I am having a great time these days. 'm home for my wedding. Its a three week long vacation and after some initial mood-swings, jitters and some irritable moments, I have decided to enjoy this time to the fullest. To be frank, more than the wedding, what thrills me more is that I am gonna get numerous moments to observe people and their antics. Believe me, its as interesting as it gets. I am getting to see new and hidden facets of all those near and dear ones whom I have known since my childhood in an entirely different flavor. A flurry of emotions never disclosed thus far, a bunch of frowns I will never know the reasons for, a crop of relatives, a pest of opportunists, MANUHARs, ULAAHNAs, DIKHAVAs, NAKHRAs....its all fun. I never imagined I would enjoy my wedding but its getting
I don't know how much time will I be able to devote to share these observations, but I will surely make an effort..
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Dodging the Yawns
Awake very late in the night, all by myself, sleep a light year away from eyes, I believe I have spent more than three hours on net. I Read about Federal rate cut, watched Jeff Dunham videos, checked out Orkut a dozen times, chatted with a couple of goofy guys about trifling things. Then I thought I should really call it a night.
Since then, I have been trying really hard to sleep. I switched off the lights, rested myself on the mattress and closed my eyes. Then at the fag end of a string of interesting activities like 'listening to the leaking water tap from the bathroom very patiently', 'trying to shift pillow from beneath my head to over my face to between my legs to my left and to my right side', 'opening and closing the window', 'changing from blanket to a thinner sheet, trying to decide if I am really feeling warm or is it cold'......I finally gave up. Probably, its one of those nights that are just not meant for sleeping. I sit up again. Just when I think of switching the lights back on, I have this long and mouth-ripping, muscle-straining yawn. I give it a second thought. Should I try to sleep again. But from my experience, I know its not gonna work. Its one of those deceptive yawns that only promise to give a satisfying sleep but at the end it would just bring me down to red and moistened eyes and no sleep. By then I would have wasted another half an hour of this night. So I act smart. I ignore this yawn and switch on the lights. However, that yawn is not in a mood to give up. It is suffixed by a couple more struggling, tempting and half suppressed yawns. But I know them. I am not gonna fall for them.
Well, when I think about it, I feel how stupid can it get. Dodging the yawns and writing about it. I am laughing at myself. Sometimes I think I suffer from a peculiar disorder. Can I call it Friday-Insomnia? Is it biologically possible for a human body to act like that? How does the brain control that? It hasn't always been like that though. It started exactly when I started realizing the importance of weekends. I cant recall my first few Friday night-outs but they should have started when I bought my first ever bike, because it was only then that I had some means to go out and have fun. Then I found a few more like minded friends and I never looked back. It became a crime to sleep early on a Friday night. Then it took a break for some time for some reason. Then it resumed. Then it stopped again for a while. It has appeared into my life at periodic intervals. It has always been funny.
But this seems to be the first time that I really want to sleep on a Friday night and my body clock is not allowing me. I know that body needs a certain amount of sleep everyday. If you don't give its due to it, it will try to accumulate the sleep and then one night you will sleep longer. But getting a very regular sleep every other night and not being able to sleep every Friday is strange. Well, its brain....its not a COBOL code that I have written. It may well have adapted itself to my habits, and when I am trying to act otherwise for just one night, it just doesn't wanna change. I should allow it this backlash.
What I long for at this time is a real nice hot steaming cup of Aztec coffee. Can anyone of you get me one....??
Since then, I have been trying really hard to sleep. I switched off the lights, rested myself on the mattress and closed my eyes. Then at the fag end of a string of interesting activities like 'listening to the leaking water tap from the bathroom very patiently', 'trying to shift pillow from beneath my head to over my face to between my legs to my left and to my right side', 'opening and closing the window', 'changing from blanket to a thinner sheet, trying to decide if I am really feeling warm or is it cold'......I finally gave up. Probably, its one of those nights that are just not meant for sleeping. I sit up again. Just when I think of switching the lights back on, I have this long and mouth-ripping, muscle-straining yawn. I give it a second thought. Should I try to sleep again. But from my experience, I know its not gonna work. Its one of those deceptive yawns that only promise to give a satisfying sleep but at the end it would just bring me down to red and moistened eyes and no sleep. By then I would have wasted another half an hour of this night. So I act smart. I ignore this yawn and switch on the lights. However, that yawn is not in a mood to give up. It is suffixed by a couple more struggling, tempting and half suppressed yawns. But I know them. I am not gonna fall for them.
Well, when I think about it, I feel how stupid can it get. Dodging the yawns and writing about it. I am laughing at myself. Sometimes I think I suffer from a peculiar disorder. Can I call it Friday-Insomnia? Is it biologically possible for a human body to act like that? How does the brain control that? It hasn't always been like that though. It started exactly when I started realizing the importance of weekends. I cant recall my first few Friday night-outs but they should have started when I bought my first ever bike, because it was only then that I had some means to go out and have fun. Then I found a few more like minded friends and I never looked back. It became a crime to sleep early on a Friday night. Then it took a break for some time for some reason. Then it resumed. Then it stopped again for a while. It has appeared into my life at periodic intervals. It has always been funny.
But this seems to be the first time that I really want to sleep on a Friday night and my body clock is not allowing me. I know that body needs a certain amount of sleep everyday. If you don't give its due to it, it will try to accumulate the sleep and then one night you will sleep longer. But getting a very regular sleep every other night and not being able to sleep every Friday is strange. Well, its brain....its not a COBOL code that I have written. It may well have adapted itself to my habits, and when I am trying to act otherwise for just one night, it just doesn't wanna change. I should allow it this backlash.
What I long for at this time is a real nice hot steaming cup of Aztec coffee. Can anyone of you get me one....??
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Unable to write about TZP
It has happened with me before that instead of following the natural rhythm of my heart, I try to force myself to sit and write about something I really want to write about. I sometimes find it against the spirit of writing but I cannot wait for things to start flowing and only then write about something. Usually it becomes too late by then. I have missed several moments this way. But now the problem is that when I try to force the thoughts and document them, the outcome doesn't satisfy me. Its a difficult choice. Choosing between 'waiting for the heart to beat and thus missing the moment' and 'force-document the thoughts and let them lack the spirit'.
Today I am in a similar dilemma. Its about 'Taare Zameen Par'. I watched it last Saturday and despite falling flat for it, I am yet to find the right words to write about it. In fact I have started gleefully believing that I am just incapable of putting it forward. To generate the same effects on paper, I will have to do an 'Aamir Khan' which is much much beyond me. I can still try and come up with an OKAY write up to save me the repent of missing the moment but it will never spare me off the embarrassment of underplaying something as great as this movie.
Well, I give up. I cant write about it. Go watch it. Its the 'Hall of fame' stuff, undeniably.
Today I am in a similar dilemma. Its about 'Taare Zameen Par'. I watched it last Saturday and despite falling flat for it, I am yet to find the right words to write about it. In fact I have started gleefully believing that I am just incapable of putting it forward. To generate the same effects on paper, I will have to do an 'Aamir Khan' which is much much beyond me. I can still try and come up with an OKAY write up to save me the repent of missing the moment but it will never spare me off the embarrassment of underplaying something as great as this movie.
Well, I give up. I cant write about it. Go watch it. Its the 'Hall of fame' stuff, undeniably.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Hmm..
There are times when you are very calm. You feel you have successfully fit your tiny little self in this big complex world. You are happy. You are happy with your own little simplified self. You are content with your aspirations, desperations, your achievements, your failures, things you own, things you want to own, things you cannot own, your brilliance, your stupidity. You know where to go, how to go and you reach there and you are content again. Every thing seems so easy in those times. You wish this state of mind could stay with you for ever but it doesn't.
For every layer of calm that you have worn, there is sure-fire SOB who penetrates through it and touches your core to unsettle everything. Suddenly everything starts becoming skewed. You stumble against nothingness. Simplest of things start complicating themselves. You are desperate for the things you know you shouldn't, your achievements start appearing like a zilch, you meet failure at every corner of the street, you are not your brilliant self anymore, your own stupidity starts irritating you, you dont know where to go and if you know, you dont know how to. Every damn thing that belongs to you is thrown into a disarray.
Then you realize this is not the first time. You have been through this cycle of calm and disarray multiple times. why then you cant identify the symptoms at an early stage and diagnose that SOB and just distance yourself. May be its not that easy. Because this SOB is smart enough to disguise itself in a new avatar everytime and you are bound to fall for it.
For every layer of calm that you have worn, there is sure-fire SOB who penetrates through it and touches your core to unsettle everything. Suddenly everything starts becoming skewed. You stumble against nothingness. Simplest of things start complicating themselves. You are desperate for the things you know you shouldn't, your achievements start appearing like a zilch, you meet failure at every corner of the street, you are not your brilliant self anymore, your own stupidity starts irritating you, you dont know where to go and if you know, you dont know how to. Every damn thing that belongs to you is thrown into a disarray.
Then you realize this is not the first time. You have been through this cycle of calm and disarray multiple times. why then you cant identify the symptoms at an early stage and diagnose that SOB and just distance yourself. May be its not that easy. Because this SOB is smart enough to disguise itself in a new avatar everytime and you are bound to fall for it.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Meta Discussions
Why do people have to be right or wrong? I have started believing very strongly that life is a weird mathematics. Its equations can have a very few variables yet numerous solutions. They can also have a numerous variables and just one solution sometimes. It all seems way too skewed. No surprises. It has to be. Life was never considered to be easy anyway. Still we try to peel off its subtler layers and try to get comfortable with it. Everybody reaches a different core, everybody finds a different truth.
Lately I have been into many conversations with many different people. They have been on greatly diverse topics. Well, everybody enjoys discussions. I too. But lately, I have started observing myself when I get into them. Along the course of conversation, I start registering some meta information in a familiar repository which I try to analyze in future. I have observed that in some serious discussions, I strive to win my point, at times very desperately. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. But these days, I have started experiencing a totally new wave. In the middle of a discussion I lose interest. I feel a detachment from the discussion itself. I start seeing the two or more than two schools of thought in an entirely different light. I start realizing that none of us actually can be proved right or wrong. To end the discussion will either take a time-out call or it will entail that one of the parties get awfully bored and just surrenders, not really losing the point but losing the desire to win the point.
Why do we discuss then? And what kind of things cannot be taken to a conceivable end? If I want to oversimplify, I can say that all opinions that are based on individual tenets are not debatable. Sometimes these tenets or beliefs are as simple as people liking different flavors of coffees. My tastes are my choices. My inane choices. I cannot, by any means, prove one flavor to be better than another one. To be very frank, I want to see most of the things in my life the same way. If I observe closely, I can very genuinely conclude that as much as 90% of the discussions (obviously the non techie ones) are of this sort. You work your guts off to prove your point while your point was as personal as your liking of cappuccino over an espresso shot.
I wish I could simplify all things that way.
I wish when I prove A better than B, I could just mean I like A more than B.
I wish when I see the other person quietly nodding at the end of a debate, I could see his boredom and not his defeat.
I wish....
Lately I have been into many conversations with many different people. They have been on greatly diverse topics. Well, everybody enjoys discussions. I too. But lately, I have started observing myself when I get into them. Along the course of conversation, I start registering some meta information in a familiar repository which I try to analyze in future. I have observed that in some serious discussions, I strive to win my point, at times very desperately. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. But these days, I have started experiencing a totally new wave. In the middle of a discussion I lose interest. I feel a detachment from the discussion itself. I start seeing the two or more than two schools of thought in an entirely different light. I start realizing that none of us actually can be proved right or wrong. To end the discussion will either take a time-out call or it will entail that one of the parties get awfully bored and just surrenders, not really losing the point but losing the desire to win the point.
Why do we discuss then? And what kind of things cannot be taken to a conceivable end? If I want to oversimplify, I can say that all opinions that are based on individual tenets are not debatable. Sometimes these tenets or beliefs are as simple as people liking different flavors of coffees. My tastes are my choices. My inane choices. I cannot, by any means, prove one flavor to be better than another one. To be very frank, I want to see most of the things in my life the same way. If I observe closely, I can very genuinely conclude that as much as 90% of the discussions (obviously the non techie ones) are of this sort. You work your guts off to prove your point while your point was as personal as your liking of cappuccino over an espresso shot.
I wish I could simplify all things that way.
I wish when I prove A better than B, I could just mean I like A more than B.
I wish when I see the other person quietly nodding at the end of a debate, I could see his boredom and not his defeat.
I wish....
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