..of a flash mob!

Watched this...and watched this a few more times...ahh that feeling of elation! Wondering how those who were present there must have felt...and wondering how those who brought this into existence must have felt!

Orchestrated with the help of authorities at CST, police etc, and choreographed, unlike the ones in the West, where they often are spontaneous bursts of activity, this flash mob deserves every bit of applause for the brilliance of its spectacle. And, what a sport the authorities were!

Where I am concerned, it is moving, inspiring and left me with a good taste! And..adding being a part of a flash mob..wont burgeon my already swelling 'TO DO things before I Die' list!

cheers to these guys!

why do I...what..

..read books? Magazines, newspapers, on web,even technical manuals? poetry...philosophy...Ayn Rand...Jared Diamond...nerdiness...isnt it kind of...mad? is it?
No..for me..thats how it is. It is my food...my fodder...the obsession is what keeps me on high. When my thoughts meet with those of others' through what they write, a new thread comes up...larger..stronger..and these threads ..some from long forgotten memories...some from moments gone by weave together..to create ideas, dreams, possibilities, futures, plans, poems, stories..and God knows what.
I feel very strongly and fanatically about it. How could one know how to read and still not reading? Not putting his/her cognition on the verge..so that those who have been long gone..and those who are writing the future ...can touch them, titillate them, move them and create something new, or dig out something old, or just for the sake of it, unsettle..let them wander around and then go down again. Such a shame! Such a waste!
For me, every one who wants to read, ever, anywhere, is a hero, allowing himself/herself to be vulnerable enough to be touched and influenced to bring about God knows what and to what end!

IBc!

What use is philosophy if it is not practicable and cannot be used by a person to lead a happy life? What use are intellectual discussions if they cannot be applied to make a difference, in the life of a man walking on the road? Just a vulgar time pass for the elitist, sitting on couches in swank coffee shops or cozy drawing rooms or blogging his/her way out and busy shooting others down in chat rooms, who can make intelligent remarks about everything and everybody, but cannot bear the uncouthness of the situations when faced by them on the road. This, if I may get the credit of coining the phrase, I have named “Intellectual Bakchodi” or “IBc”( Yes, the c is small as h in PhD!). All fart and no shit.

People read Ayn Rand and try to imitate her characters, none of whom resemble real life, and fail to even become second rate or third rate Roarks, Reardens or Anconias. Haven’t met a Dagny Taggart yet, but I am sure there would be a good number of them. Illusions of so called individualistic entities, created through the lens of a desire to look and sound different from the ‘crowd’, make them dogmatic and stale, bitter and critical of everything. And they stink! Labeling everything in two categories: Peter Keating and Howard Roark, you cannot overlook the ‘in betweens’. You are a part of the crowd, inhaling the same air which it exhales, walking the same earth and eating the same grain. What would set you apart is what you do with your life living within same constraints, same air, water and earth, not the permanently frosty expression of a nose exposed to infernal stench.

Seeing the world through half baked understanding of philosophies and inside a blind veneration of their exponents is a source of immeasurable amount of miseries. Personal philosophy has to evolve, and to be chosen consciously, having been questioned, tested and experimented with in life’s situations. It is built over time, thread by thread, shard by shard. Of course, dramatic incidents in life have power to alter the view for a lifetime, yet, it is not something to be imitated after reading a few books, listening to a few people or hammered in or dictated by your parents, because then, you are just copies coming out of an assembly line from the same mould, maybe expert in IBc, but lifelessly shallow.

waiting and waiting and waiting...

The wait can be so excruciating! more so when you want something so badly and desperately... Where I was complaining that the life has zoomed past so quickly in last 2-3 years, these days Every single day seems like 24 long hours... The wait brings to mind all sort of things..a fear of things bad to worse...an expectation of good to great. Its really tough..very tough...not to look, or think towards it.In any case, the wait has revealed to me one thing about myself for sure..I am so restless...I knew I was..always..but never so!

All I pray is that it is worth it.Come on now..its been too long!

Something about Audio books!

Finished reading..err..listening Steve jobs’ biography,’ iCon’! Wanted to read the book since a long time. Laid my hands on it a couple of times but could never go beyond a couple of chapters, thanks to my preoccupations. So there I was, searching for the audio version and on acquiring, listening through it and finding that it was worth every bit of it! The powerful, modulating voice of the narrator, providing apt dramatic intonations in between, pausing at pivotal instances to make an effect and ruthlessness in trying to create an unbiased character sketch of Jobs, with all his follies and his Genius, made it an interesting audio, assisted by a good audio player and lot of time during transit. Not only it saved a lot of the time I would have spent reading the book, it made me appreciate again what the audio books have to offer subtley and powerfully!

I have known audio books for 7-8 years now, and have tried to make a good use of it, trying to collect them whenever and wherever I can. Buying mp3 player enabled me listening them per my will. Although I would always maintain that the touch and feel of a book in hand is unmatchable when comparing with listening its audio version or a watching a movie based on it. Still I believe that an audio can be a good and worthy substitute if you already have your platter full. It can be very powerful tool to quickly self educate or self enable or train on any topic under the sun, since they seem to be available on any topic under the sun! If the thought of ‘educating’ sounds boring, take a Novel by any of the masters up. Fire a query on Amazon.com to get an idea and surprise yourself by the variety of technical, spiritual, self help, thrillers, mysteries, horror, business, fiction, non-fiction, educational, children’s, and languages etc literature available in audio format.

Although the audio books have existed for ever in form of tapes or audio cassettes, the proliferation through internet, on cds and in most user friendly, compressed formats like mp3, seems to have revolutionized their use. Almost all the books in hard copy seem to come out in an audio version without fail to capture the readers’ eagerness and enriching their experience of a book and its message. I find podcasting as it exists, an extension of the same phenomenon .So be it a Stephen Covey or a Wayne Dyer or a Deepak Chopra, or J K Rowling, Dan Brown or Robert Ludlum, or it be the latest issue of New Scientist or Harvard Business Review or The Economist, all are eager to have their message conveyed, their stories heard, lending their own voice, or having someone else do it.

As I find the audios and the audiophiles increasing and the kind of content available, I find it unaffordable not to explore what this medium has to offer in terms of ease of spread of information, Self education & training, keeping updated and entertainment. Definitely, looking for more of them this summer!

Adi at 25!

The last half an hour of 25th year of my existence counting its final breaths! A quarter of century done..more to come..
Lot of thoughts in mind..but no mood to pen down at the moment..meanwhile...

kya Adi apne sapne poore kar payega? kya usko wo milega jo wo chahta hai? ya wo aise hi bheed mein gum ho jayega? In sab sawaalon ke jawab jaanne ke liye dekhte rahiye ye jagah!

..train ki window wali seat..

I am sitting on a window seat of AC coach, coming to Delhi from Chandigarh.Nothing out of ordinary. Being Thursday, the coach is relatively empty, my row, completely.The light is quite dimmed here, at the back of the coach, a couple of tube lights gone off.Outside the window, the blue of the twilight sky is fast turning into black of night. Soon the fields outside will be a mere dark blur,giving the lonely lit houses far away, an opportunity to express themselves.And I am sitting on the window seat of AC coach, coming to Delhi from Chandigarh, with a pleasant anticipation of coming home after 3 weeks. Between these 4 hours to destination,however, I would be a different person.

Strange, but it has happened far more often than I realised. The journey of the train somehow evokes thoughts, plans,ideas and imaginations which seem improbable anywhere else. Threads of thoughts, from long forgotten past, from future unfathomed, from present just went by, suddenly come together to weave a complete story.

Don’t know if that happens with others as well, but for me, a train journey has often taken the role of a place for solace and speculation! In the constant din of metal rubbing the metal to move ahead, the constant urging of hawkers, the full throated laments of the beggars, the chit chat, laughter, shouting, I find myriad of thoughts rushing to my mind, filling my consciousness with uncountable emotions, bringing a smile or a wisp of sadness, sometimes precipitating a decision, sometimes posing a question of life. Somehow even all the songs running in my mp3 player that time seem to be creating the background for it.

Sometimes the journey of train has been a place of catharsis, in deciding whether to keep standing for a number of hours or letting a feeble old man keep standing near my seat, his old palm resting on the handle in front of my eyes, not complaining, but still making it extremely uncomfortable; Or in invoking a sudden gush of humanity into my heart generating forgiveness for someone’s wrongs to me.
Sometimes it is just a theatre where multitudes of people unfold a big constant drama, great acting on a sorry and extremely depressing script and I play the role of a numb spectator!

That’s how, in these couple of years, between anticipation of the destination and a longing for the left behind, often sipping a cup of tea or eating ‘unhygienic’ Indian junk foods at stations, ‘adjusting’ a little to give some space to a bulky lady to let her rest her bums, finding myself on the edge after sometime! Or standing at the bogey’s gate, holding the handles, staring at the blur of distant lights and unknown fields through the running train, feeling the rush of cold and rough air on my face, I have fallen in love with the journey in train! Sometimes it’s my place of meditation, sometimes it’s a place of insight, sometimes it is just a number of hours of my life, deleted, unaccounted.

And oh, As I finish writing this, a pretty lady has come and sat in my row, getting cozy with a gentleman! Not a bad choice of place, I must say. This is yet another possibility of the journey in train!

Farmer of the world...

"Proud and radiant,he walks in long strides and so fast that all those 20,30 and 40 somethings accompanying him, had to almost run to keep up with him".My brother told me of his meeting with Dr Norman Borlaug, who, aged around 86 that time,had visited IARI, Delhi for the National Science Congress. This science congress around 9 years back, had captured fascination of me and a couple of my friends, who would travel daily,at the expense of school :D, to IARI in a hope to meet, interact or catch a glimpse of the most celebrated scientists from India and abroad. We met a few, interacted with some and missed a lot of them.One miss which I rued most and would always do was to meet Dr Borlaug.

Dr Borlaug passed away last week in Dallas, aged 95.The father of Green Revolution as he was called, he brought about the revolution in Mexico,India, Pakistan and Africa and elsewhere and is considered to be responsible for saving almost a billion lives worldwide,a huge chunk of it in India for sure.Where it was almost a certainty that hundreds of millions would die in India,Pakistan and elsewhere because of starvation and hunger,his methods turned around the wheat production everywhere dramatically. So much so, that our country ran out of places to store and transportation to carry that amount of wheat.India had become self sufficient by 1970 and almost certain hunger and famine waves in 70s and 80s never arrived.

He received Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions in 1970.He might as well have got a Nobel Prize for Economics.So what if he didn't propound complex theories in esoteric jargon,or didn't produce untranslatable mathematical models.He believed in one simple and practicable truth which would always be applicable in all the situations, anywhere- "It was impossible to build a peaceful world on empty stomachs”.

I believe the Nobel Prize was the least the world could honor him with.For all his contributions in India though, I think he got too little,too late.He was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 1996 which was too late a recognition from an indebted nation.He was one who persisted in spite of all pervading bureaucracy of 60s and 70s and skepticism of farmers and elitists alike.How many statesmen could do what he (alongwith Dr MS Swaminathan) did here?He deserved a Bharat Ratna for sure.I am hoping someone, someday would take notice up there.A Posthumous award would be too delayed,but an apposite honor for a Deserving Hero.

A note about Dr MS Swaminathan- He has been for India what Dr Borlaug was for the world. Wish he gets Bharat Ratna as well.

...something sort of imponderable..

That was about societies which had a law and order to execute that law or even the semblance of it, but what of war zones, ethnic conflicts, riots?For winning armies in the war, or the mobs unleashing vengeance on other mobs, or the packs out there to destroy rival ethnicities, the women make up the softest targets to unleash most brutal assaults. They 'salvage' their pride by ravaging women of other folks without impunity. There are uncountable tales of uncountable horrors spread throughout the history, with people ever setting ever newer standards well into the 21st century. Read anything on the newly partitioned India-Pakistan in 1947 or on Darfur or Talibanised Afghanistan or Congo to know.

suddenly there is a feeling of nauseating helplessness...

on women's day..

Once again the day comes, once again they will shout their throats out, holding meetings and conventions, debates and cultural programmes in closed rooms,unleashing their oratorical wrath on men, condemning men and their things, passing some resolutions and taking some decisions.Once again life on the road outside would have changed hardly as a result of what they did.The girls, travelling in buses, standing on bus stops, walking on the streets, would continue being stared at, being commented at.Someone in poor Orissa would sell their girl for a few thousand bucks for brothels in Mumbai.Someone in Kashmir would have their daughter being thrashed because she wasnt veiled as per the militants.Someone in rural Punjab will have their daughter-in-law drop her third foetus because it would have been a girl again.

But it doesnt bother them.For them the most important and most urgent thing is tackling popular and the 'in' issues. Issues like the porn MMS, issues like murder of some high profiler,thrashing of pub goers and so on.

It doesnt matter to them that we have lost more than 1 crore girls in last 20-25 years because of infanticide and foeticide.

They seem to be hardly aware that we have more than 70% women, both rural and urban, suffering from deficiency of iron, one of the most crucial elements.

It is not visible to them that the social and economic security schemes hardly ever touch the lives of poor women, many of whom are often the sole bread winners for their families.

Oh what to talk about underage marriage and pregnancy!

For me, the genuine results would be those which affect a woman daily and the ones she can identify with.I dont wish laws made in their favour. I dont want them getting 33 % reservation in parliament.I do not want reservations for them in metro or separate queues for them.This hasnt created the world any better place for them.

As a concerned male,here are one of few things I wish for them in our country:

1) Abolishment of the publicity seeking women NGOs, waging a naari-andolan against men.
The war is directed against wrong enemy and yields wrong results. This has to be against a system of which both men and women are part.
2) A nationwide programme dedicated to eradicate the deficiency of iron and other vital nutrients in women.
Healthy women, healthy family, healthy country!
3) A competent and transparent Rape investigation system which will have all the nursing staff well trained to handle such cases such as collecting evidence when the victim first approaches them after a sexual assault and also trained in minimising trauma of the incident.
4) Eradicating infanticide and foeticide.
5) A sense of respect of their privacy, this could be as small a thing as asking for their permission for taking their photographs.
6) A cliched one, but very crucial,them getting educated.

I realise that more than a plan or a scheme, it will take a complete shift of points of view, a process which may take days and which may take centuries.Maybe it is the way it is supposed to be or maybe it is moving the way it is supposed to be.Who knows??
Hope I see the transformation coming soon...

Amen!

..an obeservation of MMS scandals..

..As they claimed incessantly about their heroics to bring justice to yet another victim of the porn mms industry, one could smell yet another attempt at hogging media glare at the expense of that woman's wretchedness. The media, the journalists, the leaders of women NGOs, the politicians, all were drumming alike, to get that space on tv, trying to prove themselves the champions of the war against this newer affliction of greed and lust, on women's privacy. The cheapest of the sleaziest, those crime reporters a la mode 'sansani', kept on hollering, playing that mms in blurred mode in the background in an endless loop, as more and more people logged on to internet, searching for that video...

irony?anticlimax?