths are pretty far and once you choose one you need to give it all and show what does it take to stand by your decisions if they make any sense to you :)

Graduate Studies: Session I

2009-03-05T01:09:00.000-08:00

In retrospect, If I see back at school life, I don't find a big difference between these two phases. I won't bring college in between because there you work in totally different manner. There were couple of things I used to keep in mind in my school life:

1.No procrastination
2. Be on time
3.Start early
4. Finish early
5. Finish it properly
6. Be target oriented

Well it is not as if I specifically paid attention to all these things, but it was a habit back then. Once school got over, I never realized how important these points are, or I ignored these precious rules.
But now I can understand how can these things make a difference in your working style and graduate studies. There are some stuffs you can't just sit and finish in one go. I have been procrastinating many tasks for all these years and now I realize that I had a success formula for all those years when I was a child. And with those magic rules I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout my childhood but then somewhere in between I let myself ignore all important facts. Anyways good news is here: Now that I have recalled all significant stuff I can re-kindle the same effectiveness again I guess.
Though I would add few more points to this list:
1. Concentrate hard: There are so many activities going around and its very easy to get distracted. Focus on what is important for you and give your 100%
2. Take rest properly: Burning yourself too much won't help, it will only produce negative effects, take proper rests and you would do better.
3. Set your priorities right: Very important, you have only 24 hours in a day, you can't involve yourself in too many activities. Decide what is necessary.
4. Make realistic estimates: It is very easy to get hyper active, Don't over-estimate yourself: Man I know how much I do it and how difficult life becomes for me.
5. Keep progressing, if stuck seek support from others.
6. Enjoy your time and enjoy what you are doing. Its your time, way to go :)

Enjoy Living :)

2009-03-05T00:54:00.000-08:00

What if someone says you are free my son, go wherever you want? What would you do. Go crazy, be happy and enjoy the freedom to go anywhere. Eh, I don't think this this joy would continue for a long time. Eventually you would sense the emptiness and would like to have something real to do, tasks that you love to do. As they say there is no free lunch in life. If you wanna gain something, you would have to pay for it. I would term it as if you wanna gain something, do activities you like to do but be pragmatic and do focus on jobs you are supposed to do no matter how menial or meaningless they may sound but in reality they are important and make you go through all the phases one should go through. Frustration, desperation, Tiredness, Loaded with work, having tight deadlines, these all phases and actions make you appreciate importance of old good and happy times and by going through this process you become more aware about yourself, your limits, capabilities and skills. Moreover you desperately seek for breaks and I don't need to mention that how much you enjoy them, so don't just blame the whole world for the burden they have put on your little shoulders, life is not a cup of ice cream, There are block holes too in this journey, Come alive if you can and enjoy the sense of victory, Go down, get frustrated and you may give up and you would know ultimately your true likings.
Enjoy living folks :)

The Reason

2009-02-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Just discovered this video on youtube. But I think its title should not be Secret of happiness, in fact it should have been The Reason for Suffering..That's more appropriate in my opinion. Anyways this little clip can teach you lot of things you wanna know..

Enjoy and have Fun. Ciao

Age...

2009-01-26T01:12:00.000-08:00

Try hard to assume you are still in school
Time would come when you would be out of fuel.

Ignorance and overlooking wit won't work,
With passing time you can still behave like a jerk.

Go out, have fun, with all energy,
But don't forget to move ahead maintaining your synergy.

Remove some candles from your birthday cake,
Know yourself and don't make it fake.

Share the bliss with all new growing trees around,
Do you remember how much you used to sit
beneath the banyan tree, old but still standing firm on the ground.

Don't let them hover around, these ashes of regrets,Your unjustified rage.
It won't come back hence be aware of your true age.

Empathy...

2009-01-25T23:50:00.000-08:00

The more I write more I realize that words are elusive, they can turn the whole story in a different way and this is not my forte.
Anyways this post is not about words or their impression. Let me jump to what I am here for :P, no more digression...

Empathy, this is one of the most mysterious words in terms of true meaning and its comprehensibility. Those who understand true meaning of this word and are able to associate themselves with its characteristics are quite mature and I must agree that I am not one of those. I don't know what it takes to experience some one else's feelings and of course its one of the most difficult things.
Well most of the times people just refrain themselves from expressing themselves before me because they know I won't have much to say. but some times it has happened that when people discuss their situation with me, I am like man what on the earth is wrong with this dude. Why can't he comprehend such a simple solution, his problem is so trivial and why can't he get such a simple way to deal with the situation and then all my typical orthodox ideal bag of solutions is there as if I am blessed with all world's wisdom and rest of the fellows are all dumbs :P. The end result, the guy gives up and one of his options is gone.
I have my point of views and solutions because I see problem from my side without realizing his situation and that's what I would say is being unable to empathize with people and this topic doesn't end here. What bothers you is the truth that you come across after some time. That moment when you are able to associate with that feeling makes you quite uncomfortable and you realize how irrelevant were your suggestions. And its not necessary to go through the same phase like the other person, may be now you are able to understand the situation clearly and now you can set your biased judgment aside and can experience the whole cycle without analyzing it.
You want to go back in time to the point when you were having those discussions and let the other person know how truly you can associate with their circumstances and you are there to just be with them, let them know they have someone who knows how exactly are you feeling and trust me it means a lot to the other person. But that discussion has become history so all you could say is man, how cruel and disinterested I have been, such an appropriate behavior is not something expected from me :-).

Fly your way...

2008-12-29T14:55:00.000-08:00

For a long time I have abstained from writing about "I" in this blog. Used to write on general and very abstract topics but with time it seems that I have been focusing quite a lot on myself and it is reflecting in my writings too, with time I have been quite expressive and allowed the fingers to flow freely and allowed them to type anything they want without any restriction or thought of appropriateness or hesitation. I am not a big follower of "sharing and caring" school and this blog is not even meant to share anything. Its just that this time fingers took over and I would not control them, let them have full control and drive the way they want. After all this is their space and hence here they go, freely :-)

I wonder...

2008-12-29T14:39:00.000-08:00

Gone is the feeling of comfort. Its been a long time now, don't remember when was the last time I felt quite comfortable with in myself. Its been running and continuous running cycle, though its not like that things are unmanageable and am going through some tough period, instead I would say that everything is pretty good, in fact I have always been healthy, without any kind of physical and mental disease, enjoying my time, hanging out with friends and always surrounded by good souls. But all these things could not bring comfort and relaxation. The kind of one that makes every kind of fatigue and strain just vanish, something that can heel every kinda tiredness with ease. Does it raise an alarm that I need a long break well Don't think so in fact sometimes I feel that am always on break :P and long break seems quite far in near future. May be it has to be this way only and it is something that everyone look for and keep looking with few breaks in between which are as illusive as our dreams, as ephemeral as sight of some magic, may be or only few people are lucky enough to enjoy this kinda luxury(should I call it luxury coz this is not something that can be bought with money :P, but still its quite expensive enough to be a luxury ;)). Dunno, as always I only wonder, I like it that way only, having answers for everything is something I do not look for :)

Art of conversation ...

2008-12-29T14:24:00.000-08:00

Words are not important, meanings behind them matter. This is something I am learning for ages now and would have to agree that I am still in the learning phase. One should be able to comprehend the real meaning behind the alphabets and it really helps and this is one way of inferring people's responses during your interactions.
Did you ever wonder how diplomatic and tricky verbal communication can be at times or should I say most of the times :P. The other art one should possess is to understand what should they ask and how should they ask? This part is called putting forward your opinions or the way to get something out from the conversation. This art along with capability of understanding responses can be a deadly combination.
The third important point to note down is to understand the language of non verbal responses. Combine this skill with other two and you would become a consummate talker. Most of the time your discussions would only help you and you would be the most satisfying soul out of the lot. I am still in the learning phase sometimes I am quite successful but most of the times I don't even remember that I have to be attentive and watchful during the conversations because you never know how deceptive they can be ;)

Phase Trilogy...

2008-12-11T00:26:00.000-08:00

This period from July to December has been extremely interesting. It can be said that I went through three different phases in this period. All of them had their shares of joy, pain and experiences. They were good, bad and ugly. Let me summarize all of them in chronological order:

1. Get Accustomed: Everything was new for me. Had to adjust quickly because my previous experiences with new places were quite bad and it took me a long time to get used to some new place but this time it was different. I didn't have to make much effort to become comfortable in new environment. I would say it all went quite well, in fact the whole transition process was quite smooth. Things got settled easily, everything happened in almost perfect way. So for me this phase was merry transition.

2. When everything falls apart: This was the time when I was singing the song Que sera sera. In this period I was trying to set up a good work and fun routine. I made quite good effort to bring versatility in daily activities. Tried to play tennis, was regular Gym visitor, was watching movies quite frequently, weekends were spent by hanging out with people. I thought its gonna be quite easy and I would sail through easily but I was unaware of the my share of blues. I was denied to be teaching assistant for some reasons, had to enroll for one course that was not part of any credit units and in another course too I managed to screw up things pretty badly. In short saddi toh waat hi lag gayi thi( I was in total mess).

3. When you have to join broken peaces: This was the period of prayers, luck and labor: All routine of second phase was abandoned and there was a single focus and that was to make sure to set things back on track, whatever was screwed in the second phase, had to be corrected. Though if I wanted I could have engaged myself in some of the activities but dunno why I kept such things away. Won't say that things became too hectic for me and I had to slog like anything to achieve all the target. Somehow I just wanted to keep focused and be to specific about targets. I didn't have luxury to wander a bit from the line of focus. Days passed by and things went on the way I wanted and I would say luck played a big role because I screwed things to the extent that a small jerk and I would have gone. All effort could have gone in wain. Eventually I managed to set everything just in place and the happy ending embraced me.

All these phases taught their share and made me realize about the importance and priority of different things. Hopefully I would keep these things in my mind and would set the priorities right in future :-)

Begin again :-)

2008-12-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Template Change, Reading others' post and bunch of other tricks keep me connected with blog world somehow. After a long break I am trying to be regular with my blog. I am not promising that I would write 100 posts in coming days but I would try to come up with some posts at least :)

Miles to go...

2008-10-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Finally I recalled the phrase I wanted to write about. As I repeast many times how bad my short term memory is ( sometimes I wonder If I have any long term memory :P). It has happened many times with me. Many things crossed my mind but I couldn't keep them with me. May be I should be more tech savvy and start taking notes on mobile or mobile blogging kind of stuffs :P. Nopes I don't think there is need to go that far. So where were we ? Yeah I wanted to talk about empty roads..or better say the path that hardly anyone goes by. I am in love with these detours. May be one hardly come across any usually or this is something new happening with me but whatever it is, is refreshing only. Wonder howcome I didn't notice before, walking on the road ( and not listening the music), of course humming would not harm in any way and then watching the birds looking for their daily healthy diet, empty benches which are longing to have you or are so reelieved that they also are having good time for a change :). Fallen leaves, reminding you of the time that eventually everyone has to face or sending across a strong message of being fresh and making the ambience beautiful even if they are not on the top of the world. Brisky cold that feels as if you have removed a single layer of blanket to enjoy the true beauty of nature and motivates you to keep going on and on. Tall trees always standing there firmly, holding their grounds as strongly as they can. An awe inspring creature(yes they are unique creatures, I think). Flowers beaming with oodles of energy and freshness, few of them folding themselves away from everything indicating that let them be what they want to be, may be its time for them to shrink and rest. Rays of rising sun or beauty of moon, makes sure you go ahead on your path. Never ending roads, many miles inspire you to keep going on but not rush, stop wherever you want to, enjoying every moment or rather living each moment of journey. These long roads let you remember that there are miles to go before you sleep :).

Typical Routine...

2008-10-20T17:37:00.001-07:00

This is when I come to office ..full of energy and confidence

After sometime........

Then I ask....

And This is how it ends...........

I have to.............

2008-10-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

I have to ..

-start taking notes because old habits die hard and I am an expert in forgetting important tasks [:o]
-Stop procrastinating...man how many times I say this phrase to myself.
-I write "things" too much, have to curtail on it...
-wish I could learn how to manage time, but this problem is universal, lets watch out for some super effective plan (may be in next 50 years :P)
-Keep motivation up. This graph of ups and downs should not fluctuate much :-). Folks is there any dose for motivation :D
-I have completely forgotten when did I sleep according to normal human routine.
-Study more research papers and get ideas out. Actually I am looking for some factory where they can manufacture some new ideas :P.
-Use this blog space as a companion. I am sure am gonna speak my mind out. Let it be any futile dump. But hey this is my space. am free to use it the way I want :-).
-Input output theory. Multi-tasking is not good. Focus on few things at a time. Take little steps, do not run abruptly Mr. Pramod.
-Be more organised. Man I have to organsie my documents, my bed, my clothes, my room, my table, office..eeek why don't we make unorganised thing popular and rewarding :P
-Listen more music, some movies, weekend hangout.
-Productivity curve is very disappointing. Come on dude you can do it ;).
-Should not blog during office hours..so adios ..he he

Where is the time ?

2008-10-05T04:34:00.000-07:00

October is here. One more month is gone and while writing this post some more moments would fade away. If we pay a close attention to the movement of time I am sure it would be worth your time and quite interesting also. It continues moving restlessly without any stopping. If we go on dividing it in fractions we can keep doing it. Observe the movement of watch and we would come to know how slow it moves. Eventually we would come to the conclusion that time has so many small parts and it moves too slowly still it passes so fast, isn't it weird or better say illogical. Are we misinterpreting something here. Something is just not as it should be, either we are wrong or time is playing some trick with all of us.
If time moves so slowly and we have got as good as 24 hours in a day, how come we have so little time to do everything. Are we too slow in doing things or we have made an habit of just looking busy and giving excuses on lack of time or it is just that we are handling with too many things at a time. Where should we look for the right answer of this question. If we examine scientifically we can trace many scientific facts, figures and many surveys to support our and counter others' arguments to reach a conclusion that may not be objective but for the time being it would be acceptable. Well it may be true that some activities take a long time and sometimes we have to stretch beyond our capabilities to get things done or we keep just too many things in our disposal to make our life hell. May be one or other case would be applicable to every other individual. Sometimes it can be explained with theory of relativity also. Our lack of time is always relative. When we say we don't have time it can mean many things. It can mean I don't have time for this thing because there are other things I have to devote my time to. We can also come up with some excuses because we don't have time for that particular person or there may be the case when there is absolute urgency and no matter how more exciting or enticing events are there to attend but we have to burn our ass with our mess. May be we are just pretending to be one of the busiest persons on the earth. There may be several reasons of this kind and every of those could be justified with theory of relativity and importance of prioritization but are these facts or statements or arguments regardless of what you term them as are legitimate to justify our lack of time. Well as always I don't have the answer. I do good job of asking questions and opening the blocks my readers have in their mind :P by writing any mess that comes to the mind or sometimes its just frivolity of the moment :D. You guys better be cautious before reading this abrupt post ;)
PS: This is the first proofread post be me. May be I would make it more intensive with time.

Boring Pile

2008-09-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

Scribbling during some boring moments:

Here comes the Master,
Just a little faster.

The talk is boring,
I dunno anymore because am snoring.

See someone is eating chocolate crunch,
Damn, why did i miss my sweat brunch.

Why does someone spends ten minutes in one slide,
Wish at this moment I could have got a fairy glide.

This talk looks like some huge boring pile,
Man I am sleepy, how can I give a fake smile.

Why don't someone go for a loo,
so that we could have a little fun in this zoo

Yey, My snore is gone, coz talk session is done :D

New Template

2008-09-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

Finally I played a bit with blog templates. I never liked those default blogspot templates and was planning for a long time to play around with these templates. Yesterday I found nothing better to do and decided to give it a try. Here is the first version of edited template. I know its quite basic and needs a lot of improvement but I like its background after all I spent a hell lot of time in finding free backgrounds and methods of uploading them on some free image hosting websites..huh..it was a marathon and luckily I finished it successfully. Looking forward to come back here soon :).

Value of appreciation...

2008-09-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

Forgetting stuffs have become one of my well known quality these days.Was planning to write something on "Appreciation" for a long time but never remembered what was I supposed to write :P well that happens with everyone though with me it happens more frequently. Hopefully I would become more organised with time, lets see, after all hope keeps us alive ..haha.

I have been wondering about value of this so common looking word for quite sometime now and my thesis braught forward many interesting observations. Well the simple this word is, the difficult is it to find its existence. You would hear well done, good, great work kind of phrases many times but that's not a true appreciation. Its just a way of saying something we are used to speak in our society. Criticising people is very easy and many of us hardly miss any chance of finding some loophole in others' behaviours but at the same time it is too hard for us to praise the good qualities. however irony of criticism is that most of the times it takes place in your absence and you hardly get any feedback from people. I don't understand why our nature has this particular tendency but it exists and here I am not picking any particular person or group, this observation applies to everyone. If you want to try it there is one simple exercise: Select a person who is not very close to you or is not someone you like too much or hate too much. Try to pick one such person randomly and note down the characteristics you don't like and similarly jot down the things you like about that fellow. I am sure what you would have a longer list of shortcomings than good qualities.
Well this particular exercise (hopefully) could make you conscious towards this basic nature of us the human. Why do we find it very hard to appreciate the other people and why is it very easy for us to made a negative judgement towards others? Well I only have questions, answers don't know where can you find. May be some psychologist if in any case would come across this post it may motivate her for her thesis but I am sure they must be having more meaningful topics in their basket.

Aaj phir shaam main kuchh nami si hai ...

2008-09-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

Aaj phir shaam main kuchh namee si hai,
band pinjre ki yeh khwaahish kucchh dabi si hai,
Muskuraate hue in labon main kuchh kami si hai,
aaj phir shaam main kuchh nami si hai.

Yo naa poocho ki kahaan se kaun aaya hai,
shamaa ko bhujne naa de jo surroor chhaaya hai,
Chhookar jo ud jaaye woh rami si hai,
aaj phir shaam main kuchh namee si hai.

Armaanon ko ruksat kiya tha humne kabhi,
Lautke kaarwaan aaya phir yahaan kyun hai,
Khud ko hi bhool jaayain itni toh nahin pee hai,
aaj phir shaam main kuchh nami si hai.

Kehna chaaha tha jo woh aaya hi nahin,
Andhiyaare is aangaan main deepak ki aas jo ki hai,
Band hoton ki yeh kahaani kyun khuli si hai,
aaj phir shaam main kuchh nami si hai.

Darbaar main kahadaa galib kahan khoya hai,
Neelami ke is manzar ko dekhke kyun roya hai,
Bheegi bheegi yeh naina kyun khaali se hain,
aaj phir shaam main kuchh nami si hai.

............................................

Research...

2008-09-07T01:55:00.000-07:00

If you read too much of papers in the night time, then what happens to you, wait a second let me tell you :D.

Fun is gonna begin soon,
There is no one around, so-what why don't talk with moon.

Wish I knew how to play the music with Guitar,
Duh no worries coz there you can find the shining star.

Gosh why these campus kitchen don't have any beer,
Have milk and egg, be strong my dear.

If I could have butter chicken with garlic naan,
Salad is healthy, remember the story told by Ryan.

Why these roads are empty, there is so much gloom.
Man how could you say this when road's name is bloom.

What if someone takes all the computers in the world away,
It gives you the bread, so good boys all these things you shouldn't say.

Why don't these people write movie scripts in place of papers,
Happily they don't, otherwise hairs of producers would have become sky scrappers.

Is there any reason of living like this on the perch,
Ok enough, time to go back to do something no-body knows how to do and that is called RESEARCH.

haha..it was fun :D

Winds of Change...

2008-08-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

After a frustrating, happening, hectic and time pass last six months of undergraduate education and one and half year of job experience finally I am back to school as graduate student and this transition from lazy software engineer to enthusiastic graduate student has been pretty interesting so far. Though its too early to say things have changed completely but yes they are taking different shape gradually. As somebody said "Journey is more important than destination", hence the way everything is changing is worth observing and hence the title of this post is Winds of Change not Lost in Translation or some other movie or song title ;).

In previous few days all past activities have been taking a different shape and let me tell you sometimes these turns of events startles me too. "Man is it the same me, what's going on with me". I repeat these sentences lot of times these days. May it be because of principal of survival or theory of existence but I am enjoying every part of this journey and its not because this is better than my software engineer life or States is better place than India (Comparison of all these stuff would mess up everything therefore I keep myself at distance from these temptations). Its because of enjoying every new experience that crosses your way.

Its been good so far and I am looking forward to the first week that would begin next monday, I am sure lot more exciting experiences are waiting in the shelves and I am sure they would come out soon :).

This blog is alive :)

2008-08-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

Its almost a month and I haven't even bothered to visit my blog :O, that's very unlike of me. I guess it happened after ages. Anyways I can see the time coming when I would not jot down anything for months but that doesn't mean I would stop scribbling but of course frequency would come down sharply in fact it has already came down :P.
Will come back here soon :).

Must Links for Graduate Students

2008-07-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html

http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/mihir/education.html

http://www.findaphd.com/students/explain.asp#6

Big City Life

2008-07-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

As the title suggests, this post is gonna analyze big city life or say big city lifestyle.
These are the cities loaded with malls, pubs and many other happening and hang out places. People in these cities are also dynamic. Here you get everything you want or you can wish for. But the question is that inspite of having everything why are people living here are not content? And these are not the people who are not accessing anything. These folks do every kind of stuff to make their life rocking. In fact they spend a good deal of time and money in search of happening life style. They have got friends, well wishers and care takers. Some has got their family too with themselves but nothing helps. They hangout regularly, go in restras and pub every now and then, most of the time they are surrounded by bunch of guys but still they have other cravings. One feels himself lonely among the crowd. He is constantly in search of something.
Big cities are weird dunno where does everyone run. What's the rush in their life. Their time becomes money and money increases their lifestyle to next standards gradually.On the contrary small towns are sweet. Though people living there don't get all the facilities but people still look satisfied and more happy. At least no one feels dejected and alienated. Their frustration level is low, though they follow pattern of slow lifestyle but it seems more in order as compared to the big city ones.
Life in metros is more like fighting hard of better survival. A constant competition with yourself and everyone around you . The focus is more on trying it harder and running somewhere (doubt if god also can name the place ). Though its true that once you live in some cosmopolitan place you somewhat get used to it. Its painful but still you adhere with it for many reasons. Going back to small town is not that easy if not impossible.
Sometimes it becomes very difficult to know whether its going right or wrong but then its a bittersweet symphony, just learn to cope up and try to make best out of everything :)

From Khalil Gibran

2008-07-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

"Friendship is always a sweet responsibility; never an opportunity."

"Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers."

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain."

"The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say."

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness."

"Much of your pain is self-chosen."

"They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price."

More Quotes

2008-07-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday nights are so boring..got nothing better to do..

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. ~Mother Teresa

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. ~Albert Einstein

Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. ~Kahlil Gibran

A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay -
Love isn’t love
'Til you give it away.
~Oscar Hammerstein

Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence. ~David Byrne

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. ~W. Somerset Maugham

Freedom...

2008-07-18T03:21:00.001-07:00

After a short hectic jam-packed schedule everything is back on smooth track :-).
This time its not just good feeling of having free time for yourself or going mad big time. Its entirely different sense of belonging with self or say true freedom.

Few days back I read this poem based on art of losing. I liked the poem but I couldn't associate with it completely but now I can. Its tangible in everyday activities. This expression of joy (yes won't call it happiness) is unique and makes you feel relieved.

How good does it feel when you see balance all around, it doesn't mean that everything turns out the way you wanted. Well may be few things go your way but then many things could also go in the opposite direction. Yeah, all we need is to get out of rat race mindset and recognize our right priorities, pursue them no matter how much we have to push things from all around. Then there would be times when everything would go wrong. Go mad, be frustrate but come out of the dilemma, that is important. Then it becomes more about adaptation, one another aspect of living. There are umpteenth examples from the history that those who could not adapt to environment, found it impossible to survive.
And who knows may be it was not the right choice :) or if it was may be we would come to know the secret of getting it at least we would keep going on :).

Ten Ways...

2008-07-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Its not based on any survey. This is my own observation :).
This is what I feel. You may differ from my point of view and of course you should :P.

Ten ways to enjoy your life big time:

1. No Expectations
No matter what other people do or react it should not digress your mind

2. Refrain from attachments
Do not cling to thing or people. If nobody accompanies you be ready to move alone :D.

3. Do what you love
If you won't do what you love, you would be forced to love what you do :P.

4. Put yourself on the highest priority
You are the most important people in this world.

5. Avoid Procrastination
Biggest Enemy, Kill it. You will feel much relaxed :D.

6. Live with people you are comfortable with
Very important. After all we are part of society only :)

7. Get some time for yourself.
Otherwise its gonna be frustrating :P

8. Balance/Stress Buster/ Madness
significant. Because that's how you can take frustration out and kill the monsters :D

9. No GirlFriends/Boyfriends
haha....no waste of time, energy and money :D

10. Last but not the least lots of beer and pub visits
:D :D..aah Am gonna have beer now..
Ciao

Out of Box : July Month

2008-07-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
~William Faulkner

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires, - Necessity and Free Will.
~Thomas Carlyle, Essays, "The Opera"

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.
~Albert Camus

If you are feeling bad about something that you have done in your past, remember this, "You can't be who you are today, without being who you were in the past."

Forgiveness means giving up all hope of a better past.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In light of knowledge attained, the happy achievement seems almost a matter of course, and any intelligent student can grasp it without too much trouble. But the years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alterations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light -- only those who have experienced it can understand it."
-Albert Einstein

Judgements ...

2008-07-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

This word keeps coming back in my dictionary and would have to say most of the times it has come during extreme situations only. Our human nature is bound to make hypothesis on people's nature when you receive extreme reaction from their side. Here I am not talking about first impression or general observation, it is about going few steps ahead and dealing with people. In this entry I am not gonna generalize anything because I can't. Its not something objective that can be explained in few words rather its about echoes of your outlook towards different people.
I condemned same people whom I used to admire at some point of time and this kind of behavior was not based on any prejudices but because of impulsive reaction of their actions. This impulse forces us to manipulate our premises and come up with new inferences which leads to our conclusion. Though we know this kind of reaction is not legitimate but then we are humans.
but with experiences I am inclined to apply different method that is not based on impulsive reaction. I have decided that one should not focus on cursing or judging people, in fact we should try to come out of the tumult ASAP. This first phase is very important and critical too because most of our judgments take birth during this period only. If we can control ourself in this phase, then our job is almost done.
Once you are in your true conscience i.e. the state when you can recognize your rational intuitions, then you can analyze the whole situation indifferently and not from your own point of view. Try to put yourself in other's place and see what you would have done in those circumstances. Once we are through with this exercise, we feel relieved because most of the time it would make you free from all your inner hard feelings and prejudices and whatever conclusion you reach it would be rational and logical too.
Some times it happens that we can't resist the temptations that arises during phase I well its pretty normal but then we should be ready for later modifications in our assumptions. Because ultimately we come to know the truth :).

Planning research.? go through these links

2008-07-16T01:34:00.000-07:00

http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/Pubs/0200-08.htm

Phases...

2008-07-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

i have become so busy with my mundane routine that important things are losing their priority and I think situation will get worse. I am afraid that this blog soon would become thing of the past. May be art of losing has become a tradition with me. There are times when I am proud of things and proclaim that they are gonna be as they are or I am gonna treat with them as I do but then my honest attachment forget the rule of thumb that Change is the only constant thing. So far I have always blamed myself that I couldn't take care of all those things but now it seems that it was wrong assumption because things are supposed to change. This is also one of the law of nature.
After all priority change with time so do you.
As a child we play, shout, cry. With time habits change. We go to school, play cricket in the gullies, then we move to college, hangout with friends, then there comes job and again lifestyle changes. These all are different phases and we can not escape from them until and unless we are complete rebellion.
Though I have not been rebellion and has transformed from one phase to another phase comfortably but somewhere I tried to pull things from back walls without realizing that it will not help me in any way. Lets follow the wind and move steadily.
may be its one more lesson as they say that life is a learning curve. Lets add one more point in lesson book and remember it too :).
Today's post just came out itself. There was a time when number of such kinda posts was too high. But now I won't complain even if this blog would become extinct after sometime because it would be my choice or say I will have to do it. I admire people who can keep balance and can maintain multiple things at the same time. May be Ilack this trait.

Ciao

Here comes July Again

2008-07-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Here comes the july again, The month of activities. lot of happens in this month. i have written about it in earlier posts also. Seems like this is month of resignations for me. I resigned my first job in the same month and now second job also in this month also. Man, its going to be exciting. It seems so. There are so many things to be done :).

Cya around ;)

Thnings to remember ..........

2008-06-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

I am a lazy bum ..ok don't wink now I am a lazier bum :P.
Few months back I had Kerala trip. The trip taught me a lot of things, specially I came to know about too many don'ts ;). Thought of penning it down for future reference :).

-If you are thinking of hiring a car then don't hire cab, in fact hire car if you know driving.
-If you are hiring a driver too then try to get a driver that understands your language.
-Plan your trip(specially journeys between the places) well in advance. You would find it very helpful later.
-sit with your travel agent and driver together. Explain your driver the whole route so that he doesn't misguide you or himself :P.
-Never try to get a driver who is going there first time. His learning experience could be your nightmare :P.
-Check with the music system and all in the vehicle. Test your CDs before hand if they are working properly because you are gonna use it most of the time :).
-Avoid traveling in day time. Try to plan all the travels in the nights as it would save plenty of your time spent in traveling.
-Enjoy your time, relax, don't panic if anything wrong happens. Go with the friends who you are comfortable with.
-Check your medical box and primary treatment kit.
-check with hotels before reaching the place if you are on a tight schedule.
-Enjoy the trip. As you don't get such opportunities everyday :P.

Its going to blow...

2008-06-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

Some things I could never understood,
Some things were always mis understood,
If there are things which should be understood.

Many things always came my way,
Few things came as a gift,
Some things wish I could get.

Many days passed by like gracious monsoon,
Few days were like scorching heat,
Wish I could skip those fall of the leaves.

Many times kept crossing the oblivion path,
Some times it was one of those familiar streets,
There were times when the journey was abandoned for no good.

Many times there were highs,
Sometimes there were lows,
That is THE time when I know its going to blow, its going to blow :).

Tacit misunderstanding

2008-06-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

In her shoes, I watched this movie sometime back and liked it too. To some people it may seem as one another movie well it is but in some aspects its one another unique movie also :). Like while most of the movies of these kind are either based on love or happiness but this one presented a beautiful relationship between two sisters.
According to me the best thing about the movie was its presentation and simplicity. This flick had some too intense conversations and also narrated that behind the surface there is something in each of us that is different from what world sees.
There was one peculiar thing about the storyline. The relationship between grand mother of sisters and their father. Both of them didn't remain in touch because of one mis-understanding. both of them were living in the same misconception. The father thought that grandmother assumed that he is the reason of his wife's death. And Grand-mother supposed that according to him she is one of the reasons. And this misconception kept grand mother away from family for a long time.
See both of them were living with something that didn't even exist. How different things could have become if either of them could express the true inner thoughts. But this didn't happen because we human are like that. Our assumption power works very fast. We don't think even once while establishing some assumption and abiding by it :). And in this blunder we not only deprive us of each other but there are many others who are related with us and have to go through the consequences. Sometimes this misconception becomes so gigantic that other valuable joys of our life lose their importance somewhere in between. In the end we are driven by our virtues that we give the utmost importance and the life loses the battle and of course the winner is our Tacit misunderstanding.

Illusion..

2008-06-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

Here we live and try hard to make our existence substantial. Each of us have an environment(surrounding would be better word) around where we feel the most comfortable, In other words, we create a space for ourselves. In this space we are identified by certain characteristics. While physical appearance helps in identifying a person, characteristic is the major key in knowing a person. if we claim to know someone then certainly we must be knowing many traits of his nature that distinguishes him from others.

Well if you think this post is gonna explore new definition of characteristics then its wrong and after all there is nothing much for me to explore :).

The question of the day is that how do we inherit these characteristics. what makes us behave in certain way. Few of them we imbibe by virtue of living individual, the very essence of existentialism. Some are acquired through interactions with other living souls and then there are others that are part of our illusion.

My mind is wandering around some questions for quite sometime. Does everyone lives with some illusions? How different things would become if we give our illusions away? Is it essential for living or its hampering us from being our true self.

Well, I don't have answers of any of these questions. All I know is for many people these illusions become integral part of their existence. Their identity revolves around these characteristics and I don't know what disaster would it bring on earth if we try to alienate them from their existence. To me sometimes it seems that its all right to live with your imagination because this world is no more than living illusion then at times I think that what on the earth would we achieve by living a fake life. Many thoughts, many doubts, isn't it ? Well is it appropriate to call it fake ?

I have seen many people living with tangible illusion. Here the word tangible have been used deliberately, I will come to your "why" later. And with my experience its hard to even assume their life without them. May be things could have been all different from what they are but only if there would be "things" once the curtain is over. These people are not from other worlds. They are pretty much like all of us and one of us. Its only their few characteristics that is existence of something that doesn't exist in our world (or we don't think that it exists) that differentiates them. Sometimes I see that this one thing gives them more space and freedom to live with, express themselves. In most of the cases they find some salvation that comforts them, makes them feel what they want, brings them true joy. That they could not have experienced if things could have been otherwise. But then there is other part of thoughts that fancies their lives without their assumed reality. How different everything would be if we could perceive it in that way. But then as I said before that only if it could be.

Now here I come back on "tangible illusion". Ain't it true that all of us live with some kind of intangible illusions or assumed reality ? well I don't have the answer ;).

I carry your heart...

2008-05-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

So here for once is something not written by me. Was watching this movie "In her shoes". And came across this poem that many people would already be aware about. Anyways I liked it. Felt like saving it here :).

I carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
ee cummings

Love your own Recipe..

2008-05-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

It was one of those Sunday evenings when rain doesn't sound such a good option and it plays a spoilsport. Panny was not happy with all this heavy pour. He just wanted to continue playing outside after all week's hectic activities. But he had no other option but to go back to his nest. Panny was an intelligent pigeon, always working hard. His father Mr. Seaton was an accountant in Birds' welfare office. Mr. Seaton was also a dedicated soul. Whatever he involved himself into, he used to give more than 100%. Mrs. Seaton was a housewife, previously she used to work as nurse but that demanding work required too much of her time and she was needed at home.
Panny had one good friend Robs. Robs lived near by to Panny's place.

--------------------------Scene 1-------------------------------------------------
One evening Mr. Seaton came home all red blabbering blah blah blah blah. What's the matter with you, asked Ms. Seaton....Matter, I am the one working my time out trying my best and when it comes to promotion everyone is there..... Honey you got it too right ?..So what, I got as much as everyone else got, nothing special reward, Damn it...
meanwhile Panny comes in....Dad, Mom we won the ice hockey match today and guess what I got the player of the match award too...Duh, ice hockey winner, Is this you are gonna doing forever...I am afraid you are not doing what you are supposed to do. Did you decide on school you would be joining next term...Look at Robs, he has got into Hackles the best shot in the town and there is Mr. Crooks lad who has got admission into Rimpy. I think you should put your head in your studies not in this dumb game. Learn something from others. Just look around and see what others guys in this town has achieved. You have the potential, don't waste it...said Mr. Seaton.

_--------------------------------------Scene 2--------------------------

Hey Ms. Seaton how are ya doing...Am fine, you seem to be doing great Ms. Kelly....Oh there is nothing great as such. I just switched the job. Now I have become senior auditor...that's wonderful, congrats, you must be really delighted....Well, there is nothing to cheer about the place. I am still earning so less and this company I am working in is not among the top ones. Many of my friends are earning much better and are working in such a reputed places like Norks, Kinsky, Finkles. Uhh..dunno what all these companies look for. Most of them got into just like that...what a pity. And me..I am so eligible still see where I am...

-------------------------------Scene 3----------------------------
Panny is with Robs and both are sitting in their cafeteria...Jemmy joins them there..

Hey Jerks..supp? Hi Jemmy..said Panny...So Jemmy which school you gonna join..Robs chipped in... Well am not sure. Am hell confused as ever. There are so many...Most of the guys are gonna join River Park, I guess I would also join the same...ahaan but you took the exam specially for Palkis green entrance, you said there are lots of arts related faculty there. what happened to that one.. Panny enquired. Well I was not sure at that time. Many fellas was taking the exam, so did I, no big deal...Hey am getting late ..see you guys around and jemmy flew away.
-----------------------------------------------------

I could go on and on by describing such scenes. But I guess the subtle idea is covered in these few words itself. You can't cook your chicken if all your energy would be focussed on fretting about or keeping an eye on other;s kitchen. If this would be the case, you are never gonna enjoy your food. Coz it would not be the way you wanted it. Just concentrate on your own recipe, keep adding flavours to your taste then am sure you are gonna love the food :).