Top Fives

This is almost year-end and I had an interesting idea to put my top fives in movies (Ten will be too much of rating others :)).
Of course, it is a stupid thing to do but someone has to do the 'dirty' job ;).

I am restricting to what ever Indian movies I have seen in 2004. Also I haven't included Mughal-e-Aazam, as it will be too hard a competition for others.

According to me, the liking for a movie is very subjective. I also regard the fact that as a movie-lover we are always ready to take some amount of illogical stuff and when it comes to Indian cinema this amount is not that small. Therefore logic don't guide you here in totality. At times you watch movies to get a fulfilling experience, at times you cry for realism and at other times you believe in a fantasy to be real.

For sometime now, I have tried to judge a movie by the honesty of the effort, and it does give fairly good results.

Coming to this year, I will not say it is bad year because 2003 wasn't great either. There were only countable good movies ( Bhoot, Dhoop, Jhankar beats, 3 Deewarein, Waisa bhi hota hai...) in 2003. The criteria which I followed include:
1. Honesty of effort
2. Minimum Cliché and Minimum melodrama
3. Innovation in theme/presentation
4. Performances
5. Would I like to see it again ?

So here the lists goes on...
Top five 2004 movies
1. Maqbool (Excellent Performances by one and all, interesting story-telling and good direction)
2. Ab tak Chappan (Good Dialogues and real characterization, end is little bit filmy)
3. Chameli (Kareena's performance and creation of a great rainy-night-with-two-strangers ambiance)
4. Naach (A true musical)
5. Hum Tum (Saif's performance)

Those who can't make to the list but are worth a mention here:
1. Morning Raga (For Music, Shabana's sincere work, Perizaad's beauty)
2. Yuva (Good direction and performances)
3. Khakee (Thoroughly entertaining stuff and Aish as Vamp)
4. Dev (Solid performances by Amitabh and Om Puri, and excellent kiss between Kareena and Fardeen)
5. Madhyanam Hathya (Very realistic, cinema which doesn't take any sides)

5 movies I regret, I didn't watch
1. Shwaas (So much hype !)
2. Chokar Bali (Mixed reviews, Heard Raima Sen has done an excellent work)
3. Phir Milenge (Revathy movie, I missed 'Mitr' too)
4. Raincoat (Looks like some sensible cinema)
5. Meenaxi: Tale of three city (They say its poetry on screen)

Now coming to worst 5 and it has all the competition, but fortunately for some I haven't seen many movies this year.
Five Worst movies
1. Vastu Shastra
2. Main hoon na
3. Dhoom
4. Gayab
5. Paap

Also this year was not any big step forward in Indian Cinema. It hasn't stopped its ways of making duplicate movies if one works ( 'Murder' followed by 'Hawas', followed by 'Girlfriend', followed by 'Julie', followed by 'Ab Bas'... and many more to come). If I try to get a trend, the only one which I can think of is item numbers. Every movie should have at least one, by hook or by crook. Another trend is kissing on screen. The only Kiss which conveyed some real passion was seen in 'Dev', otherwise all this kiss-business is so fake. All the Yash-chopras and Karan-johars still keep fixating on family values (which is nothing but dancing, loving and marrying), saccharine romance, deep melodrama and 'sarso ke khet'.

Hope 2005 is better. Hope to see Karan Jahar make a song-less murder mystery and Ram Gopal Verma a family drama.

Dreamy, Scary War :)

This weekend was again a movie weekend, movies that I saw include:
The Dreamers
Ju-on
No Man's Land

Lets go one by one.

The Dreamers. I am still not sure why I saw it, no one recommended it, I was actually searching for 'Last tango in Paris', one of those controversial movies by Bertolucci, But it was out, so I thought why not 'The Dreamers'. I had read a review of this movie, which was OK types. Now the big question is did I like it. I will say 'No' and there are some reasons for it. One of the most obvious reason is, it deviates too much from the point and comes back to the point again when the viewer is not interested in it. The sexual escapades of the twins and their American friend are given more weight age than the unrest of 1968 France. There is whole lot of talk of movies and some interesting quizzes about movies too. But, as I said there are too much distractions to get into the plot.This film interests you when it deals with the youthful idealism, breaking of social fences imposed on them by elders, interesting discussions about movies and when it try to recreate the socio-political structure of an era. But this interest dwindles down as Bertolucci enters the sexual side of characters.

Ju-on (The Curse). I have seen one of the Japanese horror movie sometime back when a series of such movies were shown on HBO, so I thought to see one on DVD at night with some DOLBY effect. But this one failed to interest me, or rather scare me. The story was told as a chapter for each character in the movie, and they were not chronologically shown. I admit that I didn't get lot of story and the horror associated until I watched some of the 'Special Features' in the DVD, but by then it was too late. I was able to get the ending when I saw 'The detailed alternate ending' under delete scenes. May be I am too dumb for spooky stuff.

No Man's Land. I saw this movie for the second time and what a treat to watch it. Its like watching 'Catch-22' on screen, except that the situations are more real. There may be two types of war movies, one which glorify war and its heroes and the ones that expose the sheer futility of war (In India, unfortunately, we have only seen the former type). No Man's land is a powerful anti-war testimonial. Director, Danis Tanovic, served in Bosnian army, side by side shooting footage of war and after completing his military services, went on making 'No Man's Land'. No Man's land acts at several different levels, one is the deep-rooted hatred. second is the role of UN, third is about the role of press, and fourth is about the absurdity of above three. The tension (or rather helplessness) in the movie is interestingly shown as soldier lying on a "bouncing" mine which will explode if he gets up. With all this going on there is first-rate humor in explosively funny dialogues.

Soldier I: Hey, do you know the difference between a pessimist and an optimist?
(The soldier II shrugs as if he couldn't care less.)
Soldier I: A pessimist thinks that things couldn't be worse. An optimist knows that they can be.

Next week I am going to Bangalore so there will be no weekend movie-watching. But I have bought something for the weekdays. This is the recommendation which I got for this movie from one of my movie-buff friends:

"One very beautiful movie that I'll recommend is "In the mood for love" by Wong Kar-Wai. See if you can get it. There isn't much of a narrative here but if you talk of "mood", movies don't come better than this."

Last days...

I have seen not less than 3 last days in my life. The first one was like a whisker which I wasn't even able to experience fully, the second one was a jolt and the third one was a conciliation to the fact that there will be more such days to come in my life. These last days are more related to professional life than to personal. On pure personal fronts I had my share of last days too, but that's a story for any other day.

My last day at school was not of much fuss, as deep inside I am quiet clear that none of friends is going to run far away, and they will be here for at least one more year. I don't even remember the last class as there were more important things to do like to prepare for exams and competitions. The urge to leave my hometown was more than the desire to have fun at school with my friends. As far as fun is considered that ended with class 10th or so. I cannot recall me having real fun after that, because of our so called careers-building in progress. I didn't even go to our farewell, just to revolt against the principal decision to wear uniforms during farewell. We had a get together at a restaurant much latter, when we all have some free time left after boards.

My last day in University of Roorkee was a sudden change in life. Although packing baggage and getting no dues did offer a cover to pretend to be busy, but actually we had no assignments to copy and no class to bunk. Its a sudden break in the pace of life from slow to very slow. I remember writing hundreds of slam book and writing about me, my friends and some abstract questions like 'What is love'. But I am sure that I was totally unaware about what I or my friends were really. I cannot give the right answers even today but I have come to a state where I can prove those false. I had a fuzzy perception that I am going to a 'world of all' from a 'closed community of friends' and no one will ever give a proxy for me. This me-alone-in-the-world idea scared me, amused me at that point.

My last day at Wipro was dull like any other corporate event. I had my circle of friends at Wipro but I was aware that I can meet them, call them, mail them, whenever I want to. The bonds were not weak but were less emotional. After about 3 years of work exp in s/w, I am sure that there will be more such last days to come and I should not mind them.

It is true that any event whose frequency increases with time no longer leave an impact on you. Also, if you fail (or may be ignore) to fathom the intensity of events, they are not going to effect you that deeper.

Operatic Comatose

Last night I watched another masterpiece, my first encounter with the famous director. From the very first scene, where in a stage show, a woman is wandering here and there, as if under spell and a man is rushing to remove obstacles (chairs) from her way, I was pretty sure about the intensity of things to come my way. Its about two men nursing their beloveds, now in coma.

'Talk to her' is a tale of love, devotion, loneliness, longing, miracles and probably hope too. Unlike what I thought initially, it is not grim tale but has its moments of humor and images on screen are rich in style. It shows two men (A nurse (Benigno) and a travel journalist (Marco)), happily devoting their lives to the care of someone (a ballerina (Alicia) and a metador (Lydia )) who may never know about it. As you can see, there is a bit role reversal here, a lady bullfighter and a male nurse.

I am not able to fully understand the relation between Marco and Lydia (second viewing should help) and in the movie it looks truncated at a point but the unusual relationship between Benigno and Alicia is the one which is dealt with operatic beauty. There are no dialogues (almost nil) between the two, there are only monologues between them and we get to know much of their story through flashbacks and the deep discussions between Marco and Benigno.

This movie is about complex, unsaid emotions, the emotions here are moving to an extent that you feel all the sympathy for Benigno, who has raped a girl in coma, for he had said much earlier in the movie that "These last four years have been the richest of my life." and shown all the dedication to his words.

The DVD also contained a trailer of 'All about my mother', which I suppose is the next Almodovar movie I am going to watch.

Movie Week(end)

This was the week, which I can easy call a movie week. Although I saw only two movies but both were rich experiences and worth talking about. This week also qualifies to be movie week, as I bought a DVD player (Philips 642 K). Saturday was full of mood swings. It started with a desire to buy a DVD player, I called one of my friends (specialist in electronic field) and told my desire. We went to buy one at about six in evening. What instantly caught our eye was the one we eventually bought but we wanted a reasonable price (some sort of discount) so we went from shop to shop. We also need to hurry up as I wanted to go 'Cinema Paradiso' to get a membership and rent a DVD (which I thought of in the morning) to see at night. Again membership fee was a bit alarming and yet again when I saw the movie titles there I succumbed to pay it. The drama is not yet over. After having dinner I reached my home to see the movie (needless to say, I was dying to watch it from the morning), but we didn't know about the bigger problem awaiting. Yes, the region thing. My DVD player can play only 'ALL' or '3' regions but the movie I rented was of region '1'. It was very frustuating as it was about 12 at night. We need to wait for tomorrow to resolve it. I thought about the basic Murphy laws of things going wrong. He went and I started watching 'Mission Impossible', just to test my DVD player. I made up mind to get an exchange for my DVD player to something that gives multi-region support. But at 1:30 am , my friend called up to tell that he has found a hack over net to convert it to multi-region. To my surprise, it worked fine and at about 2:00 am, I started watching what I wanted to.

Its a movie by Darren Aronofsky. Its a movie with dynamite performances. Its the movie about addiction of any kind ("Its not only about drug addiction", as Aronofsky puts in an interview). Its a movie which is rich in style and substance, that stays with you long after the brilliantly hard-to-take finale is over. Yes, it is 'Requiem for a Dream'. Its a story about dreams of foursome and journey into 'their' addictions and a grand climax of dreams, told in three seasons Summer, Fall and Winter. Spring never came or it was before Summer, which was never shown on screen. This motion picture becomes harder to take as it moves, it disturbs you to the core, it never-ever has a preachy or pretty tone, it uses hiphop montages to show the effect of addiction and to connect different stories. As you might have heard before too, the last fifteen minutes are hardest to take which may seen as a horrifyingly painful 'Requiem'. About at 4:00 am, I finished the movie. Some might say its 'Nightmare' but that doesn't disqualify it from being a 'Dream'.

The second movie which I saw was at 'Hyderabad Film Club', was pole apart from what I saw on Saturday. Garde a Vue (Police Custody) may not be an exceptionally brilliant movie, when it comes to style and plot, but it excels where few can make it. Its an elegantly restraint cinema. There are no show off, no big sets. Solid performances and thrill sheerly based on dialogues. Its about a a police investigation (rather interrogation) of murder and rape of two 8 year old girls, where the a prime witness becomes prime suspect. The movie is confined to a police station, and mostly to one interrogation room. And there is almost a spark like chemistry between the Inspector and Prime suspect and there exchanges range from the murder, to failed marriages, to divorces, to their general dislike about each other. It too makes a point on police methodology during investigation. Though the prime suspect was not treated badly (as one would expect in India), because he was an influential person, but there was always pressure on him to confess the crime. There was a little 'twist in the tale' at the end but in my opinion what stands out in this movie are strong performances, sheer elegance and intelligent dialouges.

I wish to see more such movies in days to come and I have a huge wish-list.

Scared

One of my friends (unfortunately, whose opinion counts) told me that my blog looks like a self-help book, I am so shattered, rather scared. I feel like someone has told me that you behave like Shahrukh Khan and your life is a farce as 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum' and what not. Looks that you are caught by viral fever when you always preferred dying. I am so scared to write anything. Life slaps you in such unexpected ways.

As you might take it, it's a really serious issue. I do think that I have not crossed 'the thin line' but I am not sure of this too.

Only possibility of escape is that he himself doesn't know what self-help means, as the wise men say when there is benefit of doubt, take the benefit, give the doubt... or as Mr. Calvin says, when in doubt, deny all terms and conditions.

I am somewhat confused, can someone explain me what selp-help means but please leave the 'task' to decide whether my blog belong to that genre to me. I can't take more abuses.

Pain

Pain is a reflection of our emotions when inflicted with some form of discomfort. Its is a difficult feeling, but at the same time very vital. Pain is normal and even natural. Its purpose to to inform us and we need to learn from it. Also without it we will not be able 'really' appreciate the feeling of pleasure. How much we want to run away from pain but in any form of reality, it is sure to exist. Physical pain is rather easy to bear as we have our reasoning intact, and this type of pain is simple to understand, it pains because it’s bleeding. Emotional pain is more difficult to cope with as it directly affects our ability to think objectively. Body easily surrenders to such pain. Sometimes physical pains can be pleasurable, a classic example is childbirth. But emotional pain is almost always painful, but we cannot say it’s harmful. Pain leave deep imprints on you, they live with you, they change you. Even if we think of physical pain, the wounds heal with time, but the emotional trauma attached to it haunts us long after the physical scars are gone.

Pain becomes far more dangerous when we are not able to express it; this soundless pain is a slow and painful killer. There may be many reasons why we cannot express it, one is fear, other may be we are not sure whether to express it or not and if yes, how? One of age old recipe to abase the effect of pain is to express it. But it is not of much help, at least in the latter case. One more cure, which can be implemented, is to find the cause of pain and try to kill it. This works fine for physical pain when we can think objectively, but in case of emotional pain, things are not that straight. Other cure is to take some help from others. Here also, help means correct help, not any help. Now how to find whether it is a correct help or not. This again is dependent on some rational thinking. Probably, a help will qualify to be a correct help if it helps the person to solve the problem, not solves the problem for him/her, also it should not be any imposed help, and it should not solve by obscuring the problem and by giving some comfortable, yet false solution. These types of fake-helps will defeat the purpose of the pain inflicted.

There may be many different theories on why we experience pain. Some of the pains are self-inflicted, and others are attributed to forces not under our control. As far as, self inflicted pains are concerned they are more complex in nature and more painful to bear. Pain coming from external source is easier to bear because we never own the cause, so it’s easy to disown the result too. But in case of external pain sometimes the frustration that we are not able to change the factors that effects us give us more pain than the actual case. In that case too, the internal pain is still more difficult to bear, because the frustration not to control oneself is more hurtful.

The cause of pain range from a direct discomfort to us to a remote discomfort to someone else (this ' someone else' can be a loved one or any stranger from any geography), from wrong done to you to the wrong done by you and the guilt associated, from an external flush of emotions to an internal civil war. Seems like we are going through a complex mixture of pains at any point in time. Some people/philosophies also say that our associations with external world result in more pain. This can be true but what can be done with the internal pain and is it fine to run away from the world because it is painful to be with it. Sometimes, this running itself results in internal pain.

Also, pain is very personal experience. Pain is conceived and experienced differently by everyone. It’s mainly because we react to different situations differently. Since it is such a personal thing, people (other than who is experiencing it) tend not to understand it fully and hence cannot provide the correct help.

When it is even difficult to understand a pain that you experience, its seems childish to write about it in general. But there can be a general consensus on some of things like pain hurts, its quiet normal/natural/essential and there is no escaping it.

Listen this...

I am currently listening to a new Punjaabi album, 'Rabbi'. It is sung/composed/written by Rabbi Shergill. Its is really nice stuff. Almost all the songs are good in terms of lyrics and music, which is so rare these days. Flooded by the similar sounding Punjabi pops, it is a welcome respite. It do break into the bhangra beats, but very decently and there are always good lyrics and music to back it.

Here, you can hear 'Baba Bulle Shahs' Sufiana 'Bulle ki jana' and an excellent 'Heer'. 'Ishtihar' is also good but probably it sounded bit slow to me, but the lyrics are just too good to make for the pace (you can feel when you hear 'Sonni fabbat'). Apart from Bulla ki Jana (Baba Bulle Shah), 'Heer'(Varis Shah) and Ishtihar (Shiv Batalavi), all the lyrics are by Rabbi Shergill, no less beautiful than the others.

And there are more to this album, you have 'Tere Bin' and 'Ajj Nachhna', very hummable. But one of the best songs is the last song called 'Jugni'.

Teri bin sanu sohnia, koi hor nahio labhna,
Jo Dave ruh ko sakoon, chukke jo nakhra mera

Those who understand Punjabi, its a treat to listen this album, for those who donot understand the language, there is so much else to hear and feel and there is an illustrative inlay card. For I fall someway in between and have a repo of listening to Tamil and Malayalam songs, I felt at home.

Side by side, I am listening to Mughal-E-Azam, some of the songs which didn't appear in its colored-avatar are not to be missed. They include 'Aye Ishq yeh sab Duniyawale' and 'Humme Kash tumse Mohabbat'. Again lyrics are treat to ears.

Aye Ishq, yeh sab duniyawaale,
bekaar ki baatein karte hain
Payal ke gamoon ka ilm nahin,
jhankaar ki baatein karte hain

Mr. Sameer, are you listening ?

History and you

How does history effect you ? Is history (as you know it) the 'truth' ?. Can we somehow find out the 'true history', Can past be verified ? If we are never sure about the history, what is the use of referring to something that itself is debatable ? Does this vagueness or uncertainty about history make it more interesting, more thought provoking ... or more subjective and illusory. Certainly, fuzziness of the subject matter give it several dimensions but there are always risks of mis-interpretation (based on ignorance) and mal-interpretation (based on bias and prejudice). So lets start with what we mean by history, history is an interpretation of the past in present for the future based on facts.

Now coming to the truth in history. Lets see it this way, if truth is to be truth, truth must be absolute, independent of any point of view. Keeping this in mind, does history concur to the any levels of truth, and if it doesn't, how can it effect us. But then, does only truth (or the absolute things) effect us. Also this means that 'Jaliawaala bagh massacre' or 'Boston tea party' or 'a 1978 movie release in Europe' don't effect me, as I donot know any truth about them. Here emerge theories like 'Present is everything' and 'Live for Now' but they look baseless and stupid to me (One of such theory can argue that everything is present: present-gone (past), present-still-to-come (future) and momentary flash that is nothing but 'now'..., but these type of arguments try to overemphasize the importance of 'Present').

The point here is not that 'your' past effects you or not (It definitely does) but does the past other than yours have any influence on you. Yes it will, but may be not in a way as you expect probably because you do not know about the history and its interpretation (an exercise to find the truth).

Sometimes I feel that interpretation of history is our duty simply because it effects us (its a big statement, but I do feel it many-a-times). But the problem here is the accumulation of facts and reaching on something objective. Yes, there are lose ends, broken links and lots of interpolations required, but a sincere effort will try to do away with any bias or any reinterpretation on the basis our ever changing prejudices. I am not sure we will ever touch the line of truth (what really happened) but will definitely tend closer to it.

Dance on the tip of iceberg

Dance on the tip of iceberg without caring it will melt soon... dance in the dusk, without caring it will be dark soon... Dance as a metaphor of life is not new. In fact it is one of the oldest.

You have seen all dancing and singing in so called Bollywood-musicals, but 'Naach' is so satisfying an experience mainly because it uses dance and music for all the right reasons, not for what its counterparts use them shamelessly. The characters are real, representing different philosophies ranging from hard-line idealistic and hard-line practical, there are mature discussions between characters and this new-age-dance becomes the duct to ventilate out emotions, showcasing love to frustration to hard-core imagination.

Although the storyline is not new but director never show any guilt for it, all those seen-there-done-before scenes are handled with such smooth novelty that you can hardly point a finger. All this intensity demanded good performances and free-flowing images to match. Antraa Mali has done a brilliant work with all her body-work (elastic dancing) and eye-work (expressive acting). There are times when she hasn't much to speak, as all the dialogue department is given to Abhishek Bachchan. People can argue (including me) that the movie has a slow (rather placid) pace but on a second thought it looks that changing the pace of the movie had not matched the content of the movie, there may be other views for that too. On technical front, it is almost flawless.

This movie may be a hit or flop, but I am glad its made and I saw it.
There is scene in which Abhi (AB) tells Rewa (AM) that it is not easy to achieve what you want to, next cut shows Rewa walking deftly on the spine of an inverted boat, she replies 'Yes, I know'.

Back from Home

I went to my hometown and for the first time in 3 years I celebrated diwaali at home. I donot like meeting too many persons when I go home but if you go home during festivals the number of persons you can meet increases. Obviously, it has advantages and disadvantages both. But this time I met more ppl whom I liked interacting with. Most of them were my parents’ friends and there were others too - like the persons I met in the train and at friends’ house. For some time I will be blogging my experiences on my home visit and its very many interpretations.

As I told you, I met lots of papa's friends and mostly being from the business community give lot of respect to the educated sons and daughters of their peers and I too get share of it (deservingly or otherwise) and very often they discuss about their children and the life in general. Two of the papa's friends whom I met and they shared their view with me were Mr. Magendra Singh (Darogaa [Police] Uncle) and Mr Mithan Lal (Mithan Uncle).

Darooga Uncle was our neighbor when I was in class 5 or 6. We lost touch when he got transferred to Aligarh. He is again back to Muzaffarnagar but with lots of pressure to get transferred again to some non preferred location. When I met Uncleji that day he has just out of bed and was smoking ‘Wills’ instead of his old favorite ‘Capstan’. There were other things also that have changed about him. He was not the same tough guy and sounded very bitter at times. His promotion to Inspector is pending for about 3-4 years and according to him frequent change in governments and their policies are the culprits. He is also of the opinion that Thakurs are being neglected in the promotions. He then came to the transfer issue and rationalized taking bribes. He told about the rates of getting/stopping transfers to preferred/not-preferred locations. It depends on areas/Zila/tahseel/thaanaa etc.., more specific location, more price, it varied from 1 to 10 lac per transfer. He argued that we demand bribes to get the money to give for transfers. So all bad is done in name of police but the money goes to politicians. He also gave me advice to start taking bribes from the day one of the job (I joked that I'm not a Government servant, he joked back saying " Tum to hum se bhi gaaye gujare ho, tumhaare to haath hi kate hain”). Apart from it he also told about the advent of thakur clan and that he belongs to the most pure one and strongly advocated on the need to marry within your community and its social and other benefits.

All these talks over tea brought lot of things to think. First thing is about the the real root of corruption and the age old theory of blame. It also bring forth the frustration (whether right or wrong), when you donot get long due things like promotions. Thirdly, there is a strong points on the politics of transfers ( In UP, its considered next worse thing to Kidnaps). Also, his strong stand on the casteism showed how deep root it is, how much modern we try to pose. When I meekly opposed to it than he cunningly laughed saying " Saale, kabhi na kabhi to Muzaffarnagar to aayege hi". Also dishing out advice to be corrupt as soon as possible also needs to be pondered. This advice reminds me of my University days when I met one of UOR Alumni & he told me "Honest are those who doesn't get the opportunity to be corrupt".

Opposite of Love

I was thinking to write about love, but found it too difficult, it may be because my naivety in the field or its too difficult an idea to comprehend. so I thought why not write something about 'Opposite of Love'. So you have it.

Disclaimer: Before reading this post, I warn the softie hearts of its high senti levels. Also it is not based on any personal experience :).

I have long back heard that the opposite of love is not hate, its indifference. They say its as unmagnetic as magnetic love is.Love is such a universal feeling, indifference is such a closed, hopeless and irritatingly-empty feeling. Hate, in many ways, is better than indifference. Firstly when you hate( or hated by) someone, at least you care (or get cared). And its lot easier to hate someone you loved than be indifferent. Also, being hated by someone you loved is not as painful as getting indifference in return.

We hate because of many reasons, one of which is we have loved or loved by someone but unfortunately or otherwise, it is no more the case. Hate may be seen as an effort to write off someone and try to gain some comfort with it. It include things like lying to yourself and try to see all bad, like trying to paint a false picture to console oneself but the beauty of this is that we know its all false but we need to get in terms with it to go on but again we think if this is the way to go on, should we go like this or it make some sense or its beginning of some bigger compromise in life and is he/she so bad to hate or its just me, who is now making fool of myself, its complex but this feeling of hate is more like that of compassion. So it cannot be opposite of another feeling of compassion, love. To me their basic nature looks same, at least now.

The feeling of indifference is much more difficult to practice when you are still in love. Its like turning a blind eye to a bleeding limb. Being indifferent require a tough heart -to say the least. and on the other side when you are inflicted with such a thing, its most helpless of feelings to suffer with. Its more or less like the death of the loved, even more painful because he/she is not dead but living to haunt you to death or till you too become indifferent, but its not easy on being either side of this feeling, so unlike love.

My views may be amateurish, but its good to put down to verify them at a 'later day'....

Random Thoughts

Sometimes after losing all hopes, we feel free like we have finished all work. Since the work cannot be done, so it is 'done with' in a way. This feeling is not a satisfying one but nonetheless it a feeling of break from what we really don't like to do.

Sometimes, rather most of times, we have all sorts of incoherent ideas coming to our mind and we try to suppress them to think what we are supposed to. With time we try to master this art of suppression to a level we even didn't notice that we are suppressing and start falsely assuming those thoughts never came.

Most of the times, we try to be different in what ever way because we don't want to be lost in crowd. We try to make a style of our own, for which we intelligently copy from others whom we think are different, thus making them common. Some ppl even refer to it as fashion.

Most of the time, we are on an effort to change others, intentionally or otherwise. We discuss what we believe in, protect it, propagate it and preach it. We are always on a look out to effect others and change them.

Some of us, find complexity of things interesting while others like simplicity. We try to convert every thing to which ever form we like. We try to find simple theory for complex things and try to complexify simple things hence disregarding both the simplicity and complexity of things.

For most of us, life works on the combination of hints and associated guesswork. Most of the time we fail to get the puzzles and all the time we try to fit some answers to the puzzles.

We Change

Its a different question whether it is for good or bad but we change. Some things in life try to kill you, those which fail, change you. If you change, you are not the same i.e. your previous self is killed and the mission is partially accomplished.

This every day killing is not a senti or warning stuff. It is like you get killed and you kill others and yourself. This bloodless killing is more important than the ordinary killings as we survive to bear to pain (or pleasure) of it. Some ppl like to change and other resist it or yet others donot care and change anyway. If we change everyday, even if a bit only, are we going to change fully to some other person. The thought scares in same way as I am going to die one day. If nothing is my own (I'm not talking about the material things) and what I think is 'myself' is going to change sooner or later to probably something which I hate today, the day is not far, I will hate my previous self. Its like hating some other person, just this is not going to harm the other as the 'hated one' is already dead. Sounds that, we are many persons at a time, one in dying state and other in making... sounds good.

They also say "which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger", probably they are talking about change. I am not taking about the 'Change for the sake of it', its shit and as bad as lip synching on stage, fooling yourself along with thousand others. Intentional changes are not bad. They may be efforts to improve, its like killing yourself for good. But one thing I have assumed is that the pre-self is totally killed in this killing, but there must be some old blood left to revolt for its survival. These types of 'Civil wars' may not always result in revolutions but will definitely result in other changes.

So the bad news is that we are going to be killed and the good news is that we will survive.

About Teachers

Again back to school time. I am thinking to start with some funny anecdotes of the school time and some other things . I have forgotten many of them and my sense of humor has corrupted to an incorrigible state since then, so the incidents/interpretation may be not exact. One more thing that although I am making fun of my teachers here.... but thats it, its not being disrespectful to them (ok some of them)...

I am starting with our Maths teacher. Mr. Ashok Singhal was a funny figure with a ‘bold’ sense of humor. He had some irritating habits like dividing the black board into three parts as soon as he enters the class and using students from three rows as volunteers to rub the blackboard.
It was irritating/interesting bit because of following few reasons:
1) It was supposed to be a competition between the rows.
2) Ashok sir has kept nicknames and picked up students randomly from the rows by calling nicknames and nicknames keep on changing (Nick name for ‘Ram Gupta’ can be ‘Ramlal’ or ‘Ramu’)
3) Since all were supposed to rub the BB cleanly (competition?), it results in high jump by over-enthusiatic girls and sure shot fun, smaller boys also tried to jump but Ashok sir stopped them, he definitely had a soft corner for Guys and their fun :)).
4) Who so ever, rubbed date (lefttop thing on BB), has to write it back and since all this cause delays, that row was penalized and there is long list of penalties, his class was all about chalking, rubbing and dusting.
There are some funny conversations in class with Ashok sir. Here is one (try to get the humor).
Sir (teaching moment, torque and couple): Do anyone know what do we mean by Couple.
Sir (seeing no one is answering): Chalo, tell me what do you mean by couple generally.
Sir (pointing to the naughty boy): Yes, You tell me.Naughty boy stands and Smiles shyly again.
Sir (with silly expression): OK OK, sit down.., I understand your feelings.

Next in line are our English teachers. Lets start with Black mother. She is motherly in attitude and Black in color, and hence the name. There are other theories also. One says that students started with kaali maa, but see our school is a so-called english medium school and Black Mother was our English teacher, with due respect to these facts,her name was duely changed to black mother. Other theory was that she was imported from Africa and was mother of Nelson Mandela , so Black mother. There were other uninteresting theories about it too. There were other names also like 'Moorni' (Peahen), because of her 'chaal', out-of-parlor look and iridescent sari colors. Her names are all we can talk about her.

And one of other English teachers was Popli madam, I donot remember her real name. But even if you see her for the first time, you will shout POPLI, the name is just apt - to say the least. Popli means someone who has no teeth. But Popli madam had teeth, but she had never shown them to anyone, even not to 'Bruno'. Students had figured out the teeth thing by the grunting sound she used to make on seeing other English teachers especially Black mother. Popli madam used to claim that she has taught in very good schools and to very intelligent students in past and because of husband's transfers she used to keep giving up lucrative jobs and her career has ruined to an extent where she has to teach us. She handled this odd situation very intelligently by not teaching us at all and keeping her stds. All her classes were monologues on how her family life is, how brilliant her sons are, how she once met Hema Malini, how funny her pet 'Bruno' behaves, how she wanted to be a doctor, how her brother had written a wonderful book, how her husband is devoted to his duty, how he neglects other duties, how many different saris she has, how she hates to show off, how she didn't like teachers with no sense of dress and etiquette's, etc... But it was all interesting stuff, at least till she starts teaching.

Next teachers to write on are our Hindi teachers. Lets start with Talwar ma'am (her surname), her obvious nickname was chhuri (knife), and she personified her name. She was famous for backbiting against students in front of their Parents on 'Parents Day' (Although, technically it was not backbiting as the student was there sitting, actually is was worse that that). She used to tell all the horror stories to the parents like a bollywood masala movie with comments like 'Main aur kya batao, aap issi se pooch lijiye' pointing to the ward.

Next in the row is Anu Madam. She is the one who initiated my interest in Hindi. She taught me for three consecutive years, ie 8th to 10th. She used to put lot of emphasis on handwriting, thats where I developed some love for calligraphy. One more thing she is famous for- was scaring for the boards’ exam (more or less every teacher do, but she had mastered that art). Usually she used to take classes from 9th std, but for us, all the boards-is-spooky thing started from 8th class. We are scared to a level that we believed what Anu Madam was saying. She was just saying to put all our efforts in Hindi, because it is our national language, if you wont, who will... She could have joined BJP or Shiv sena and taught them a trick or two. Except for this, she was an excellent teacher, always came prepared to teach and expected that preparedness from us too. Yes, forgot to mention, her nickname was Hitler.

RP Singh Sir, PTI and Pitai Teacher: As a true Jaat PTI, he knew only following english sentences:
1) Boys, Make a straight line
2) On the mark, get set go...
3) Move fast
4) Come here
5) Go out
6) Hands up
7) What is your name
8) Left right left...
9) I slap tightly, ask him

MK Gupta Sir, Physics teacher: He was self-proclaimed Military man, used to dress like Govinda.
Quotable quotes: 1) If I sneeze in the class today, the whole city will know tomorrow, the world is a small place (Its like making love to the 'city' and saying 'You mean world to me').
2) I can give you in writing that this question will come in the Annual exam, and if doesn't come I will stop teaching (Its a win-win situation)

He is that kind of irritating teacher who used to ask questions, when asked a qusetion.
An example ...
MKG (reading from his notes): The nearest star to Sun is Alpha Centuri.
Student: Sir, what is the approx. distance from sun/earth?
MKG (Finding the info is not in notes): kya tumhe yahan se dilli ka distance pata hai, Alpla centuri ki baat karte ho.
MKG will well be writing poetry than teaching physics, a potential sher from MKG:
Khud to duriyoon ke maane bhi jaante nahin, bas badi badi baat karte hain
Mujhse poochte hain woh duriyoon ke sabab, dil jalane ki baat karte hain

This list is incomplete without mentioning Shobha Ma'am. She taught us history for two years (9th and 10th). My idea of a good teacher has her as template. Her characteristics are must have for a teacher. What she develops in teaching is interest, a sense of inquisitiveness. Her effort to teach is one of the most honest efforts, I have come across. She took us from Stone Age to World war to Modern World history. She used to use maps to teach history, like at a point of time where all in the world something was happening and how it affected each other. She used to act in the class like how Neanderthal man used to walk or how Hitler used to talk, thus bringing much required life to dead history. She used to draw parallels between different times and different persons in history. Its very difficult to think how she used to teach the same things, with same interest year after year, without loosing interest herself.

This list of teachers is long, but its enough for now, I’ll be BACK :)

Vithikaa...

I went to lots of places in Hyderabad this month. It included Salarjung Museum where I saw some of most beautiful pieces of art.

I was interested in calligraphy in my teens and just thought good handwriting is calligraphy, later I learnt that its much more than that and tried some styles (in devnagari) but was not able to gather much interest. It resurfaced that day when I saw some of the excellent Persian, Urdu and Arabic Calligraphy work at Salarjung. I was not able to read anything but those handwritten manuscripts are real work of art. Then there were one of my favorite forms of art, miniature paintings, in Mughal, Rajasthani, Pahari and Deccani styles. Also, there were very delicate works on wood, ivory and jades. But something that mesmerized me was a sculpture by Italian sculptor G.H Benzoni, named 'Veiled Rebecca'. It was truly remarkable sculpture with Rebecca's marvelous face clearly visible through a flimsy/translucent marble veil. Even after seeing her 2-3 times it looked that milk is poured on her and it has frozen and it is not marble. What a beauty...

I have recently seen (about two months ago) a film by French Director Nicolas Philibert named Louvre City (La Ville Louvre). It showed people hanging paintings, reorganizing rooms, and moving work around at Louvre Gallery in Paris, its more like a documentary. Little by little characters (workers at Louvre) appear and weave together the thread of a narrative. From studios to stacks and reserves containing thousands of picture, sculptures, works of art... this is the discovery of a city with a city. I remember an interesting discussion between two of the workers about a sculpture that whether it is by Michelangelo or someone else as the identity tag was missing, they were discussing about its beard style to figure it out. There were scenes how every thing was put perfectly on walls like a mural. Its showed how biggest of the paintings and the smallest of the artifacts are taken care of. It has a 10 min uncut scene (movie time is about 80-90 min) of how a broken pot (of the size of an small apple) is treated, marked, bought from basement labs to the top floor through a labyrinth of stairs and lifts very carefully. The broken pot was wrapped in a white cloth like a small delicate creature and was placed on the top floor with thousands of its counterparts.

I am not drawing any comparison between Salarjung and Louvre. Louvre is much bigger in content and space, and boosts to be house of paintings like 'Monalisa' and 'The Last Supper', but the love for art and preserving it is the same.

One more thing, I got the hindi (actually Sanskrit) word for 'Gallery' there (I was not knowing it before), and hence the title of this blog.

Extended Schooling

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught -Oscar Wilde

We are all send to schools when young. With time every thing is modeled as schools. When a person grows up, he wants school-type-spoon-feeding in every sphere, and people are ready to feed him with whatever they like (or have) at every possible opportunity. Some of the times, because of this schooling all around, we may end up becoming more open to things when they come as easy as schooling rather than where we need to dig and find out. We need crystal clear, easily digestible answers whenever there exist some questions to disturb our equilibrium and this schooling comes handy.

Extended schooling should be checked, especially when it comes to some basic questions of life and its ways. Due to the inherent problem of being one-way preaching, it never leads to a healthy discussion. There are benefits of schooling at young age because it was assumed then, that all the thinking is to be done by the teacher/preacher and he/she is intelligent enough to answer our questions and honest enough to raise questions both for and against the thought. When we grow up all this good looking schooling contradicts with the basic idea of free thinking, firstly because it preaches, and secondly because it encourages us not to think (rather think in 'their' way). Its like saying " We have done all the thinking and ground work for you, you should be now ready to use and benefit from it". You may feel vindicated by outsourcing all your worries/problems and getting all the comfort, but you may indeed be comforting with some comfortable falsehood. All this brainwash of making you light and free, do cost a thing. You are living 'your' life with someone else' thoughts and prejudices.

Extended schooling is dangerous in more ways than one. It comes (or forced) to us as a friendly thing and all this disservice is done in the name of giving and receiving. This type of distributed architecture of thinking here and working there leads to slavery of very basic form, slavery of mind.

The antidote to it is to be skeptically receptive i.e. analyze before you inhale.

Desire

Desire is one aspect of life which is almost always seen in bad light. Most of the religious philosophies put a theory of restrain when it comes to desire. Some of the branches of Buddhism/Hinduism say "desire is the root of suffering and stands in the way of enlightenment". Lets leave the second part of the statement as I am not clear what they mean by 'enlightenment' (Can be discussed separately, check out this blog :))). We will stick to desire here.

First of all, why a theory of restrain? Can we not flourish with a unconstrained approach. One reason may be because constrain puts limits to equations and used to get more quick (rather easy) answers.

Its difficult but lets imagine a world without an iota of desire. People donot have any motives. People live and die. They donot try to improve themselves, their surroundings simply because all are surviving. But with limited resources, increasing population will imbalance the equation, and if we say they donot even have the desire to multiply, they will die down anyway (assuming they cannot live forever). So to satisfy this equation, either resources should grow or only some of the people should survive. But who should survive, the one who have desire to or the one without it. Obviously, the set of people having desire to survive. Others will not. So desire is as elementary an idea that will decide our survival.
One more striking thing which comes up is that the religious philosophies which preach to shun desire are ultimately aimed at ending all life. Seems strange.

If we move from basic desire to survive to more complex desires like to create, to improve, to invent, to discover, to question, to think.., the bigger picture will emerge. Putting restrain on desire directly put restrain on our growth and freedom. Then why all this bad-talk about desire.

One of the reason may be as desire is the driving force for all (all good and all bad). It may be viewed as a necessary evil. Again the moral question of good and bad surges. The desire to kill a person is bad. The desire to love is good. But not everything is as black and white as this. Is desire to compete good or bad? Is desire to make money good or bad? Is desire to progress good or bad ? Here comes the restrain theory whose non conservative approach says everything in moderate amount is not bad. But this theory is flawed in this respect also because of its vagueness, an infinite possibility of misuse by the chosen few and because of a direct conflict with the basic idea of freedom.

So here again we have more questions than answers. Desire is essential but 'what type of' and 'what amount of' desire is necessary or can be tolerated in a society. Will moderating/policing desire bring more evil than good. What happens if your desire to do something becomes your passion (Theory of restrain fails utterly here)... What if survival is not our primary desire. ... ?? What about self fulfillment ... ??

Loss of innocence.

I read it some where about the loss of innocence, "You will never realize till the time you have lost it". Looked like a Catch-22 situation. Hence some pondering here.

Loss of innocence is a universal feeling which all of us have been through sometime, to some extent in life. Not everyone can exactly recall that moment when he realized that the world is not as pleasant a place which he had thought of before, but nearly everyone has a vague idea of it . Its like a bad ending to a childhood fairly tale.

First of all, lets see the what innocence means. According to Dictionary.com, Innocence is :The state, quality, or virtue of being innocent, as:
a) Freedom from sin, moral wrong, or guilt through lack of knowledge of evil.
b) Guiltlessness of a specific legal crime or offense.
c) Freedom from guile, cunning, or deceit; simplicity or artlessness.
d) Lack of worldliness or sophistication; naiveté.
e) Lack of knowledge or understanding; ignorance.
f) Freedom from harmfulness; inoffensiveness.

First thing to notice is that it may come from lack of knowledge but it is a state of freedom from sin, guilt, deceit and worldliness. To be innocent is to be simple and artless. And we usually associate innocence to children and the young. Also, being innocent is being harmless.

Then what is Loss of innocence. Does it mean its a process of moving from childhood to adulthood or a state of mind..

To start with, during the early days our notions of good and bad are still in formation. As told by parents/teachers we consider them so. Our circle of friends and acquaintances increases and we try to change overselves according to the notions of the society. Also we think ourselves about various aspects of life and form opinions. These alterations rephrase our ideas about ourselves and others. Now we have two blurred pictures about life, one of the ideal one and the second is the the real one. The ideal picture has everything in black and white. Real picture is harsher with crude realities about life like you need to earn good to lead a decent life, there is competition waiting for you in every sphere of life, people are not always what they say, you cannot afford to be true to everyone, and being a human being you have your share of worries, guilts and responsibilities. Clash starts between the two. Most of the times the real view emerges as a winner but all this tussle results in cracking of the ideal picture, even if not fully but beyond use. This marks the beginning of loss of innocence. For some ppl it may take lots of time. For some it may not even break to a unusable state.

In cases where it breaks, it is painful and as any genuine pain, it lingers on for whole life.

Now some questions which arise are "should we save innocence", "Is innocence meant to be lost", "can we be innocents as we grow up, i.e. Can an innocent survive in society", "Can loss of innocence be associated with realization of truth and progress on urge to learn, work, and act upon the necessary needs for survival".

These question will require some pondering, and there are strong argumnets on either side. On the first view, the idea of innocence seems too romantic to lose , but after some thought it appears too vulnerable to break anyway. The loss may be confusing, and even painful but seems very important for the discovery of the true human nature and the so called 'real world'.

I'm such a loser

I started with some affection for self-help because this shit is so easy to fall for. But now I abhor it in totality simply because it is disgusting.

One recent incident bought so many things to forefront. Some of my office colleagues were listening to an audio in full volume by one of the most irritating self-help gurus His-Highness-do-things-my-way-Shiv-guruji-Khera. When I heard it, I rushed to the accident place for rescue and told that its all stupidity. They are all so involved in the shit that they took my running for my want to listen to that crap.

They started it from beginning. God proclaimed things which the non-god should be doing. Non-God are losers by default, not that I mind being a loser but how is guruji so sure of that. And above all God had recipes for all the worldly problem faced by the non-gods. My colleague argued whats wrong if we follow the guruji's experimented formula, gain from it and be a Winner. The so-called experimented recipes include things like 'Do it anyway' as if its as exciting and inviting as ridiculing Shiv Khera. Now the world seemed to be divided in two sections Winners and losers. Winners are those who follow guruji and 'do it anyway' and Losers are those who think and 'do it their way'. I felt, I'm such a loser.

One of the many quotable quotes from Guruji's speech. "Losers don't want to get up in the morning and they don't, Winners also don't want to get up in the morning, but they do it ANYWAY".

Amusement in crap

We adapt with our surroundings and if our surroundings are crap we adjust to that crap, knowingly or otherwise. One of the easiest way to adjust with crap is to take amusement in crap.

Take for an example how the sensible lot used to crib when they first heard or saw remixes, now some of them find amusement in them. From 'amusement' here, I mean a pleasure/excitement which is not generated out of love or respect or curiosity but by sheer disrespect. The pleasure thus gained is of high order and quality.

One more example which comes to my mind is watching the serial 'Alif Laila'. This is one of the crappest serial ever made, even the producer/director knew that its crap.But it provided quality entertainment mainly because it was not meant to laugh on. During Doordarshan days, this type of crap was difficult to find only because the airing time was small. Today there is no dearth to it...

Being part of one of the most uneventful professions, I am always on a look to find amusement in the crap around me. I can recall taking amusement in group mails, management crap and design documents to name a few. There are some instances where this crap and the amusement, relieved me from work stress.

To take amusement in crap helps reducing in the cribbing attitude towards that crap. I donot know if it is Ok not to crib, but I prefer amusement to cribbing. Some ppl can argue that taking amusement from it like patronizing crap or taking it easy. They have a point here but I have noticed over time that crap is not worth taking seriously and it generates more crap in return.

There is a sort of sadistic pleasure and also require some critical amount of self-esteem to indulge in this pleasure. Morally, it may not be considered the right thing to do, but again who is here to define our moral standards. Show the morality bibles to those who make crappy movies, serials and self-help.

School time friends

Was thinking to write something about my school days...here it is....

On God and Religion ...

This is cut-paste from one of my discussion with a friend about advent of Religion/God.

We started with pagan gods, (which is quite logical ) basically we can say that we started believing in god as 'something' who can control what we cannot control like extremities of nature. but as human race developed mentally, we devised other means to save ourselves from nature ( like establishments were made near river to do away with drought and cities were built on higher elevation to check floods , to name a few..., and these things are done even now... nature can't be overtaken or abated so we still worship rain gods & the likes..) . So in most of the cases, the identity of GOD started with fear and in the others cases as a custom...When population increased, the emphasis on society and behavior started which was required for the smooth/controlled working of the society... Imagine a situation where everyone worshipping their own pagan gods which donot put any moral limitations on the people. After morality and virtues ( like kindness, love, peace, compassion, brotherhood, code of conduct for men and women, about different strata of society.. so on and so forth) are attached to religion, the need for social security (ppl living in groups want to grow their groups and feel secure with more and more no. of ppl who have the similar beliefs ) also started. I mean to say that by that time ppl have started living in much larger and more organized groups with leaders, territories and the belief defined, so the groups started protecting them by increasing their reach in terms of ppl and lands. One of the way is to annex the territory. But very gradually it would have been realized that it is not going to help in long run as the annexed societies and group will resurface because they will think that they have been enslaved and estranged from their own beliefs. A slower but effective way was to spread your thoughts. And the easier way was to spread your religion which is infact a set of belief in some supreme power and the customs with it. So wars were being fought on the basis of religion. By this time , no one caring about what a religion is, it has become to tool to govern god-fearing masses and to bring more in sphere of influence.The powerful lot were using god and religion to motivation the masses to fulfill their vested interests. But there is one more thing, for the masses, now there is something bigger than the king/leader/master which they can look upto, there is 'some' messiah who can save from the world's pain and agony, ( although no one can see HIM, but he seems to be the Robin hood...). Now god and religion have taken the connotations of 'Savoir' and 'Hope'. In the course, different free thinking individuals came from time to time to propound their philosophy and it had changed the beliefs and ideas of ppl and newer philosophy emerged, this caused the existing ones to fear and to plunder the new ideas. The religion by now turned to the power and the number games. But it kept the masses occupied and thats why Karl Marx has once very rightly said ' Religion is the opiate of the masses'. Every now and then similar questions were raised in different religion like what is truth or what is right code of conduct and what do we get on being moral and where will we go.... and why we have came to the world, hence, all the religions documented their answers and ppl preached them ( most of the time without analysing or understanding them).... I think that bringing some amount of morality to the masses ( although mostly by fear, not by logic) is the most significant achievement of religion. People also found some solace in religion and GOD mostly because they start believing in the philosophy of a religion. So the use/context/need/interpretation of god/religion changed as human race evolved.

Comments invited...

The art of Procrastination

Believe it or not, Procrastination is an art. Although being a very fast learner, I took relatively lesser time to master it, you may take some time...:))
Previously I used to worry about things to be done, I still worry about them... also I used to feel guilty about the things that I have not done, the guilt is still there... let me make this clear that this art is not going to help on those fronts...A master of procrastination will not care about worry and guilt, he will simply procrastinate to care about them, till they die their natural death...
Let us take a simple example to explain it. 3 guys working on a project in final semester. Guy A at his room, starts off my making his mind to work. But before starting he wants to relax(he is knowing that it will go for long, its already 10:30 pm) with his favorite music( to listen) and favorite magazine(to see). In this relaxing mode Guy B entered the room with urgency to work on the project, seeing Guy A in a relaxing mode, first he vent off his anger on him by giving the bad shape of the project work... Now the atmosphere is tense and they are both hungry (its 11:15 at night, they need to go and fetch something before the shops closes)... they both start off to eat something and discuss their project over tea as they both have a big idea of what needs to be done, make very stringent dead lines and make promises in mind to deliver... its 12:30 now and the third Guy (Guy C) is still not there. They both start to discuss why they have taken such a stupid guy with them, who has no sense of himself, doesn't work and never motivates... good and coherent discussion goes on... now its 1:15 at night and they both make their mind to start the work seriously... Guy C enters the room, and shows his dissatisfaction over life in general. and all three discuss this common topic about life.. its now 2:30 am, time for Guy A to sleep and since they need to work together its all deferred till tomorrow.
There are some of the finer points to the story. first is procrastination comes by induction. And ppl in group try to procrastinate more easily and coherently. secondly, there is an inherent urge to procrastinate and fortunately ( or unfortunately), as you start to learn this art there is an initial thrust and as you progress things become easier and easier (some of us will not even figure out the process which made us the master in this area) and thirdly the worry and guilt part are becoming lesser and lesser with time ( i.e. till the third guy arrives and because there is always a tomorrow)...
Now a question for those all who read this, Who of the three Guys is the best procrastinator ( please give your reasons to it and you can make reasonable assumptions)...

What's this and why this...

...I was thinking what is Blogging... Is it some sort of pseudo-exhibitionism... or a calculated show-off of your philosophising nature..or a document which YOU can read later with nostalgia... anyway your are publishing it to all and obviously want others to read (otherwise you can very well write on a notepad..). Also you know that not everyone in interested in u and if someone is, he/she may be least interested on the blogs. So let me confess, its a well-intended show-off :))... and sincere suggestion is "if you donot like it, ignore it"...:))
Now another question why I decided to write it..one of the reasons is today I am free and second is because others do and thirdly I felt sort of good doing it today. I have thought to continue it for sometime and hope that sometime will be long enough, at least longer than that daily-dairy thing..

C&H and me...

...as I was thinking before too, one of my early posts will be on the Calvin and Hobbes and my increasing affinity to it... I was seriously thinking what made me such a fan ... But before having a discussion with my friends, I thought of pondering myself... Lets start it... It was a very usual day and one of those nostalgic training time days in Bangalore, just SEEing 'Bangalore Times' over tea, I was struck in a crossword ( as usual, and there is a classic C&H about crosswords...). Surfing usually thru the comic strips and found a whining kid with messy hair shouting at his parents for apparently no tangible reason... the idea seemed to me ridiculous (Now the same idea amuses me, see the difference:))... But the second day I went again to see the then-thought crap called Calvin and hobbes and within little time, the philosophy of the strip surfaced and resonated... the humor and the situations are so Calvin-oriented that you felt like Calvin and told by a six-year old made them all the more magnetic and untamed ... Hobbes always gave the counter views and made the philosophizing discussions more wholesome, although the calvinism dominated always...All other characters are there to define and enrich the Calvin's amateurish versatility... Probably, the situational autopsy of common issues associated with uncommon wit and arguments attracted me... I still feel the same mastery of Bill Waterson art when I read and re-read the same strips. There is Cavin speaking on Good, Bad, ethics, parenting, consumerism, commercialization, love, evolution, and what not ... Still I can't put finger on what drew me to the C&H, but It has done it for sure and quite effortlessly...

Here I blog...

Created the blog JUST now...!!! Not sure about the setting and the blog title (recommended by 'someone':)) , will be changing soon... Will be back with some more postings... probably on .... later... :))