why say?

On the nature of doubts

2012-02-03T13:40:00.003+11:00

Till there is a mind, there will be doubts. For the mind is unreal, it is an illusion, a mirage. The world that we perceive in our minds, is created by the mind – and therefore unreal. So, when we try to analyse the world to any great depth, we run into absurdities that hard to manage. The absolute-ness of time, of matter, of energy, of the divine purpose have all been convincingly questioned. But there is a self-effulgent truth in whose light shines the sun, and when we reach there, all doubts vanish, all sorrows die, of All we become aware, and supremely blissful.

An eyeful of fireworks

2012-01-29T14:18:00.002+11:00

I spent the New Years Eve, this year, looking at the fireworks in Sydney. They are quite magnificent, and no matter where you are, there is something special about the view from that very spot. In other words, you cannot see all of it, no matter where you are. They disappear before you know it, or rather before you get to see an eye-full. So, having done this only the second time in my life, I have decided, looking at fireworks is my least favourite way of spending the New Years Eve. They simply accentuate the sense that time passes before you get to do anything, before you manage to even see an eyeful. Given the crowd and the rush and the hype, it leaves me with a feeling that someone else is richer, luckier, prettier, and that someone has just got a better view than i do. And the irritation that you feel for the 3 strange heads that block the view of the sky and the sea, is unfortunately, beyond reason!!

But magnificence in real life is steadier, for the sky is always full of mysterious and far more awe inspiring stars. the sea has been around for longer than our civilisations, our species, and will stay longer than any of us, it will contain more life and more change, and it will reflect the various moods of the moon and all else that moves above it. and the variety in life and light around me – will be ever new, ever unique and ever present.

2012-01-21T23:15:00.004+11:00

It is, after all, only the 21st day of the new year, and there is, perhaps, a natural pressure to assess the past year and wonder about the next one. Considering however, that the last year was too bizarre and the new year doesn't promise to be anything predictable either, we'll leave the dates alone.

On the other hand, I haven't really had any time to read anything, nor have I managed to watch anything particularly exciting (tho, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy should be good); I am having a comfortable and happy but quite uneventful time with family, and work is just what it always promised to be - in all there is no fodder for a blog-post!

But, there is quite an excellent writing I can point you to, about life and death, and so here it is.

Have a wonderful new year!

Humbug the journey

2011-10-09T20:37:00.000+11:00

I am feeling a little bit blue, my return to the blog, unfortunately for you guys, is when I am feeling a bit blue. (Tho, Shakespeare might disagree - “O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes,” - but we can correct Shakespeare a bit here – not bitter at all a thing to look into happiness ALSO thru another woman’s eyes!) I am feeling manage-ably blue tho, that is the advantage of a feeling blue on a long weekend – but what a terrible terrible waste of the long weekend! Of spring! Sigh!

So, the thing is I don’t really know where I am going? If i am going anywhere at all?

Yes, that’s it.

this is a title

2011-07-20T16:56:00.002+10:00

I am my parent’s daughter, at least in all that is good about me*. But the most indulgent extravagant talent, that has most miserly slipped into my genes, is my mother’s talent for art!

When my brain is partly switched off, involuntarily, somehow the pictures in my head seem to appear on the paper in long broad strokes of the pen, where one stroke means very little by itself, but only adds to the bigger picture. This is a very very poor man’s version of my mum’s style of art.

I remember nearly dying of stress, when as a little girl, I saw her draw – nothing she was doing was making sense, and it was only adding to the mess on the page – till she finished it, and I realised** that this wasn’t something you could learn – somehow it was a communication of the hand and the eye, with the brain switching off in the middle.

*Most of the times when I find there is this really good habit in me, that I seem to just have got naturally – I can trace it down to something my parents have done or said. Between the two of them, my parents are perfect… (I do suspect that is true of most parents, that between the two (or three or four) of them, they would be perfect…) My imperfections, I seem to have got them all by myself... no, really!
** maybe erroneously

Confessions of a recently 30!

2011-07-16T21:12:00.003+10:00

(Look here for some more)

sleepless on a week night

2011-05-27T01:57:00.003+10:00

One evening i was walking down the road when i suddenly saw a wolf of a problem. I turned into a rabbit and burrowed a hole and hid in the dark, i shut my ears and closed my eyes and waited for the wolf to go away. When i opened my eyes I saw i was actually a tomato being hurled towards a rock wall, so i quickly turned into a river and became so big and massive that the wall got blasted out of my way like a little toy lego block, then i thought i found a cozy canyon to flow thru, but as i went on, the walls of the canyon kept going higher and higher and no sun could reach me, and i was like a little silver black snake at the bottom, when suddenly the rocks stopped and i jumped of the cliff with a roaring laugh and shone and sparkled in the sun as i did so.

Then one day i was walking down the road, and there came a dark fog...

Coffee Spoons?

2011-05-25T12:07:00.001+10:00

You have heard of this poem?

I was thinking of it this morning because yesterday evening felt like a waste of precious time, it is amazing when you make petty things in life, a walk 5 minutes too long and in the cold or spices mixed not quite rightly*, important, how unimportant your life becomes. What, the evening is gone, and nothing worthwhile, no rest, no joy, no progress made of it? Nothing that leapt and made the heart rejoices or even challenge and stretch the boundaries of what I know^. Feels like life being measured in coffee spoons, like death by insignificant useless little cuts. Out, out brief candle! There be the radiance of a thousand suns, burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendour of the Mighty one...

*both fictional examples
^tho I think I am quite OVER the challenges for the time being, but I think even when painful, they are meaningful

2011-05-16T22:25:00.001+10:00

Swami Sivananda

2011-05-15T20:12:00.000+10:00

A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied immediately another comes. In the interval which separates two desires a perfect calm reigns in the mind. It is at this moment freed from all thought, love or hate. Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves.

A funky kitten and funky furniture for it

2011-05-06T12:26:00.005+10:00

I would like a nice placid home kitten, but before it can come, the house really needs to be ready for it! I am working at sorting and getting rid of the junk in the house. But a kitten/cat would also need a scratchpole and other things like that and true to being - a lover of all things expensive - how awesome would something like this be:

These are available here.

Arco Lamp

2011-05-05T00:27:00.008+10:00

Firstly, considering how many people came to my blog looking for a chesterfield, here is another picture of a Chesterfield (beautiful colour!), AND with Tina Fey sitting on it!!

Secondly, in my thirties and even after, i am sure I'll be able to find room for an Arco Lamp. It is the lamp in the picture below:

This picture is from Apartment Therapy's House Tour of Eero Aarnio. (<- You want to click on that link!)

Arco Lamp, there is in fact a website dedicated to it! Once upon a time, I did not know that pieces of furniture and lightings had names. The above picture changed it all, first I realised that the owner of the house designed "bubble chairs" and then I spent forever trying to find someone somewhere with that lamp, without knowing that it had a name! (and a rather big price tag!)

The word for the year:

2011-05-02T03:52:00.002+10:00

(the 100th post on this blog!)

Life is sometimes confusing, or maybe I am being a bit daft - but the thing is there are times in life referred to as the 'aha' moments. The fish is dying... because the filter is clogged - aha (not based on real life); there is no hot water... because the taps are leaking - aha (based on a real life incident). Sometimes, it is like this - their dumplings do not open up in the pan of water while being boiled, because they use egg white to seal them! aha! (def. based on real life!)

And for some reason, while it hasn't been like that most of the time*, but the year has been marked with a sense of mis-identification or un-identification of causes leading to certain effects. The effects have been less than pleasurable most of the times, but even when they have been good - it has only intensified the feeling of random-ness, and lack of control of my experiences.

and so, a bit belated, here is a traditional word for the year:

PERPLEX
transitive verb
1: to make unable to grasp something clearly or to think logically and decisively about
2: to make intricate or involved : complicate

but to stop at that, would be aweful, so this year there is a bonus word for the year, which is actually the REAL word for the year:

DEVELOP
transitive verb
1a : to set forth or make clear by degrees or in detail : expound
b : to make visible or manifest
c : to treat (as in dyeing) with an agent to cause the appearance of color
d : to subject (exposed photograph material) especially to chemicals in
order to produce a visible image ; also : to make visible by such a method
e : to elaborate (a musical idea) by the working out of rhythmic and harmonic changes in the theme

2a : to work out the possibilities of
b : to create or produce especially by deliberate effort over time
3a : to make active or promote the growth of
b(1) : to make available or usable
(2) : to make suitable for commercial or residential purposes c : to move (as a chess piece) from the original position to one providing more opportunity for effective use
4a : to cause to unfold gradually b : to expand by a process of growth c : to cause to grow and differentiate along lines natural to its kind d : to become infected or affected by
5: to acquire gradually

intransitive verb
1a : to go through a process of natural growth, differentiation, or evolution by successive changes b : to acquire secondary sex characteristics
2: to become gradually manifest
3: to come into being gradually ; also : turn out 2a

Origin of DEVELOP
French développer, from Old French
desveloper, desvoluper to unwrap, expose, from des- de- + envoloper to
enclose —
more at envelop
First
Known Use: 1750

All definitions, as usual, from Merriam-Webster (http://www.m-w.com/).

*tho I do realise it has been an ongoing theme with me.

A good ol' neat bathroom

2011-05-01T01:10:00.005+10:00

The wise folks at design sponge put up a collection of bathrooms to look at! And I think I'd love this bath and shower curtain (on the left) to go up at my place:

and while I am at it, I wouldn't might a bit of skylight to go in there too!

So, how does a bathtub and skylight in a bathroom sound for a birthday present? Pretty awesome, don't you think!

it's a Chesterfield!!

2011-04-29T23:22:00.010+10:00

So, darlings, is there anybody out there? Or is there anybody out there?

My present no. 2 would be,a Chesterfield that would look something like this:

or something like this:

and it will go with something like this:

Bonsai

2011-04-29T00:12:00.011+10:00

Around the blog-land people turning 30 usually have a list of 30, most of it is something to achieve before leaving the 20'ies behind. My 20'ies, now, seem like some kind of a dance where it isnt entirely clear how i have progressed.
So, I have decided to do something very self-indulgent. I am going to put a list of 30 things* I would love for my birthday - and I really hope I stop at that number! :)

I'd like a Bonsai tree.
I was always a bit worried about how Bonsai seem to have never achieved it potential as a tree, and seemed like a cruel art. But I found my way to the national bonsai garden recently, and it was amazing how tranquil they felt - all except one, which had been cruelly bent; and in fact they seemed like the perfect metaphor for Canberra as a city.

While I would love a Bo tree, they really arent going to like the Canberra weather, so it will have to be another one. How about an Australian Bonsai? There are a few on here, just click on NEXT SPECIES at the top left corner of the page!

(see here)

*Of course, I can change my mind and decide I dont really want something on the list, after all! (In fact, that is almost the point of making the list!)

savouring the taste

2011-04-23T04:01:00.002+10:00

it is a long long weekend, and i am blissfully* at home doing nothing - no cleaning, not much cooking and just watched a movie late into the night - about a boy. nice one that, all about meaningful-ness and security. Tho I doubt I would appreciate a man doing nothing if he didnt look like Hugh Grant.

Before that it was How I met your mother, and that episode was also about being an adult and facing up to situations. Is there something the matter with me that I am tuning into all these messages from the pop shows? Maybe I am just missing M heaps**.

*with the exception that one fish in my fish tank, is a fighter fish aka betta, and is simply murderous, it has already killed a fish; and has eaten half the fin off another! I could not sleep last night because I have lived in the mortal fear of something, and i trust the fish is not enjoying it either. To help I put a statue of buddha in the fish tank, which as far as i can see helped only get an idea into my head to partition the fish tank with a fish net and isolate the murderous fish but being good friday (oh the irony!) i couldnt go and get any supplies to make the partition. i will on saturday and that will be that!

**message for M: come back soon!

pure ramble

2011-04-23T01:31:00.004+10:00

As I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.

So said Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. And so I guess I am being absolutely unoriginal, however just as miserable about where I am heading in life. I did have a rare really good day at work, but I am just as confused about how and why. i hope it will repeat next week and the week after and the one after and so on. But then there are times where I have a feeling that I am missing out on something in life. maybe it is just that i don't have my family at an arms length, or that sense of isolation that i believe people feel even amidst the people who love them most, because we know that when the time comes, we will be alone. that there is only one person who can be guaranteed to be with us, understand our truest inner most joys and turmoils and that person is us - and this fact, this isolation makes all relationships and all security blankets of a house, a job, and friends just something to enjoy in this moment; and with not a security blanket. and it is ok, just as fair, to live for this moment; but we as a society seem to live under some hypnotism, because no one really believes we are living from moment to moment; look around you and everyone (and me) have plans and security blankets to last me till the day i die. at some level it is always a shock to find that my legs will have to carry my weight, and while help will come, as it always does, it comes in a shape and form that we don't expect it in - that we were not depending upon. and this is what i mean, when i say i have a feeling that i am blind to something very obvious, that i am missing out on something that should be mine.

The fish tank is just a world

2011-04-15T23:25:00.006+10:00

I was too unwell to go to work today, tho I am not sure if my bosses will believe me. I am sure they would not have let such a triviality get in the way of their work. They ought to believe it since I am not going camping tomorrow, which would have been my first trip ever and that is something I have been trying to do for a long long while, and with winter starting I wont be able to do for a long time.

Did I tell you about a new aquarium that we have got in the house? It has been a drama from start to now. First, one of the four fish (a yellow tailed guppy) got too stressed and died. Then, we got another guppy to replace it, and that one also died - this time either of stress or old age or something. Then we got a few neon, a fighter and 2 angels. The fighter took to it like fish to water, but angels did not. And one died in a couple of days and the other followed a few days later. Then the java plant decided to flower and had spores all over the aquarium, which caused the filter to block and we came back home on friday evening to find the fish, ALL the fish hanging to dear life by a thread. After changing a bit of water and cleaning the filter, causing my married life to hang by a thread, the fish decided it was all good and they returned to their normal happy self. Then, the water tank started to leak and fill the carpet and bits of the electrical extension to fill with water - all this on a Sunday night. We changed the extension rod, but we'll replace the aquarium (within guarantee period) the next morning (because the wires are close to the aquarium and it was very much an electrical hazard, or we would have to kill out fish, because you know what happens when their filter isnt operating!) - which will give another reason to my bosses to suspect my diligence at work. And yesterday the bully fish ate the entire fin tail of a really curious and wonderful guppy which killed the guppy - I cannot understand for the life of me, why the bully fish and a small neon would be guarding the dead fish, but it sure made me rather angry.

Anyway, I count in my duties, to feed them, to clean the water occasionally and more often get rid of the dead fish from the tank. And they have their own 'lord of the flies' to write.

What Ashok Banker thinks can pass as the Ramayana

2011-03-09T16:39:00.002+11:00

In the grand old days of Treta Yuga when Dashratha and Ravana were kings, the Brahmins used to levitate and had blue light coming out of their finger nails which was, of course, Brahman Light. If the sages in Ashok Banker’s Ramayana remind you of the creation of Wolverine by the evil scientist, you are not alone. Nor are you alone if the Sita’s wondering into the jungle dressed as a man with her female guard and meeting Rama remind you of Shakespeare’s Rosalind or Ravana’s head appearing thru fire to talk to Manthara seem to be picked out from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or Ravana’s taking over Dashratha’s body and being then released by Vashishtha looks to be uncannily similar to JRR Tolkien’s Saruman taking over Theodin’s body and being released later by Gandalf. And all of this in the space of less than 2 books (out of a total of 5), and after omitting how Ram seems to belong more to the Matrix than to the Ramayana and omitting Manthara (and cannibalistic* Kekayi!!)

If this version confuses you considerably, because you too remember a mention of Valmiki’s Ramayana; Kamban’s Ramayana and Tulsidasji’s Ramcharitmanas, in the preface – then we are in the same place. But you see, Banker only promised to retell the Ramayana in such a way, that everything in his Ramayana belonged to either one of the three versions or what he understood of them. While we thought he was mostly going to talk about what belonged to one of the three versions; he clearly decided to talk about what he understood of them.

*only in Banker’s retelling.

Brilliance

2011-03-03T12:24:00.001+11:00

Why must one be brilliant? What is brilliance? What is the alternative? How is brilliance not narcissism? (It is most definitely NOT – it is just having better expectations from one’s own self. It is the result of losing yourself to something entirely, so that the end result is sheer happiness.)

Where do you want to go today?

2011-03-01T12:19:00.000+11:00

A few months ago, I started two plants from mere cuttings, and I put them into a glass bowl with some absorbent mineral. I wasn’t very hopeful of their chances but it seems a bit of love, with water, occasional feed and a lot, A LOT of attention (because they sit right next to my computer screen, and are usually more interesting than whatever is on the screen) can go a long way. They have these beautiful long white roots and have had a fair few new leaves. The biggest risk that indoor plants face is their roots rotting – my plants are in a glass bowl so while the water doesn’t drain, I can see just how much there is… also the mineral is quite absorbent, so it is rarely that the roots sit in water for a very long time. And looking at them, I can imagine people letting the grass grow under their feet…

I can, at this time, imagine letting the sun rise, the rain fall, the grass grow, the birds chirp, while I sit in my newly tiled, swept up balcony, looking at them dreamily and comfortably. Until I sat down to do this introspection, I was feeling quite comfortable with my uselessness, and just as much at ease with the rest of the world. Now, I feel a bit guilty and should get back to doing something useful; but before I go there, isn’t it fascinating how every set of experience, simply, passes – a few days ago, there was me - exhausted and uncomfortable and ill at ease; and now there is me – comfortable, dreamy and cheerful; and there isn’t much that I did, I just let things pass…

PS: Things will pass, but, where do you want to go today?

2011-02-17T11:19:00.002+11:00

Pardon me today, I am fairly tired. The yoga classes are strenuous and I come back home ready for a warm bath and some fresh and light supper, followed by a lot of sleep in my comfortable bed. Instead, because we lost the spare house keys, after yoga I had a long walk in the rain. We have no bath in the house and the hot water system is boink. M tried to do his best by doing a bit of shopping and having already cooked part of the dinner, but he clearly underestimated my exhaustion. I accidently left the French door a little bit open, and felt cold all night. I have a flight to catch tonite, and I haven’t packed my bags…

On top of it I had an epiphany a couple of days ago, a rather unfortunate one, but one that I will have to note down in black and white, before it will let me carry on to do anything else – The best and most I ask of life is comfort. There, I said it! But what I really mean is, that when you would find me most agitated and upset, it will most likely be because I am uncomfortable; and not, for example, because I am being a burden on the world. I need to work on that.

A couple of weeks ago, on facebook, I shamelessly asked people to write an adjective to describe me… It is amazing to find that people don’t really lie even when they are trying to be polite. For instance, no one wrote I was brilliant in any way… in all, I am a mild and harmless person… except with my closest family, with whom I lose my temper rather easily (but thankfully they didn’t put it on my facebook profile!)

This morning, I was reading a blog, because I am so tired*, and came across this:

Syrie Maugham was the leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and ’30s, and yet she didn’t even launch her business until she was 42, a detail that I find inspiring. (My favorite late-life starter was Julia Child, who didn’t even enter cooking school until she was 37! Proof that you don’t have to have everything figured out by your 30th birthday.)

Read more at Design*Sponge

It would have been very nice to believe, because I am about to turn 30, and feel like I have nothing figured out at all. But Julia Child was always rather impressive, if you only read her biography, even if on Wikipedia.

Anyway, I’ll leave you today with no conclusions, and wish you a good day!

*I try not to start my day with blogs, usually.

On Robyn Davidson's two journeys

2011-02-16T12:22:00.002+11:00

Today’s newsletter from Allen and Unwin mentions a couple of books of people going and living in midst of aboriginal people and learning their ways. While learning about an ancient, exotic and intelligent culture is always interesting; in one of these books puts the spot light is on the traveller (and not on the people towards whom he is travelling) – which if done well could be a great book.

I came across Robyn Davidson first in a magazine interview while living alone in a new city, and reading about a woman travelling alone with a dog and camels in the middle of the desert struck a chord. There was also one of those things that she said; when you are alone in just your own company “it is not what you think but how you think that matters.” This, in exactly these words, is also something that Swami Tejomayananda had said at some other point, in some other context. I could not think of absolutely any difference in ‘what you are thinking’ and ‘how you are thinking.’ It took a long chat with Br. Gautamji before it made any sense. However, I digress.

It took me a couple of years before I could lay my hands on Robyn Davidson’s first book about her travel across the Australian desert, called Tracks. My favourite thing about Tracks was how pretty much a city girl could, before the end of it, find some integrated understanding of the natural world around her – or as I like to put it - how tracks on the sand, mean a journey of a creature, mean that the weather is about to change in a particular way. How she sublimated the conversations of the mind (that pervade our waking and dream life) to be truly awake to all that was happening around her. What made Robyn Davidson also interesting, apart from her fascinating journey and excellent writing style, that is, was the fact that she, like me, listed Australia and India as places of great significance in her life.

Her other book is called Desert Places, and is about a journey with nomads of Rajasthan. It took me mere months to get the second book! However, for some reason or another, (she writes that) she never manages to get that grasp of her surroundings in this journey. At some level, she becomes a curiosity for others; at another level, I think, the communication (and here I mean, apart from the language itself, the things that get said, others that are just hinted, while others that are just simply known) is so complex, that being awake is not enough – you would need a teacher.

And, as is said elsewhere, the teacher must be wonderful and the taught must be wonderful... for all the journeys to be completely fruitful?

:P

2011-02-07T23:52:00.002+11:00

Is it too late? Am I too tired and putting stupid things on my blog, is this the facebookification or twitterification of my blog, where every passing experience will have to be published for the three people* who read this blog sometimes?

Anyway, hysteria apart, you know I enjoyed Julie and Julia the movie on the flight, and I would most definitely recommend it too. Now the movie is based on two books - one by Julie Powells, and the other by Julia Childs and Alex Prud'homme (Alex Prud'homme is an american journalist). However, there is another person in the picture, Laura Shapiro, who wrote a/the Julia Child biography.

This is Julie Powells on the Laura's biography (in passing), and this is Laura Shapiro on Julie Powells. Good stuff... but first go and watch the movie! :)

*two of whom have commented occasionally, and the third (and here I am lost for words because I am really touched) got me a book from my wish list, when I didn't even know they were aware of the existence of the blog!!

Whats common between my mum and you?

2011-02-07T22:28:00.002+11:00

There are somethings that only your mother knows about you, till you start writing a blog. For instance, my mother knows I am not a listless person, or more accurately, I am most definitely a LISTS person.
There are lists, lists (or more easily, lists), lists, and lists, and lists and more lists!
Now, to make this post interesting I should say something about them, but folks, that is all that I have to say about that!

renovation is on my mind

2011-01-31T14:40:00.002+11:00

You know I really don't want to go to the shopping centre and bring back their entire suite, no matter how pretty, to my house, because it is really really boring... but i think it is really easy and much cheaper to do it that way - a very nicely livable house in a weekend... do you think the temptation could be resisted?

My 2011

2011-01-30T17:16:00.010+11:00

This much is obvious, 2011 will be the year I turn 30, the difficult question of course is, what else will it be?

Well, what has 2011 been so far? what was 2010 famous for?

2011 is the year I re-got the Internet on my machine at home; the year I re-started a job^ where I know what I am doing, so far, anyway. 2010 was the year for a short short trip home, for it to really sink in that my nieces and nephews are growing up without my being around*. It was the year I found out that apart from the M about whom I did know and did marry; there is whole lot of M that I didn't know about and did marry too. it was the year, I thought everyone at work thought, maybe everyone everywhere thought, that I was a bit crazy, lost and lazy. 2010 was the year my internal compass that points towards all things good fell into that crevice between the massive and heavy bookshelf and the wall.

2011 will be the year I get it out of that crevice. It will be the year when everything in house finally comes out of packing boxes, and find a place for themselves where they are useful and beautiful. It will be a year of some renovations and a lot of comfort and cheer. And it will be year my parents come and visit our home and bring all their wisdom and love that keeps our family together! It might be the year where we finally get ourselves a dog**! :D

^I was a sad person in my previous role; I started a new role this year.
*I think, in another 5 or 6 years, I will kidnap them for summers each year!
** I might actually ask my friends to get me that for a present! :D

Movies, this year

2010-12-12T21:02:00.009+11:00

The latest movie I have watched was the Spiderwick Chronicles (last night), which apart from the fact that it was a nice movie, was also one that M and I could watch together. I think M should watch more movies of people being nice to each other... but then I am not one to understand or appreciate the horror genre.

Before that I watched Uma Thurman's Motherhood (which needless to say, M did not watch with me) - which I quite enjoyed. I think I have never seen an Thurman movie I have not enjoyed, tho to be fair I have only seen the Kill Bill series and The Truth about Cats and Dogs. I borrrowed Pulp Fiction this year, but couldnt get around actually watching it. Another one that I borrowed but could not watch was The Men who Stare at Goats. In a lot of ways, Motherhood reminded me of Shrek - the final adventure, which I saw at the cinema and which was fun.

Jennifer Aniston's Friends with Money which was as different from Friends as possible, (considering that she was one of the most famous friend with money too)... and which inspite of some really nice acting by Frances McDormand wasn't really my cup of tea. Talking of which, I also saw He's Just Not That Into You which was better. And Aniston's Good Girl a couple of years ago, which I didn't enjoy. It seems like Jennifer Aniston is trying to do a 'certain kind' of movie so she ends up not careing if the story is any good or not.

Liam Neeson's Taken, in which Neeson shoots a man's wife in the arm (while the man is in front of him) as a way of warning and which had some rather high levels of violence against women presented in a inane cliched insensitive way, which turned me completely off it.

A Single Man was nice, if only because of the way it ends.

Beuwolf was one of those movies that I had been meaning to watch and one of those that M and I could watch together. So, was a reasonable watch.

Merlin and the Book of Beasts was a time pass, barely.

Social Network was witty and well made, a good movie but one that doesn't really stay with you after you have left the cinema hall - unless you are in the business of softwares.

Salman Khan's Dabang which was so unabashedly insane that it was fantastic

New Zealand's Boy which was a bit disappointing because it was so eagerly looked forward to.

Johny Gaddar, in which I really enjoyed watching Dharmedra's character, amid some rather flawed people.

Clash of the Titans, Prince of Persia, Robin Hood - what can I say, I watched them too.
ok, none of which I would recommend but among which Robin Hood was the worst, mostly because Russell Crowe couldn't decide what accent Robin Hood spoke in, so movie changes between 2 or 3 accents at random.

Woody Allen's Match Point and You Will Meet a Dark Tall Stranger neither of which makes me believe that I would want to watch any more of Woody Allen.

Adrien Brody's Predators which I did enjoy

And to round the year with movies on the plane:

Tim Burton's absolute genius of a movie: Nightmare before Christmas
and the Dickson's classic, A Christmas Carol, a very well made animation and with Jim Carrey quite ideal as Scrooge.
Julie and Julia, A movie about food and resolultions which was just right for the plane!

PS: Can't believe I forgot the two of my favourite watches of the year
Easy A, and M's recommendation of Seven Years in Tibet. Loved them both!

Why can’t I do that?

2010-11-29T16:30:00.002+11:00

Life for a kid sister is often not very easy, but is exceedingly simple – it is not wrecked with much confusion over choices and such – you know from the start there is exactly one thing you want to do, whatever your brothers are doing, and there is exactly one question in the world that bothers you, why can’t I do that?

Except for wanting to go to school, like my brothers, I have wanted to everything they did… My parents did send me school but the best part of being grown up is that I am now at least tall enough to go swimming, big enough to go camping, un-rash enough to ride a bicycle, old enough to drive a car, and perhaps un-rebellious enough to earn some money and live in strange city all by myself.

However now I find there are new things that people around me can do, which make me wonder, “Why can’t I do that?” Having an attention span not comparative of a gold fish, simply tops the list.

Books: The read and to be read

2010-11-25T12:25:00.006+11:00

Things are gradually gearing up for the holiday season. I have, unintentionally*, just gone ahead and bought the following books:

a) Desert Places by Robyn Davidson
b) Polyester Mahabharata by Hamish McDonald
c) Applied Hydrology text book
d) Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow

Apart from the once long awaiting my attentions:

e) Everybody loves a drought
f) India after Gandhi
g) Australian Environmental Law
h) Australian Water Law
i) International Environmental Law

And the few that are sitting on my book shelf but have simply given up:

j) Young Stalin
k) Infinite Jest
l) Asimov on Shakespeare
m) The Last Mughal
n) War and Peace
o) My experiments with Truth
p) The final of the Dune series
q) Secret life of birds

There are few that I flip thru, which would be good wouldn’t it:

r) Consider the Lobster
s) Letters of JRR Tolkien
t) Dear FutureMe (May I say, that letters of JRR to other people are far more interesting than letters of people to their future selves)

And honourable mention to the following that is simply sitting at my home in Delhi:

u) Patel a life by Rajmohan Gandhi

That is all I can think from on top of my head… but even so, considering that the leave is only from 25th to 2nd (inclusive) – makes only 9 days and there are well over 9 books. Ah right!
But I am not going to leave at such a hopeless note: some of the books I did manage to read this year – tho I re-read Agatha Christie some 4 times –

a) Eat Pray Love
b) Committed – a sceptics guide to marriage
c) Tracks by Robyn Davidson
d) Earth Sea : A wizard of Earth Sea
e) Earth Sea : Tombs of Atuan
f) Earth Sea : The furthest shore
g) Earth Sea : Tehanu
h) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
i) The book thief
j) The shadow of the wind

*unintentionally coinciding with holiday season

The picture in my head

2010-11-16T14:32:00.005+11:00

There would be an aquarium and a dog, some more plants with a bright mirror next to them, and a skylight in the bathroom, and a fencing around the car-port, a whole lot of random chairs, the centre table will have a bit of yellow and blue and white, the lounge will be plain in one color, the cushions will neither be plain, nor in one color. There were be curtains that touch the floor, and they will be simple white or beige with a bit of red or blue or yellow somewhere...
One day, there will be a yellow and white and black and steel kitchen, with modern appliances.
The bathroom will have a free standing bath and a re-constituted stone bench top. The hot water system will be larger.

Oh and while I am at it: the brick walls are now painted white! Just the way I always knew they should be :)

It won't break my heart if it never looks like this - you know - things might be better in ways I can never imagine... but well, it (the picture in my head) just needed to said.

Sand castles on the beach

2010-11-12T15:13:00.003+11:00

Life, as far as I can tell, treats plans like sand castles on the beach… Occasionally this leads to resentment… this time it is leading to a lot of resentment. Thanks for thrusting this idiotic idea on me, I tell life, I proceed to explain exactly all the 10 billion ways in which this is idiotic… harmful even. But nothing gives, and I am still in the same square… I want to be home, and that is one place on earth that I am not getting to.

Two men looked out of the prison bars
One saw the mud, the other saw stars…

The point is – if hell is a burning hole and heaven – a qualitatively different place, then there isn’t much that can be done about the horrible experiences in life. But if… and let me here tell you a story, a parable, because they are so much more fun:

Once the danavs went to Bhramaji and said, “You are as much our father as you are of the devatas, why do they have so much better a time than us? Why this partiality?” Bhramaji replied, “Well, let me invite you and your brothers for dinner one night; and we can discuss this after food.” The invites were sent out and both the devatas and the danavs, and they arrived at Brahamaji abode on the date. The danavs were led to a dining room where they found lavish arrangements and wonderful food. However, when they sat down and were about to start eating, they realised their arms had been magic-ed and they could no longer bend them at the elbows. With arms like that, they tried to feed themselves by putting their mouth to the plate and many other ways, but none of them really worked, and what was promising to be a very enjoyable dinner turned out to be a hopelessly frustrating experience. While this was going on, they suddenly noticed, that the sounds from the other room were of a lot more pleasant. Hungry and angry, they marched out to see what was going on in the dining room where the devatas were having their dinner. The devatas, they found, had also got their arms magic-ed, however, they had gone on to feed each other, and so each one could enjoy the food on the table.

So you see, while it might be tempting to say, heaven is creative solution – if life gives you lemon, make lemonade; I think heaven is being unselfish, so many problems would get solved if we stop taking ourselves so seriously. And what do we substitute for plans as goal posts? Hah! Well, if you can’t see the 10 billion things that you are expected to do anyhow, whether plans work or fail, then… drop me an email and tell me how you did that!

At home

2010-11-09T11:42:00.001+11:00

To see things in context, the steps in the sand as part of the journey for food or mate, as part of the message of the weather. Or when meeting people over a cup of coffee, without doubt knowing my part in the world, in their lives and theirs in my life; to see the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together so that each piece feels at home.

House mates!

2010-10-14T10:18:00.003+11:00

You have heard me talk about it (incessantly) last year about my innumerable houses and housemates, so after reading an article about how someone got interested in cheeses because of a said housemate, I was wondering what did my housemates and neighbours teach me – mostly things that came with an 'aha' moment, but sometimes not.

From the Ryrie Street house: Dogs are fun, but house-owner neighbours are seriously demented and painful… OK, I’ll try to be nice: that rule of hosting a dinner that says, everybody starts their food together.

From the Lyneham house: oh, this was nice, I was sharing with someone I got along so well we didn’t really have to learn anything! I learnt the pleasure of being accepted and cherished.

From the Redhill house: these were again friends, and I enjoyed being there, but I learnt that it is frustrating to be around people who continue speaking another language. For some reason this lesson didn’t come home till it was explicitly spelt out to me recently, but I can empathise really well. I also learnt one must be as graceful in receiving a present as offering it.

From the O’Conner house: I learnt you can learn a lot about a person from her dog. From C, I learnt some people are really weird. From L, I learnt nice people are nice company.

From the Hawker house: I learnt, living with friends is nice because you can have dinner together and waking up to a clean house with music and prayers is phenomenal. I got introduced to some other new kinds of food and learnt how to eat Laksa (quite a significant skill!). I learnt the pleasure of friends and of independence.

From the Disney house: I learnt perhaps the common thing about the best friends is their generosity. Generosity in accepting your faults, generosity with their time, with their energy.

There are no accidents

2010-05-24T15:23:00.000+10:00

Shifu: I... I... have... It's a... It's a very bad news.
Oogway: Aah, Shifu. There's just news.There's no good or bad.
Shifu: Master, your vision... Your vision was right. Tai Lung has broken out of prison. He's on his way.
Oogway: That is bad news... if you do not believe that the Dragon Warrior can stop him
Shifu: Panda? Master, that Panda is not the Dragon Warrior. He wasn't even meant to be here. It was an accident.
Oogway: There are no accidents.
Shifu: Yes, I know. You said that already...twice.
Oogway: Well, that's not an accident either.
Shifu: Thrice.

(Kumg Fu Panda)

Well you know, whether there are accidents or not are more a question of faith. Do you see a pattern in your life because there is a pattern or because you are programmed to see a pattern?

I am the quite firmly in the former camp, I think there is a pattern - but I won't argue about it. I could be wrong, and in fact I was part of an accident very recently. It was just a bit financially damaging but, thank goodness, no one was hurt. It was quite like out of the movies - very surreal, I couldn't and to some extent still can't believe I was part of it all. You know there are somethings in life you look at and say, "oh I can do stupid things, but I still could never do that" and then there is a momentary loss of conscious control - maybe you are just too tired and not thinking straight...

But out of the entire thing, a weird (beautiful?) coincidence happened: at the exact moment of collision, M called, just when I was wishing there was someone with me. He was more angry than concerned, because I wasn't home yet. It is funny how people express love (the connection?) - but it is hugely satifying to know that I am one of the lucky ones!!

some title: i cannot decide what

2010-05-20T16:30:00.004+10:00

Any decision that we make is made within the framework of what we value: safety, security, freedom, whatever. The trouble arises when we cannot reconcile our values - freedom and security; pleasure and growth and so on. The trouble is made worse when we do not recognise what two or more values are throwing the entire equation out of balance - the trial and error process, in a non-calibrated, uncontrolled environment such as my own life is very frustrating.
At times like that, I turn to something that just makes it right:
http://www.chinmayamission.com/scriptures.php

this is turning weird

2010-05-13T11:50:00.006+10:00

at the beginning, when this blog started, i had decided this wasn't going to be a journal-of-my-days kind of a blog, but recently i am running out of fresh perspective (or more likely, "look that columnist has a fresh perspective") and this is turning into a weird journal-of-my-days kind of a blog.

But I am SO happy to share tell you that I HAVE UNPACKED my boxes at work after 5 months (and I was away for 3 months before then), so after nearly 8 months I found one of my favourite-est poems in there, you are going to love it:

EACH life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility’s temerity
To dare.

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment
To touch,

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints’ slow diligence
The sky!

Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.

(It's by Emily Dickinson)
PS: This is the bartlby version - there might be others :/

Not that you asked

2010-05-12T10:47:00.004+10:00

But my work-life is currently being lived in a frosted fish bowl, which I am sharing with 3 other fish. It used to be a meeting room of old, but now i am going to put milk cartons to use as book shelves and finally un-pack my boxes. Perhaps, in my previous life, i would have wondered, "how much land does a man need?" and for a long time now, I haven't been able to completely unpack my things - at home or at work. (Is this normal?) I am managing ok without all my things, but it will be nice - don't you think?

I have lost my favourite talks that I used to listen in car - my USB stick got corrupted - and Hero hates my having the reading light on at night; not just that, he is also one of those people who actually sleep from 10.30 to 7 - I always thought that was a concept, real people didnt do that. (except Papa.) I have been substituting my favourite talks with the ABC news radio, and I think I could tell Anna Hipsley's voice in my sleep now, but my desire to know whatever is going on in the world is starting to wane; I want to listen to/ read books and get my own life in order. Or what I think would be order - my boxes unpacked, my work happening like, I dont know, the way my brother does it. I idolise my brother (can't you tell?) except you know I haven't lived with him for over 8 years now - so I dont think I can be trusted in that respect. But you have to grant it to him, that he does get his promotions, and absolutely pours his heart into his work - as our Mum used to say when we were kids, "A's work speaks for itself" and I do wonder if he has ever had a bad boss or a boring piece of work*. (i am almost always suffering from one or the other.)

So, not that you asked, but I was happy to talk...

* I am sure there are others and perhaps better, but I know my brother best.

Obsessed

2010-05-06T17:55:00.000+10:00

In one of my previous lives, I wrote an exam for entering into a prestigious Fashion Design School called NIFT. I was officially an atheist for a few weeks because God didn't help me pass.

While in my current life, when I am not wasting my time and actually working, I find it extremely enriching to belong the profession to which I do. But buying an old apartment (with these beautiful unrendered brick walls, and a lot of sun and air) which to a trained eye has unlimited potential (but is infact walls in need of a paint, window net which is torn in at the corner if you look carefully) is cue for beautiful day dreaming.

Like the wall will look just awesome white, rather than the light peach color that it is... like the bathroom just needs to have a skylight, and, if only you remove the laundry sink, will have space for a real bath... the wooden stairs are perfect, and the wall around it is ideal for a whole lot of photographs - when someone gets around to printing and framing them!! So while I am struggling to keep a handle on the laundry, and pray for somemore cupboard space on a daily basis - in my dreams and the on the internet, thanks to the following websites, i am developing an unhealthy obsession (but oh! aren't they awesome):

DESIGN SPONGE
A CUP OF JOE
MY LITTLE APARTMENT
APARTMENT THERAPY
...

hmmm, am I missing anyone?

Testing

2010-05-06T17:37:00.001+10:00

Just testing...

A bit of me

2010-04-27T10:59:00.000+10:00

i didnt really know hero before we started living together; and we only started living together after solemnly promising to do so for ever and ever, it was (as i am sure you can appreciate) a huge leap of faith - and the only reason i could even dream of taking it was because one of my dearest people got married that way, and touch wood, their's does seem to be as good a marriage as it can possibly get.

living together in this way, in a place where hero has yet to develop good social company, with whom he can be himself and yet be understood, is rather difficult for him and therefore for me!! our expressions of frustration, make it worse... however, when the storm wears down at our home; and acceptance, gratitude and humility, rather than expectation or generosity or pride, rule our home - i thank God for His grace in my marriage, i thank God for M.

These past couple of weeks/months have made me wonder what it is to love - and i dont know. I read an excellent lot of short stories culled from the Mahabharata, about pride. I was surprised to find an entire book of short stories only on pride, but they are good. Pride, i found, was to be so sure and content with ones own achievements and qualities to be blind to those in others (and pride comes before a fall). Maybe that is what love is too, to be touched by the beauty that is another human being!

more on political debates

2010-04-21T17:22:00.004+10:00

The boy/my man/the hero/husband, call him what you may (that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet) is here, and we do have our little domestic adventures inside (mostly involving cleaning and keeping our plants alive) and outside (eg., a trip to the art gallery and an attempted trip to a play) of our cute apartment. Of our apartment, there is much to report - the sun rises, and it sometimes seems to rise just for us in the apartment and the birds find a vantage point on the tree opposite our window that opens to the east, and they too seem to sing just for us! Early in the morning, i am ashamed to admit, both the sun and the birds give up when we still refuse to stir from slumber and wake only when it is too late, and the risk is not of missing nature but of losing paid work!

While a part me is tempted to let you go away with an impression that I am living in domestic bliss and peaceful harmony, my other half must ask you to halt, dear reader, and bring back the memory of my blog posts so far - I always find something to worry about, and drive myself insane; now I have found a partner in crime!! My causes for worry and that of my partner are insanely boring and well predictable - so I'll let them pass - and instead take you a land far more interesting:

An opinion post that says, "As a measure of progress, GDP makes no allowances for sustainability, and is therefore fundamentally flawed." and

an interview with dear Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi, if life was nicer I would have had easier access to his books and the time to read all his books, especially the one on Vallabh Bhai Patel!

PS: you heard about the health plan? :(

Political debates

2010-03-11T12:21:00.005+11:00

There seem to be a couple of interesting political debates happening around this time, one of which I found interesting (and convincing) and so without providing much additional insight, I reproduce:

The Greens policy on Health Reforms:

As stated by Senator SIEWERT at the Senate on Tuesday, 9 March

"...In his speech he talked about the Labor Party’s ideological belief around the insurance rebate. I would put the proposition that the coalition has an ideological belief that private health insurance will save our public health system. We do not believe that is the case and I will argue that point shortly. In fact, we have argued in this place many times that we believe this is bad policy. It does not deliver good health outcomes and we would be better off directing the money that we invest in the private health rebate directly into our public health systems. This policy pours billions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds straight into private health insurance.
In fact, what we are doing is filtering the resources that we are supposed to be putting into our health system through the private health insurance rebate. We do not believe this is an appropriate way to address our chronically underfunded public health system. We should be directing those funds directly into our public health system. Our public health system and health workers are struggling because of the lack of resources and because now $3.8 billion is channelled into the private health insurance industry rather than into our hospitals. We have opposed, and we will continue to oppose, this approach to health funding. However, we do concede that means testing the private health insurance rebate is an improvement on a flat rate of 30 per cent to all private health insurance holders irrespective of their income level and capacity to pay. Certainly removing the rebate from those on higher incomes, we believe, is a step towards the Greens position of getting rid of the rebate altogether, and it is bedded in the current system.
I have outlined previously our concerns about the private health rebate. In fact, as I think I have also said before, we are not alone in our concern about the economic wisdom of the private health insurance rebate.
Treasury does not always or very often support the Greens position but in this issue it appears that it does in fact support the Greens position. This was highlighted in the Age last year, when the revelations were made that Treasury had advised government that the private health insurance rebate was bad policy and that the billions that go towards this policy would be better spent on our ailing public health sector. Let me quote from the article in the newspaper at the time, which cited documents from the Treasury briefing, we understand, to the Rudd government shortly after its election:
THE private health insurance rebate paid to millions of Australians is “very poor policy” and should be dumped, according to a confidential briefing to Treasurer Wayne Swan.
It goes on to state:
The briefing said the billions of dollars lost annually to the rebate would be better spent on public hospitals.
That is a sentiment we very strongly concur with. Then it directly quoted from the Treasury document:
This rebate represents very poor policy. “There is no doubt that its $3 billion annual cost to revenue
could deliver far better health outcomes if directed to additional capacity in public hospitals.”
Again, that is a sentiment we support. Since that advice was provided, apparently in November 2007, the annual cost of the private health rebate has risen to $3.8 billion. We are edging up very close to that $4 billion mark. Here we have Treasury providing advice in line with the Greens policy on the private health insurance rebate as a funding model—the same Treasury whose advice the government relies on for many other important economic issues. Yet this government has ignored the advice on the private health insurance rebate and seems to buy the previous government’s ideological belief that private health insurance is the saviour of our health system. That is certainly yet to be demonstrated. I think the time for that experiment is over.
We have said on many occasions that we believe the rebate is very poor policy. It is not an effective mechanism to improve our health system. It is an ineffective and inefficient use of taxpayers’ dollars within the broader health system. It does not directly fund health service delivery, and it basically supports the health insurance industry. Compelling evidence was presented to the Senate inquiry into these bills by Dr John Deeble. Dr Deeble was a member of the old Health Insurance Commission for 16 years and was a director of Medibank Private, with responsibility for premium setting, so he has had a long-term involvement in this area. He described the private health insurance rebate as wasteful and divisive in the way in which it separates the public and the private health systems rather than integrating them. The Greens believe that government would be irresponsible if it ignored the advice received from a broad range of health and economic experts.
Ian McAuley from the Centre for Policy Development provided evidence to the Senate inquiry that showed the rebate in particular has had minimal impact on private health insurance membership and equally has had little effect on reducing public hospital demand. He provided the committee with evidence that showed that the private and public sectors deal with very different caseloads, so this rebate could never be expected to reduce the demand on public hospitals. Dr Deeble provided the inquiry with evidence that showed that private health insurance membership was not sensitive to price. He pointed out that when the 30 per cent rebate was introduced in 1999 there was almost no effect in the two years following its introduction. Coverage rose by about two per cent. Dr Deeble felt that the only reason the subsequent rise in coverage took place was the considerable advertising and fear that Medicare would not cover consumers in the future. Dr Deeble spoke of his experience at Medibank Private. He said it was possible to vary premiums without any discernible effect on membership and that there could be significant differences between insurers without any noticeable change in market share. He felt it was almost impossible for people to understand all the various products that the insurers offered and be in any position to determine if they offered value for money.
There should be, we believe, a national debate in Australia on the kind of health care we expect and how we are willing to pay for it. Professionals and dedicated people in the health sector are demoralised, and the community is dissatisfied. Private health insurance subsidies encourage specialists who would otherwise be available to public hospitals to shift to the higher paying, less stressful private system. Stampeding patients into private health insurance whose prime priority is profit rather than the health system is a recipe for a US-style system, without doubt the developed world’s least efficient. This is why the US spends 17 per cent of its gross domestic product on health, while Canada and Australia spend 10 to 15 per cent and have better health outcomes in terms of longevity, infant mortality and morbidity than the US. However, Australia’s healthcare expenditure is rapidly rising, and we have talked about that at length in this place. Ten years ago it represented 8.1 per cent of GDP. Now it is 10 per cent. The states, as we also know, have increased their health expenditure to the point where it covers up to 30 per cent of their budgets. Taxpayers have a legitimate right to ask, ‘Are we getting value for our money?’ We already know there are private patients in public hospitals, and now we are talking about public patients in private hospitals—the situation gets even more crazy.
We know that countries that grant significant public subsidies to private health insurance—Australia, France and the US—have faced considerable pressures on their public budgets. All that private health insurance does is to rearrange the queues, promoting some and shifting others to the back, and although it may help some with low-priority needs it may lengthen waiting lists for those with greater needs. We believe this is bad policy and we should be rethinking it. Ian McAuley presented evidence to the committee that argued that while the tax systems are far from perfect they do achieve a degree of equity. He pointed out that private health insurance is essentially a stealth tax which builds in inequities. There is no incentive to provide ‘public good’ services, such as the promotion of health lifestyles, and the cost of collecting tax through a single system is more effective than by individual insurers. The private health insurance industry has been successful in conveying the impression that without private health insurance there would be a collapse of the private system and that Australia would be on the path to the madness of ‘socialised medicine’. We should be asking if this is really the case.
We have said time and again that the government’s corporate subsidy to private health insurance is bad policy. John Menadue from the Centre for Public Policy Development calls it a cancerous growth. He says that it is not a health program, and we agree. It is corporate welfare. The Productivity Commission has pointed out that the increased levels of private health insurance have been associated with a marked increase in the number of services performed and reimbursements for their services. But when people really need that insurance—when they are elderly and find they cannot afford to keep up the payments—where are the insurers then? The only winners here are the insurers who, in some cases, have been collecting money from those people for a very long time. The insurers—the same ones who tell us that we cannot live without private health insurance—are the winners out of this system. These are the people who say that without their involvement our entire health system would collapse around us. These are the same people whose administrative costs are double those of Medicare and who push up their premiums every year, in some cases two or three per cent ahead of the inflation rate.
We know that private health insurance has failed to take the pressure off public hospitals, we know it has
allowed private hospitals to attract highly professional staff away from public hospitals and we know it weakens Medicare’s capacity to control costs and quality.
We know it is an inefficient way of promoting so called choice. We know so much about why it is unfair and inequitable that here we are, again, trying to patch up bad policy. We just keep patching and patching and patching to make up for bad policy.
As I have stated on many occasions, the Greens are opposed to the private health insurance rebate. I think
that is patently obvious. We believe that the money that is directed towards corporate welfare of the private health insurance industry would be better directed to our public health system. Ian McAuley calls it the power of policy privilege—and he is right. We do not need subsidies to private insurance firms to promote private health delivery. Private health insurance companies are not healthcare providers; they are part of the financial world. This is a financial product for them.
Private hospitals would be up to $2 billion better off if part of the money that is spent on insurance were given straight to them as a subsidy, for example, and not via financial intermediaries.
Notwithstanding our position on the private health rebate per se, it is simply inequitable that high income earners should receive the same rebate as those on lower incomes. If the government is not prepared to bite the bullet and get rid of the rebate altogether, at least it could make it fairer. The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2009 [No. 2] introduces a new income means test on the private health insurance rebate and removes the rebate altogether for high income earners, for singles earning over $120,000 and families earning over $240,000. The Greens will support the rebate and continue to call for any money saved from means-testing the private health insurance rebate to be allocated to public health and hospitals. As Ken Davidson wrote recently in the Age:
There is not much point in starving the health system of funding to minimise taxes if it shifts the burden from citizens
as taxpayers by creating an even bigger burden for them as consumers.
Ian McAuley noted in last year’s Senate inquiry that the private health insurance industry has administrative costs that impose an unnecessary 10 per cent on premiums because its overheads are higher than Medicare’s overheads. Private health insurance enjoys a $3.8 billion subsidy, dwarfing that of most other industries.
Yet, as Davidson, McAuley and others have noted, the major purpose of private health insurance is to give its customers the chance to jump the queue for elective surgery while allowing providers to overservice and overcharge their patients.
The provisions of these bills were announced as budget measures, designed to raise revenue and create a fairer system. As I have said, with reservation, the Greens acknowledge the intent of means-testing the private health insurance rebate and strongly believe that the money raised from this over the next four years should be directed to the public health system. We have identified a range of areas, which is by no means an exhaustive list, where the money would be well spent.
For the reasons I have outlined here, the Greens will be supporting this rebate because we think it is a step in the right direction. But nobody should be under any illusion that the Greens support the rebate in general. We do not.
We believe that it should be scrapped and that we should be directing that money into our public health system so we are not funnelling it through insurers, who are financial entities and in it for financial gain, and not promoting and providing an efficient and effective healthcare system in Australia that benefits all Australians."

my habits and i

2010-02-23T14:20:00.000+11:00

Internal struggles are insane
Insanity is lack of foresight
Foresight involves connecting
the present to its future form

there would be no struggle
if there were no habits
and if reason alone ruled us
or if everything was meaningful

meaningful,
each thing had a right name
and an unalterable value
which wouldn’t change

and we were rational beings
free from habit

happiness is a full tummy

2010-02-19T18:16:00.002+11:00

My dad is one of the fun-est people to be with; however I think he sealed it for my nephew, his grandson, when he asked me to do good enough research that my nephew ends up reading about it one day! The occasion for this comment was the fact that I have a very new nephew and the fact that I have an equally recent offer from an international publisher to publish my phd thesis.

I don’t know what it says about me or my thesis that my first reaction was, this gotto be spam! However they did end up sending me some reasonable details and a portfolio of what they publish.

So, while it will be a while before I get to see my nephew – and get to hear what my niece thinks about him. And while work doesn’t seem to be offering me much opportunities of doing the kind of work nephews and nieces would like reading about. And I am fairly unsure of my thesis getting published into a beautiful looking book. I still think, life isn’t as miserable as I am finding it. Perhaps if it didn’t involve eating an animal that was specifically killed to make food for me, I would be eating some non-vegetarian food. At the moment, I am hoping the supplements would do it for me…

one, two, buckle my shoe

2010-02-12T15:59:00.001+11:00

In view of my recent unpleasant experiences, I think that life can be divided into exactly two phases:

One, when, we get the chance to use our skills to do useful and nice things
Two, when, we are forced to do useless stuff to learn useful skills

Or putting it differently,

One, when we build our reputation
Two, when we build our character

Or putting it still differently,

One, when we read and enjoy interesting writings
Two, when we struggle at memorising vague symbols by looking at relatively monotonous and ridiculously stupid books.

the year that was...

2010-02-08T17:05:00.000+11:00

The new years is usually an arbitrary milestone on the trip, albeit it does give some kind of a relative structure to our past and gives some kind of relative speed to certain parts of the trip. 2009 has been a happening year. To reflect upon the idea that only I could have sowed the seeds for the events that took shape for me in 2009, does seem a bit unbelievable, but of course it is true.

The most striking, conspicuous feature of 2009 and even 2008, which came before it, was the lack of a stable home arrangement. While in 2008, I moved houses at the average rate of one in 3 months; in 2009, I had housemates at the rate of one in 2 months. Needless to say, most of the 2008 and 2009 were spent in looking for houses and housemates, with other things being played out on that background. (And I can proudly claim that I have had housemates from nearly all the major human races, and a couple of canine races as well!)

I think I have flogged that dead horse for a while now. So, now I’m going to skip anything about moving houses and about housemates, and list all the other things that I did last year:

1. I got married
2. I bought my first apartment,
3. I struggled at being able to sleep at night,
4. I got a belt at taekwondo,
5. I re-joined university,
6. I underwent 2 surgeries,
7. I spent Diwali at home after nearly 7 years,
8. I travelled to Sri Lanka for the first time,
9. I swam with the fish,
10. I did not have a single boring old flight, in some 10 odd international flights that I took, including one where the travel agent hadn’t paid the airlines and another where i was booked onto a cancelled flight,
11. I met my year old niece, who is more amazing than I could have imagined,

I made some new friends, I lost touch with some old ones, I got in touch again with some old ones; I had some wonderful time at work, I desperately struggled and hated work; I read Nelson Mandela’s A Long Walk to Freedom, but gave up on Ram Chandra Guha’s India after Gandhi and on Wallace’s Infinite Jest mid-way. I watched fewer movies than in 2008, and learnt only one new recipe – Jack Fruit subzi.

its February now, and bits of life are still up in the air waiting to settle down, but it now just looks like a matter of time and I wait for July eagerly... work, study, home - it will all be in its place! celebrations in july!!

On husbands and wives…

2010-01-19T14:38:00.000+11:00

Distance, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. Distance, I say, is messing up with my head. Two thirds of the time that I have been with my partner, we have been separated by distance and a time gap of nearly 6 hours and two full time jobs. By the time we will meet again, we would have been in physical proximity for less than 16% of the time.

I don’t doubt the happy ending of the story, I mean, we will eventually settle down to the normal squabbles and endearments of a routine (Indian) couple. In spite of all my logical (or so called logical) flights into causes and reasons, my decision of marrying and being married to Borealis/M, runs congruent to my subconscious faith regarding life and its journeys.

I hope you noticed the word, subconscious above. At the conscious level, I am grinding myself down to first principles. Before meeting M, I wasn’t convinced that we must marry^. I would have perhaps liked* to get married, if the right person comes along. I was willing to put effort into looking for the right person. But the inevitability of marriage as the normal state of being of a person in the society is what I was not convinced of. Being an avid fan of “Into the wild,” I had heard of the Tolstoy quote, “happiness is real only when shared.” And having considered it, I found it convincing. But who is to say that we must share it only with our family, or rather who is to say that our family is only the one we are either born into, or we marry into. I guess, having the world as a family is a hard hard thing, and it needs a BIG generous heart, a lot bigger and a lot more generous than I am capable of; and definitely more than what it takes to have a small family – no matter how imperfect. But doing the correct thing is a lot more logical than doing the easier thing that one is not convinced of.

Then I met M, and if I remember correctly (I think I come close) the feeling of inevitability of being able to accept M and actually have fun living with him was perhaps very similar to what my brother says he felt when I was born.(My brothers and I have the grandest time together and growing up without them would have been a hollow emptiness that I hate to contemplate about.) So far, I haven’t been disappointed – M is very predictable (a very, very, welcome change, when compared to the rest of my life) and M is nice. Also, usually M smiles when he talks to me.

But thank you long distance, this last bit is starting to change. If I call up in the my morning, it will be middle of the night for M… if I call up in my afternoon, it will early morning rush for M… if I call up after my work hours, it will be evening rush for M… and if I call up when it is after work hours for M, I am exhausted at the end of the day, and very grumpy. You of course noticed, that ‘if I call’, because M doesn’t call.... I am still not entirely clear about why that is the case, but it seems like I always beat him to it… or when he calls, I don’t answer… and he doesn’t believe in answering machines.

Also when we talk, it is starting to show that we aren’t really doing anything together and have slipped back to our old life of which the Other was never a part of. And what could be worse, where the Other was never missed either. It makes me throw my arms up in the air and go, “so, really, why exactly did I marry?” and because there is no one else to answer, the doubting-est part of says, “because there was nothing better to do…” to which I ask again, “but then why am I trying so hard to talk to M each day?”, to which my doubting-est part has no answer.
But then I look at it again, and ask, “so, really, why exactly did I marry?” and I answer, “for happiness, and I am yet not completely evolved to love the world like my family.” To which I ask again, “why am I trying so hard to talk to M each day?” to which I answer, “because I love being with him!” I didn’t marry M for a month or two, at the end of my life, I would have been with M for many many years; and life would have been a richer experience and I would have evolved into a better, happier person for being in his company!

^Note: Marriage here includes being part of a couple, co-inhabitation and all such things.
*Note: Liking to do something doesn’t make doing it logical

Word for the year

2010-01-10T04:20:00.001+11:00

harmony

Main Entry: har·mo·ny
Pronunciation: \ˈhär-mə-nē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural har·mo·nies

Etymology: Middle English armony, from Anglo-French armonie, from Latin harmonia, from Greek, joint, harmony, from harmos joint — more at arm
Date: 14th century

1 archaic : tuneful sound : melody
2 a : the combination of simultaneous musical notes in a chord
b : the structure of music with respect to the composition and progression of chords
c : the science of the structure, relation, and progression of chords
3 a : pleasing or congruent arrangement of parts
b : correspondence, accord
c : internal calm : tranquillity
4 a : an interweaving of different accounts into a single narrative
b : a systematic arrangement of parallel literary passages (as of the Gospels) for the purpose of showing agreement or harmony

for comparison, the previous word for the year was:

integrity

Main Entry: in·teg·ri·ty
Pronunciation: \in-ˈte-grə-tē\
Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English integrite, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French integrité, from Latin integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
Date: 14th century

1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility
2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness

synonyms see honesty

(both word definitions from Merriam-Webster, online)

a gloomy idiot

2010-01-09T02:39:00.000+11:00

Just going thru a shitty phase at work at the moment. Really shitty. And what I should be doing therefore is, put my head between my arms and run for dear life and just get out at the other end.

What I am doing, on the other hand is, trying to smell the flowers! And writing blog posts about the odour!

I am an idiot.... and the more idiotic i am, the more insomniac I become, and that makes me even more idiotic, ad infinitum.

Borealis

2010-01-08T01:44:00.000+11:00

My husband's name and mine too, if I choose it, is Arora. When one of my friends in Australia (where perhaps Arora isn't a common name) heard this, he asked me, if he may call my husband, Borealis. Since my husband is also a lawyer and I have been at the receiving end of some unnecessary flak for it, I thought it had something to do with that. Apparently, Charles Lamb was expressing, what would be, an eternally popular sentiment when he said, "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once..." So, when my friend asked me if he may call my husband, who is usually referred to as Mani, Borealis - I replied with unfailing loyalty, that for all I care he may call him a Bore!

However, thanks to my insomnia, I ended up actually looking up Borealis - it does sound so Astérix or something - and found that Aurora Borealis are actually the northern polar lights! Maybe for both these reasons, I should start calling him Borealis too and he'll never know when I find him amazing and when I find him amazing absolutely not!

a sense of persistence

2009-10-27T10:19:00.000+11:00

i do not have any obvious reason for this (if this is being morbid) but i have been reading Miles Kington's columns on The Independent. It is some indication of how fast time flies on the blog-land that when I first put up a link to his columns on my other blog he was definitely alive. Then I ducked out of the b-l and by the time I came back he had been died for a while, and today he has been dead for better part of the year.

Well, to begin with there is this book that he was working on, a collection of letters to his agent once he knew that he did not have too long to live. Which also reminds me of the US Army guy whose final blog post appears after he had been shot down by a sniper. I tried then, as I have tried now, to write a final blog post and leave it with someone, you know, just in case; but it doesn't seem to work for me at all. I keep changing my mind about nearly everything about a couple of times a day, so a final blog-post is really unlikely to be final unless it was actually written minutes before i died. also, i find it hard to imagine death, there is this lingering sense of persistence - nothing really ends, it just converts to something else. don't get me wrong, i can imagine and have experienced pain, and loss; but not death.

But finally, aren't these pretty awesome words to be written in an obituary,

"The last time I spoke to Miles Kington was three days before he died. It was 6pm, the Comment pages were due off in an hour, and he still hadn’t filed. For Miles, this was unheard of. His stuff was usually in by early afternoon. Day in, day out, for more than 20 years, he was 100 per cent reliable, and 100 per cent brilliant."

now it does make one wonder what they might be saying about me! the word reliable somehow doesn't spring to mind...

carpets and cobwebs

2009-10-11T18:37:00.000+11:00

A new place to live
I am buying a new house, well, no, I am buying an old apartment. I decided on it because... well, now, what is the point in explaining that, I am sure the reasons for which I bought it and the reasons for which I think I bought it are not the same - it is called choice blindness - look it up on Google. The point, however, is that I am still not regretting the idea of owning that apartment - which I shall have in December.

Most of my furniture will be old, hand me downs, or cheaply bought. The one and at this moment the only thing I do want to buy, however, are the dining table chairs - and these I am rather fussy about - I want the Van Gogh chairs (attached picture). I saw these chairs at a restaurant in 'berra too, a while before i bought the apartment and I loved them. I am not completely sure if they'll tell me where they got it from. I'll keep you posted on how my search goes.

The other thing that I am planning on buying are the curtains, the house comes without any! And small framed potraits of my family along with some similarly framed photographs taken by my friend - http://naturebyanirban.com/ - he has many more stuck at different places, and I think I already know which ones I want.

The crown jewels, however, will be the paintings by my Mum - priceless!

I have other ideas too, which has surprised me, I never knew I could get so keen into the idea of decorating my space. I can almost see it in my minds eye and in a folder full of pictures on my computer.

I will need to learn how to drill a hole on the brick wall from my Dad or ask him to come here to do that for me.

The expensive bit will be doing up the bathroom and the kitchen, both cry for attention - and seriously need to be done from scratch. I would love stone bench tops, but let us see. I do not intend to live all my life there, so I dont want to buy things that wont value add to the resale value. I will however put the pictures up once it is all done, and hopefully, it wont look half bad either! :)

Weird things my mind gets upto
The other news has been, that I have been dealing with a fair few things and am starting to shutter things out of my brain, or sweep them under some carpet - I am doing, what is quite the opposite of stress, and forgetting things - things that i should do, and the reasons why i should do them, which takes away the sense of urgency off them - and leaves me to do whatever I please. Only, only to suddenly have a pang of regret when I do finally get around to reminding myself that it is way past due. I am, right now, missing my wise friend and wonderful family who somehow can see what I am doing and why I am doing it; who can put the cross on just the right place on the plan and at least show me what is going on!! I am wondering how on earth will i make it right, without finding all new troubles to shift like furniture over the carpet.

Travelling
Oh and I am going on a plane for about 16 hours, and I know this is contrary to all popular wisdom and tastes, but I enjoy those flights. These are times when my mind doesnt have to put the shutters down on urgent things because there is nothing that is urgent. This is a clock time free zone, there is nothing I am supposed to do - I am not supposed to get done that nicky task, I am not supposed to eat, I am not supposed to not eat, I am not supposed to sleep - the clock and the stewards and air hostess follow no routine.

Gee, I get to talk to people around me, peep out of the window, eat, sleep, watch movies and since I am so small I am never crammed for space either. I don't know what else one might want, other than to meet your family sooner - but that is ok, this is not unpleasant time. This is time to compose myself, gather myself, so that when I meet them, I actually meet them...

I remember a lot of people I have met on journeys - the lady who rode horses to the markets near Melbourne with a son my age; the German guy, whom I didn't really meet, but whose watch was so sophisticated that he couldn't change its time - the time was set by a satellite signal - and the satellite decided that it was going to show German time in Melbourne :D; the lady who bought duty free perfumes but forgot to handover the invoices before catching her flight; the three little kids who found my seat the easiest rendezvous point to catch up with each other, without uttering a word. The guy who was going to see an art exhibition and had done a PhD in land use changes in south Australia. The drunk lady who is perhaps the only co-passenger I came close to being totally irked with; and who turned out to be not so bad after all the next morning - she however would have found me rather rude the next morning, after having to put up with her drunkenness during the past 6 or 7 hours. The guy who was a namesake of my dad's and who looked quite as handsome as my cousin - I should have asked for his phone number. Also, the guy who was visiting his family in Singapore and I forget exactly why they were there - but I remember he was very proud of them, for some reason. Yes, I think his wife was coming down from London with their two rather young sons - and found them quite an handful so he had come down to Singapore to help her, but had to return on a different flight anyway - in hindsight, I think he was rather amused.

I am looking forward to my new co-passengers, and I am hoping to God that they wont be drunk... but happy and interesting people.

Reading
I am looking forward to doing my assignments and reading away in my break - thank goodness it doesn't need ears. I will somehow have to overcome all the regrets I have manged to accumulate in this rather short time, and not come up with new ones.

Great Poems

2009-08-20T15:42:00.001+10:00

Recently, I have been making my poor friends suffer with my incessant (and if I'm honest, I might as well add, disproportionate) whinging about the undependablity of anything in the world, so, when I finally replied with a "Oh I am doing quite well!" to a "How are you doing?" email. I think I could almost hear a sigh of relief from the other end. I couldn't however let anyone think that the world has become any bit fairer, it's just that I had turned more stoic, so I shot back with a poem:

I smell perfection
In my imperfect life
In my random losses
And my random prize
In my changing habits
And new days and nights

The losses are not too big to bear
The prizes don’t bother my pride

My life’s pieces
I could have picked better
I think
But these work as well as mine

A poem full of true emotion, which I am sure my friend couldn't appreciate at all. He replied with some euphemism about artistic sides and what not. So, to him I present him, this Great Poem

A Great Poem

This is a great poem.

How I suffer!
How I suffer!
How I suffer!

This is a great poem.
Full of true emotion.

-- Gavin Ewart

this thing can be done

2009-08-18T17:09:00.001+10:00

Today i struggled with a rather badly written report which needed all of my recently lost (due to a bad bout of general flu) and rediscovered concentration power. The report starts by acknowledging an obviously important question, a question which seems well thought out, and seems answerable, if some proper time is spent on it. Unfortunately, time was short for the researchers, and they, in the first two paragraphs, equate that important question with a much less important question. I would have been happy if they answered at least that question, but they equate that question to something else - and then reproduce some information from another website, and don't even answer the third set of questions.

now, having been made to read, one terrible question worse than the other, listed over and over again and more paraphrased (interesting, but known) information irrelevant to any question, just about makes me head to some solace in some kind of inspired perfection, to remind me, as they say, that "This thing can be done."*

Reading David Foster Wallace write about Federer works fine for me,

"It’s the finals of the 2005 U.S. Open, Federer serving to Andre Agassi early in the fourth set. There’s a medium-long exchange of groundstrokes, one with the distinctive butterfly shape of today’s power-baseline game, Federer and Agassi yanking each other from side to side, each trying to set up the baseline winner...until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (=left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch backhand short, a couple feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer’s scrambling to reverse and get back to center, Agassi’s moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does — Federer’s still near the corner but running toward the centerline, and the ball’s heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there’s no time to turn his body around, and Agassi’s following the shot in to the net at an angle from the backhand side...and what Federer now does is somehow instantly reverse thrust and sort of skip backward three or four steps, impossibly fast, to hit a forehand out of his backhand corner, all his weight moving backward, and the forehand is a topspin screamer down the line past Agassi at net, who lunges for it but the ball’s past him, and it flies straight down the sideline and lands exactly in the deuce corner of Agassi’s side, a winner — Federer’s still dancing backward as it lands. And there’s that familiar little second of shocked silence from the New York crowd before it erupts, and John McEnroe with his color man’s headset on TV says (mostly to himself, it sounds like), “How do you hit a winner from that position?” And he’s right: given Agassi’s position and world-class quickness, Federer had to send that ball down a two-inch pipe of space in order to pass him, which he did, moving backwards, with no setup time and none of his weight behind the shot. It was impossible. It was like something out of “The Matrix.” I don’t know what-all sounds were involved, but my spouse says she hurried in and there was popcorn all over the couch and I was down on one knee and my eyeballs looked like novelty-shop eyeballs. "

__________________
__________________

* Source for the quote:

In the ninth Test match ever played, the visiting Australians were bowled out for just 63 on a damp Oval pitch in August 1882. England managed 101 in reply, and when the Australians (angered by a disputed runout) made 122 to set the hosts 85 runs to win, the match was considered over. But fast bowler Fred Spofforth summoned up what would become the famous Aussie neversay- die spirit – "This thing can be done," he said – and plundered 7/44 to spur his side to a 7-run win. A hush fell over the ground as England’s first home defeat (and to a colony!) sank in, and it didn't take long for a number of mock obituaries to appear in the press, mourning the death of English cricket, whose “body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. When England next toured Down Under, their captain (Ivo Bligh) promised to “regain the ashes”, and when he was presented with a small terracotta urn containing the ashes of a bail, the legend was born.

From Darkness lead us to Light

2009-08-11T17:39:00.000+10:00

The following excerpt is from a very interesting article written by Jason Overdorf, an American living in Delhi in a very interesting blog called DelhiBelly.

“You can disagree with Godse very deeply and find what he did reprehensible,” says Bhanu Mehta. “But I think as even some of the Gandhians have argued — like Ashis Nandy — there was a kind of internal integrity to what he was doing. If you read his speech at his trial, it's hard not to be in some senses fascinated by the internal integrity of the argument.”

While the article itself is very interesting, I am drawn to the idea of internal integrity of the argument referred in it.

As far as my own take goes, I think it does not make sense to condemn the ones who do wrong for the right reason, or even the ones who do wrong for the wrong reasons - for what good would that do? (For more on how our current system of justice/punishment is really quite ineffective in preventing crime, Clarence Darrow's autobiography called The Story of My Life is an interesting read.) And unless you are God, how on earth will you know whether that person is doing the wrong thing for the right reason or whether you are doing the wrong thing for the right reason?

And then that brings us to another interesting question, does an 'act' constitute a right or a wrong; or does an 'intent' constitute a right or a wrong? I think I remember correctly that Gandhiji while considering this question says it is the 'act'. He gives an example of a mother accidentally poisoning her sick child by unknowingly administering poison instead of the medicine, and then he holds the mother guilty, even though she had no intent to kill, but only to save. My own personal idea always was (and perhaps still is) that the mother is not guilty. However, looking at the 'internal integrity of the argument' above, I am suddenly questioning how far can you take the act to be as right or wrong based on what the 'intent' of the act is?

This reminds me of what Swami Vivekananda says, when once discussing the Law of Karma, No action (whatever be its intent) can be wholly good or wholly bad; and therefore no result can also be wholly good or wholly bad*. I must note here that in this article I am only considering the question that, 'if I have the will to do the right thing, how am I to do the right thing?' How can I know that what I am doing is the right thing for the right reason? How can I know that what I am doing is not coming up with some funny argument with merely internal integrity.

Which, is interestingly, how the Bhagvad Geeta starts (I must warn you, that I have only read the first chapter), but that is how it starts - with Arjuna coming up with an argument which he believes supports his decision of not fighting. Except that he too, like most of us, most of the time, is doubting his decision. And when Bhagvan Krishna tells him that no, his arguments, tho they sound wise, are actually, most unwise; at that point He is telling all of us, that there is something that is a Right and something that is a Wrong. That an argument for the action with internal integrity is not good enough.

But what if an internally consistent argument is the best we can come up with? Perhaps by the time I finish the Bhagvad Geeta, I would have answers to these two questions -
a) What makes a Right action, and what makes a Wrong action?
b) What if the best we can come up with at this point in time is an internally consistent argument for our action?

*perhaps what I mean is "wholly pleasant or wholly unpleasant"

PS: In this article I do not explain my belief in the Law of Karma, in the words of the Bhagvad Geeta as explained by Swami Chinmayanada, and in the words of Swami Vivekananda. In this article I am mostly speaking to myself.

Like Ham and Eggs?

2009-08-10T17:11:00.000+10:00

One of my friends mentions that he has the capacity to listen to ideas to contrary to his own beliefs; and since he shares his house with another friend of mine with whom, I believe, he shares hardly any belief, I nod appreciatively. That is, till I ask him, in the few months of house-sharing with this friend, what ideas has he changed? And he replies, “None”.

Another acquaintance has these gems she keeps coming with, “I wonder why are rich people more beautiful than poor people.” On hearing about the KFC food-poisoning case in Sydney she goes, “Oh everything from the west of Sydney is like that – a little worse.”

I think I am enjoying the fact that these two people are starting to date.

When rights of others are old fashioned ideas

2009-03-25T12:10:00.000+11:00

I was having an argument with a someone yesterday, the premise of whose argument went something like this –
Individual right is a western concept, and therefore it is best if the West or the Developed Countries do nothing to help stabilise a human-ist govt. in parts of world where human rights are less available than more.

I found this argument so wrong, and so logically wrong, that it might have been actually fun tearing it apart, if it wasn’t so scary. This, to make it slightly worse, was coming from a person whose organisation motto involves – removing poverty and achieve sustainable development…

I will not get into the whole discussion of “developed countries” for that is outside the point I want to make. But I thought it was fairly obvious that if your lifestyle is unsustainable if everybody in the world lived like you; then there is a system in place that deprives a lot of people of basic needs, so that you can live the way you do. This system, in other words, causes inequality and poverty. And this system, if you manage to open you eyes and look, is one that requires bullies in place, bullies that deprive all of their population of basic needs so that they can have a small number of luxuries. That the western governments and multi-national companies have nothing to do with putting these bullies in place, or at the very least, strengthening their power, is a laughable idea if you read any short history of the world.

I am not into providing solutions at the moment, because I sincerely believe it is the quality of the people and not the quality of a system that makes things work. But to think that if more than half the world is having a hard time, but that has got nothing to do with you is a lie – and well, you are a selfish ungrateful b if you can’t even see that.

PS: To say individual right is a western idea is like saying literature is an English idea, just because you have never read literature in any other language except in English.

PPS: If you say helping isn’t helping, then the idea is to replace bad strategy with good strategy; and not with no strategy!

Solitary confinement and the question of faith

2009-03-05T18:15:00.000+11:00

I was wondering about solitary confinement; and why we need an external/objective confirmation of our experiences - see here, for example; or the fact that Rudd's apology to the stolen generation was such a big deal.

Isn't it also one of the reasons why we read? or gossip? or talk?

And I wonder what that says about our faith, what do we believe in? Does this mean that we don't completely believe in all that we experience, that we treat our own experiences with scepticism?

Anyway, here is a very interesting article on the topic of solitary confinement -A History of Hard Time by Daniel Brook.

I am

2009-02-26T10:50:00.000+11:00

I am very interesting
And quite useless
Much like trivia

I am on my way
Neither willing nor able to stop
Much like a rolling ball

I am speaking
If or not I make sense or meaning
Much like art

I am grateful for love
I am waiting to pass it on
Much like a teenaged tree

Much like an eye looking
At image on the misty mirror
I am seeking

Things we teach our kids, and why?

2009-02-23T12:09:00.000+11:00

My young cousin recently mentioned that according to the doctors he is expected to be around 6 feet tall; and somehow I wanted to hug him and say, "It doesn't really matter how tall you are, there are things far more important that - things that really need working at."

But saying that would have been wrong at two levels.
Firstly, because I am not quite sure if that would have been true. I am not sure where the line lies, but there are people who command your attention simply by the way they carry themselves, or simply by having the kind of looks that they do. I think the world makes it easier for some people to be at peace with their bodies, others have to work harder at it.

Secondly, and this is the more important reason, because it had been me, along with the rest of my dear family, who had told him in the first place that being tall is oh-so-important. Somehow it had been the easier thing to do at that time, easier to make him go outside and play and eat properly, easier than trying to explain that discipline in life helps, easier than trying to explain how our thoughts and our control of them works. It had been easier to explain that we fail only because of the lack of our efforts and by corollary that we succeed only by our own efforts - than telling him that we only have control over our efforts, and in the long run that is all that matters. That the most important success in life is to understand our own selves, and to understand what is truly valuable in life; and not to understand how to manipulate the systems of the world only to get what is considered valuable in the world.

But he is just a kid now, and a thinking one at that - perhaps he doesn't need me to tell him anything, and he already understands that simplifications also have a place in learning. We just climb higher a step at a time; that with every step the same scene looks different.

Tag - I'll have 25 of those please

2009-02-15T19:13:00.000+11:00

You are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

1. I have been wanting to put up a tag on my blog for a while now, and I was quite excited when I saw someone come up with this one on facebook.

2. I try to wiggle my feet into my shoes without opening the laces or buckles.

3. I am very fussy about haircuts, or atleast my haircuts.

4. My housemates keyboard doesn't have a fuctional Ctrl key, because of which I can't use shortcuts - that annoys me no end!

5. I find facebook (and other internet links) confusing; I seem to know a fair few of someone's personal details but I am still not really their friend. Someday I'll the will have the will power to get myself off it.

6. People often find me smiling, but I am not sure if it is a plesant smile or a kind of botoxed gaping one.

7. I think some people quite literally light up the room!

8. I like blogs better than facebook;

9. I am quite happy with and proud of BlinksView.

10. I think most things can be explained by habits.

11. I would never like to go back in time; whatever is truely valuable is always going to be around.

12. I hate mess.

13. I can't work in completely sanitised environment, I like personalised space. A bit of a chaotic mess.

14. I like people using please and thank yous.

15. I have carried an orange and a pink mobile phone, because the one I owned was sent to the factory. My first mobile phone was navy blue, and the latest one is black.

16. My first laptop lasted me 4 years; the record since then has been a bit dismal, as one got taken away, and 2 got stolen (on the same night).

17. I have had my bicycle stolen, my laptops stolen and have had someone break into my office, and into my home once. I have had my wallet returned to me twice by strangers - once at a cafe; and once at a food court in the shopping mall.

18. I like bike-riding, the mechanical one.

19. I think Canberra would be nicer by having a few more late night cafes, lounges and ice cream bars.

20. I wish Charles Dickens would have finished The Mystery of Edwin Drood before he died.

21. I wonder if Russians have ever written a proper comedy.

22. I always have a to-do list scribbled up.

23. I think Google has raised the bar very high for a user friendly interface.

24. I am a bit short on patience, but I think when I really have to, I do manage to persist.

25. I like Peanuts; but dont enjoy Archies.

Perfect thought, Perfect mind; and the love thereof

2009-02-13T11:40:00.000+11:00

I just came across a very readable interview of Peter Porter (poet, aged 80) by Craig Sherborne on The Age. It has a rather wonderful title, 'Love of the perfected thought' – which while enough to lead me to meditation on the idea of a perfect thought; also brings to mind my gorgeous niece, Ihaana, whose name means ‘most perfect condition a mind can be in.’ Most perfect state of the mind? I always thought was that of no-mind, the non existence of mind. The mind, I have always read, is like a river of thoughts. A calm mind, one that is not restless, is a still mind. But who has heard of the river being made of still waters? A still river is a pool and it soon dries up – a perfect mind is no mind.

So, the idea of the perfect thought… again, whatever do you mean by a perfect thought? A thought is just a thought – “the forest is big”, is a thought – how is it perfect or imperfect? It is the series which is of interest to most of us (those of the, yet, imperfect mind) – ‘the forest is big’, followed by, ‘so I could cut it and get a lot of wood from it’ or followed by, ‘which is rather rare.’ It is the nature of the following thought that is the difference in the different people. It is not what you think, but how you think that matters.

And that is just the title!

The interview itself contains some very quotable quotes, of this kind - “Sometimes I think poetry exists to provide novelists with their titles."

And this is something else that I am going to try and use, “And his routine remains this: write 40 poems a year, of which 10 survive his end-of-year culling.” I might do that with my blog, go thru the end of year culling, so that, blog remains something that can be visited again sometimes. By keeping the bad with the good, I realise, I end up deleting the rare good ones as well… which is sad.

So, I say Aye to end of year culling! And now go and read the interview!

A Poem

2009-02-05T14:55:00.002+11:00

Come, come!
I do have something to say
It is not written in words, just yet
Or even fully formed in thoughts,

But it is there… it is there.
At the back of my mind, somewhere
Troubled, restless, worried mind
With an urge to speak, but tongue tied

Come sit here and hear
Let silence speak and time unveil,
The ideas that might just be common place
Which I now utter as confused sentences

Not meaning what I said
Not saying what I meant
And definitely not what you think
I said

Being friends can be such a joy,
To talk about nothing and laugh together
Maybe that is what my restless mind would like
To -

Learn a new language

2009-02-03T11:04:00.001+11:00

I just recently observed that the difference between a native speaker of a language (or a particular dialect of a language) and a person who has picked it up at a later stage is not of vocabulary or even of grammar - but of idioms. A native speaker has access to irrational (or what have, by now, come to be irrational) idioms.

Take for instance 'twinkle in one's eye' and 'stars in one's eyes'. Idioms for a native speaker are just a long word.

Among the things I'd like to do are -
a) Learn a new language - vocabulary, grammar, idioms, and all
b) Learn how to play a musical instrument
c) Learn how to swim
d) Be really really REALLY good at something... anything... anything useful.

A modern day fairy tale

2008-12-14T03:18:00.000+11:00

once upon a time there was a girl with a blog called, air is in the love. quite surprisingly (for any of her blogs) that blog actually had a readership. she would write nice articles that could only be written when one had the angst and the time of a poor student. Put nice links to stories (even one to a saki story that no one is ever going to find again) and even put poems, really good poems, up there. all was well, but she could not find the purpose of it all, she did not know why say it?... so, one fine day, she deleted the blog and a lot articles that went up on that blog were lost forever.
instead she put up another blog called why say? why say did just what it said, and she soon found the reasons to say whatever she said. But the love of 'air is in the love' was by this time lost to someone who only found 'love in the air', and not the other way round.
and so when on one saturday night when she had had too much coffee to be able to sleep, as she was browsing thru other blogs and reminded of her posts of old, she found that they (her old posts) were so completely lost that even google's cached memory didn't have them anymore. and in memory of her dear old blog, she just put up another blog entry...

Mice, Spiders and Housemates

2008-12-03T11:44:00.000+11:00

I used to recently have a housemate from somewhere in the vicinity of a mythical place called hell. She would do funny things like stop the washing machine while your clothes were washing and tell you how terribly inconvenient it would be for her if you wouldn’t make the payment for an advertisement when you have just told her that you have lost your wallet and credit card and all your keys and most of your ids. But while she never emptied the dish washer, and talked to you like she was interrogating you or something, she didn’t ever block your car on the driveway and she would lend you her clothes hanger which was sitting in the storage – so I’d say somewhere in the vicinity of hell.

Oh, and she did this really annoying thing recently, in fact, did it during the time they were showing my room to prospective housemates. The room, which is completely disconnected to the house, is behind the garage and next to a reasonable sized backyard. This meant that I’d have occasional visits from the friendly neighbourhood mouse and its friends. My obvious reaction to the mouse was of course standing up on my bed and screaming on a long distance call to my parents who are in another country – but mice are intelligent beings (remember 42?) and when they find a female standing on the bed and screaming they take a very zen-ist view of the whole situation. Their first idea is to go the pocket of your back pack, but when they find that it doesn’t have a calming effect they were hoping for, they simply excuse themselves. Anyway, I digress. Coming back to the story, my housemate decided that it will be far more convenient to simply leave the door open and let people walk in and out – while she, reasonably, kept an eye on them. I didn’t mind much to the people bit, I don’t really possess many steal-worthy things, but I definitely wasn’t going to let the door stay open and thus give the mouse and its friends a chance to test if my opinions of sharing my bedroom with them had changed. I told her as much, and as I soon found out, not to much useful consequence.

I return home, a bit later than 10’o clock at night, to find on my pillow, a spider about 3 inches in diameter. Cursing my housemate, poor and tired me starts thinking of ways to get rid of the spider. My first plan, and I simply repeat for education, was to make a path for the spider leading to the outside and throw things at it to motivate it to move. That didn’t work. Spiders are stupid and when you throw things at them they play dead. Well, this made things difficult for me, because I had to pick those things from the top of the spider – so you can imagine my hand was within a centimetre of the spider and therefore obviously, while I was doing this I was also screaming. Anyway, I have another house mate, who is petrified of spiders and that is even when they are outside and not very large. So, while I could hardly expect her to help me, I was quite sure she would have a spider killer spray. I must mention, again for education, that while they have their use, the insect killers are quite horrible things, the death they make looks very ugly and painful. Anyway, I decide to use the insect killer and what that does is make the spider move very quickly to whatever direction would take it’s fancy or panic. Unfortunately, the direction our spider took was on a pair jeans which were lying on top a lot of bed-sheets on the clothes hanger. As it climbed on this specific pair of jeans, I started to really panic, I didn’t want to spray insect killer on a pile of clean and ironed sheets and doona covers, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse than trying to find a 3 inch spider in a stack of sheets. So, obviously, I was screaming, this time on the phone to a friend who is interstate, that 'it was climbing on my jeans'.

At this point comes my housemate (the cause of all the trouble and a total pain) she stands at the house door, which is opposite the garage door, to which my room is connected (remember, my room is connected to the garage?) and screams as accusingly as ever, “what is going on?” I get off the phone for a sec and reply to her that there is a spider in my room, to which, she replies, “You are screaming because there is a spider in your room, get over it and shut up” or something in the similar vein. Now that is a bit rich, I mean, sorry to disturb your sleep but I have a spider in my room because you wouldn’t leave door closed and now I am dealing with it by myself, sorry I am going to be as loud or as quiet as I like. I think I told her something on the lines, nothing very eloquent, I was absolutely fuming. We banged doors on each other and I sprayed on some more insect killer and the poor thing died before it had gone much further.

The next day, I am catching up with the other house mate, and she casually asks me what happened the previous night, “I heard some doors banging while I was taking on the phone”. I lived in a kind of house where the natural place to find a person was in their bed room – and at 11 o clock at night, I think that is only natural. I tell her the story I have just told you, and she goes, “Oooh, right. Yes, so I heard the doors banging I came out to see what was going on. And C, she comes wrapped up in a towel absolutely fuming and tells me – You know Neha she is absolutely mad, screaming because there is a fucking spider in her room, and I thought she was getting murdered or something.” C, I found out, was self- tanning when she heard me screaming. At first, she wondered if there is anything she needed to do (or if, at least in her opinion, I was being my normal mad self), but by the time I was yelling, “it is climbing my jeans”, she decided my needs were greater than her tanning needs and she wrapped herself in a towel and jumped to rescue.

Ah imagine someone standing in the backdoor in a towel at 11 at night. Next day I saw her walking in after a late evening, she was wearing pants, I don't know about you but I would think if you are up till nearly midnight tanning, you wouldn't be wearing pants the next day, would you?

:)

Ah, well, from the vicinity of hell as I said.

Into the Wild

2008-11-28T17:07:00.000+11:00

There are no events but thoughts and heart’s hard turning, the heart’s slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.
- Annie Dillard, quoted by Jon Krakauer in the book ‘Into the Wild’.

After watching and thoroughly enjoying Sean Penn’s movie adaptation of the book earlier this year; I found the book even more satisfying. While Sean Penn’s Chris McCandless is a hero, not a typical sitcom or movie hero, but a hero nonetheless. Jon K’s Chris McCandless is a more doubtful character, who probably lived his with a lot of conviction and idealism, but whose actions and intentions when put under scrutiny after his death, don’t really add up for a lot of people.

But it is an important story and an important life, in which Chris McCandless probably tried answering some questions that he was haunted by. Or more likely, tried testing the answers that he was convinced of. Some how Chris’s story is something personal for Jon K – the idealism, the fearlessness, the immoderation, the conviction, it is the stuff fairy tales are made of – and fairy tales are personal for all of us.

How often have we wondered if we were ready to pay or even capable of paying the price for living according to our convictions? How often, only too late, we think we somehow weaselled our way out of doing the right thing? And how we gradually start to believe that there has to be a reason for all the (seemingly meaningless) conventions that the world drags on.

McCandless pretty much takes the decisions we dream about taking but convince ourselves that they are impractical. So, while I am still wondering if I agree with Chris’s choices, while I am still not completely convinced if Chris was merely odd or genuinely rare, and I am still trying to take measure of the pleasures and pain that people who knew Chris had to go thru, and I am still trying to take measure of the pleasures and pain of being Chris – in short, I am not completely convinced of the answers, I am glad the questions have been raised -
Where is happiness? Why must I do what others do?

I am glad there was an honest attempt to answer them, tho, I am left wondering - how much can conviction bear the weight of our decisions? How do you know if conviction has a ring of truth? What leads us on?

But the beauty of Chris McCandless’ character, his honesty, his detachment, his unselfishness really come in perspective when you see how hard he worked and with what discipline; and how ghastly are the paths that many others take when they get off the beaten track. I am talking about the Bombay terrorist attacks, and the selfishness, the callousness, the frustration, the thoughtlessness, the dishonesty, the self-deceit these attacks reek of.

If the sun shines but approximately?

2008-10-08T12:16:00.000+11:00

There is no complete freedom; we only have a choice of negotiating what freedom we get. There is only partial freedom and that partial freedom is bought by being a partial slave.

She had found herself in the walled city. Well, it wasn’t really a walled city, but it sure felt like it. It was an un-walled city but who says only physical stone walls keep you in? It was work that had brought her there, away from the ways of life and comforts of habits in the home she knew. The temptations that kept here there were a bit stronger than the desires that wanted her out of there, and the fact that she believed in good luck – if you stumble upon it, better hold it with both your hands. But the partial freedom she bought was at a heavy price of being a partial slave. The comforts of life were bought at the price of binding her hands to this, whatever this was. She had first noticed it when she realised that she was lying, a bit shocked at her lying without any real need. Looking at it more closely, she found that she wasn’t really lying, she was approximating and in that she was way off the mark from what she meant to say. Approximating because her speech, in words and body language, were really like looking up the translation dictionary and working up sentences. The irony did not miss her, in the language she had learnt from birth, she spoke in idioms, in metaphors and all those figures of speech; she spoke in patterns she had built up unconsciously, walking down the path she knew nuances and subtleties, but that did not let her break free – she walked down the same path, over and over again. She said the same thing with all the nuances and all the subtleties. Breaking free, she bound herself again and again.

There is no complete freedom, the choice is only in deciding what you allow to bind you – and then that partial freedom is heavily bought.

(PS: This is introspective not autobiographical - in case anybody is worrying about me :D)

Choicest Thoughts of Them All

2008-08-14T17:36:00.000+10:00

A while ago, on one of my blogs I had put a quote up, “It is not what you think, it is how you think that matters.” And what captured more of my attention was that I heard two different people say this, in different contexts.

I am not sure of the sequence, but one of them was this lady who had crossed the Australian deserts in, I think, the 1980s. She wrote a book on her experiences, which has a cult following; not unlike a following of the “Into the Wild.” When I came across an interview of hers, I was living by myself, choosing not to get myself a television or an internet connection, and trying to figure out for myself, “what would I do, if the (all-evil) media didn’t tell me what to do.” It didn’t work quite that well and surprisingly, for me, it was a difficult experience. I later found that it wasn’t such a unique experience either, and most people who try it reach the same conclusion. I also, since then, read up more on the history of solitary confinement. Anyway, I was living by myself at that time, and was rather unsure of what I was experiencing, so when I read of this woman, who for months together just walked the desert with camels without any human company, I was obviously interested. When asked about, what is was like being completely by her own self, she replied, “it is not what you think, it is how you think that matters.” This might have made sense to the interviewer, but it made no sense to me. It was food for thought, but I couldn’t really tell what was the difference between the “what” and “how “of thinking.

A week or so later, I was reading something that, if I remember right, Guruji had written, where he said it in exactly the same words, “it is not what you think, it is how you think that matters.”

I think I ended up calling G-ji from the CM to ask him to explain, and he tried explaining in a lot of ways, none of which I remember, till he came up with an explanation that made sense to me, and which I remember, “What you think”, he said, “means what exactly your thought is; however, how you think means how when one thought arises, what do you do with that thought.” “What kind of a thought is likely to follow it; what kinds of patterns do your thoughts follow.” You know some people thoughts get more powerful and they quickly act on them; other people thought tend to end with them feeling sorry for themselves; and so on. (I am not sure if I have been able to explain it clearly enough, but do think about it – it is not what you think, it is how you think that matters.)

And that was such an ahha moment for me, that it has taken me a while to be able to pen it.

And now yesterday I came across another rather brilliant piece of information, and I’ll just paste my scribbled notes on it below, “According to it, there is a thought, "let’s go to the pictures"; and it is only a random thought, till "I" take ownership of that thought - "I go to the pictures"; once I take ownership of that, I may then decide to follow it up with action.... and go to the pictures - but till then, (and this is so so important), it is just a thought, and "I" can let it go. A thought came and a thought went away, because I did not own it - follow it up with anything!!”

The powerful

2008-07-16T17:17:00.000+10:00

Power over other people makes us hypocrites, what I find interesting is, that there is no law in nature to ensure that power does not go into the hands of people who do not know how to deal with it. It is handed over to people who cannot deal with it and instead of staying in their hands, it ends up in their heads – making them a cruel caricature of themselves. Their idea of an ideal world/person is so screwed, that in implementing it, they screw the whole thing up. (For, I believe, everyone is inching towards their idea of ideal… honesty makes the inching faster, growth makes the ideal clearer, more refined, and more aligned with the absolute ideal/truth.) If a law as bizarre as gravity can be so deeply coded into the world, I wonder why this law can’t be implemented.

In the next version of the matrix, you'll find it there... I just sent it to the suggestion box - these programmers take the suggestion box seriously!

Added later:
Dilbert cartoon website

Now, experience

2008-07-01T18:12:00.000+10:00

Now, this is going to be a boring post; but this is just one of those things that I need to put to pen, if only to make myself think it thru and make sense of it.

There are things that a twenty year old knows that a ten year old cannot; and yet we have many a twenty year olds who know just as much and behave just like a ten year old. I am talking about experience, and value of all sorts of experiences. I am trying to figure out what if I go thru all my experiences of joy, sorrow, pain, beauty and more and then at the end of it find that in spite of all of that, I still haven’t grown. What if I have hypnotised myself to see things only in one way, and no matter what happens I never see things for what they are? Is that necessarily a bad thing? If I believe in something and everything I experience reinforces that belief. What’s the harm in living like that?

Leaving the previous question – of the loop of experience and belief -for a bit; there is another thing I am thinking about.

To learn from experience, we have to live fully. I did not learn much from my previous job, or at least not as much as I’d have liked to. That is because somewhere down the line, I cut myself slack. I am not sure why I did that; because the tasks were monotonous, or if the tasks were monotonous because I did not work hard enough? Had I tried my best to do the best job I could, I would have come face to face with a few facts about myself. It is something like this, had I tried and analysed why wasn’t I performing as well as I’d like to, I would have come up with an hypothesis (for example, I tend to work best on Saturday afternoons) Then, had I tried working Saturday afternoons, I would have either confirmed that yes Saturday afternoons is the time for me; or would have realised that the problem was actually something else. And then the next time I would have had to get results, I would have known exactly what to do to get them.
I am going to live my entire life with myself, and I know so little about me – all these half baked hypothesis, is sometimes all I know about me.
And the difference between the ten year old and the twenty year old is that the latter has had 10 years more of opportunity to test their hypothesis – about themselves and about their world. The world should make a lot more sense to the 20 year old – a 20 year old should be so much in control of his/her world, because he/ she knows how it works.

Hopping back to the previous idea – of loop between what you expect to see and what you end up seeing, because you are hypnotised… I think the question boils down to what really is; and while we are at it, what is the point of life? Is it to (a) know what is; or is it (b) to be happy and if it is to be happy then isn’t it possible that some people be happier when they know just what to expect – immaterial of if it is or it isn’t?

Ah, well... but to end, can I please quote from my recent favourite movie – “I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth.” (It’s from Into the Wild – go watch it!!)

----

Un related to the above post - This seems like an interesting stack of pages.

why say?

2008-06-07T15:05:00.001+10:00

Swami Chinmayanada answers an interesting question, "why say?"
well, almost.

watch it. it's interesting.

celebrating conversations

2008-06-04T17:33:00.000+10:00

at the airport, on the bus, at the bus stop, in the lift, on the phone, on the train,

... before sunrise

(but of course, how can you celebrate conversations with an essay?)

Some title

2008-06-01T13:35:00.000+10:00

Read this quote,

"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, we find, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given."

It is by Bertrand Russell and I found it here. Italics are my own.

To put it slightly differently, doesnt it mean that those who philosophize find problems in the most everyday things, and generally lack common sense?

Maybe there is more to Permanent Head Damage theory than meets the eye!

the roller coaster that is life!

2008-05-29T23:04:00.000+10:00

A week or so ago, it was a weird time in my life. I was at the verge of depression, clinical depression. Which is bizarre because I have a very cool job, I work for/with wonderful people, I have a very supportive family, I have awesome friends, I am in no financial difficulty. But there it is, I was going through what is very close to clinical depression.

In fact, thanks to my research training, I do not/cannot say anything that is not verifiable using independent measurable parameters. So tho I knew that something wasn’t right with me, I had to go to the Beyond Blues initiative to first figure out what is depression, you know, just in case I had it?

I came across a diagnostic manual which I am not reproducing because of limited space.

But I basically fit in with what they expected…

Well, it wasn’t 2 weeks really but for a while I had been depressed-like, I am not really sure how you define it… and yes I was lacking interest in a lot of things… My mind was racing nearly all the time and I thought people didn’t really want to talk to me… they were all just being polite, because they did not really want to hurt me.

I also satisfied conditions mentioned:
1 – depressed mood… CHECK
2 - less interest… CHECK
3 – weight loss… well it was definitely appetite loss partly CHECK
4 – Sleeping difficulty… Oh Goodness CHECK!! I was walking up 5 times a night with a startle.
5 – Tiredness… CHECK
7 – Feeling worthless… CHECK
8 – Difficulty concentrating… Again a BIG BIG CHECK! I just couldn’t work!
9 – Thoughts of death… not there totally, not more than normal… so I don’t know if I am always close to depression or I was normal at this front…

But you get the idea, right?

I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating and I wasn’t getting work done because I just could not concentrate and I was feeling quite useless because of that!

Anyway, this turned COMPLETELY around one evening as I lay/sat in bed and I saw the head lights from a car in the street pass thru my room. Just so that you can visualize it, when I am sitting in bed my back is towards this big window. In front of the window is a fairly quiet street and only a couple of cars pass thru the night. Anyway, I had the blinds open, so when the car passed the light reflected against the white walls and flashes right on my face as I sit or lie in bed. Or something like that, you know, a car passes quite quickly.

Anyway, I am sitting in bed, thinking that there has to be some way to pull myself out of this depression, because there is no reason to be depressed really! And this light flashes on my face, and in a flash (quite literally!) I get it!

You see, this light totally woke me up but before I could even see how on earth does the light flash on my face, it was gone without a sound or a trace!

The car lights had been waking me up in the middle of the night, by the time I woke up they would be gone! I obviously was sleeping bad, which meant that I was also losing my appetite, which also meant that I couldn’t concentrate, which meant that I felt there was something totally wrong with me, which totally made me feel useless!

Ah people! Such is life! Needless to say, I ensure the blinds are totally shut now.

On why somethings work?

2008-05-28T11:47:00.000+10:00

I just finished reading Rajmohan Gandhi’s biography of his grandfather, Mohandas. What a page turner it is! Enjoyed it very much, tho at over 700 pages, it took me fair while to go thru it.

One of the trivial things I brought home from the book was about how impressive Rajmohan Gandhi’s own lineage is – his grandparents included Katurba, Mahatma Gandhi, C Rajagopalachari; his father, the youngest son of the Gandhis, was the editor of Hindustan Times. Disappointingly, there is an unnatural silence about the author’s mother in the book. Btw, am I wrong in guessing that the author could have gone to no other school except Modern School in Delhi, perhaps it was even his father who was instrumental in starting the school? Anyway, I don’t really know.

But there is an interesting question running through the book, quite obviously, why did satyagraha work? Or really how did MKG make satyagraha work? In a world where, law of self-preservation is the first law, Satyagraha should not work. The satyagrahi should not perpetuate it, and the oppressor should not be bothered by it. In fact, I personally believe, most of the times people try to do stuff like satyagraha, it does come across as a joke. I am not sure what is more surprising, whether satyagraha (or peaceful resistance by the physically weak) worked at all or that it has been made to work by only a handful of individuals in the world? Let us not be fooled that the British were any bit more soft than any other race in the world, we are talking about self-preservation of the empire here – and the individuals personified the empire, they believed themselves to be the empire, killing people for the empire was nothing personal for them.

So, why did it work? Was it the pragmatic, the sharp intuition that MKG had about how people would behave in any environment? That explanation is completely realistic considering that MKG would deliberate when and exactly how and who was going to be a satyagrahi as much as he could. Also, MKG understands that for most non-violence was not a Truth but a policy; and he justifies it even as that. He says, once the violence against the actual oppressor has ended, will it not naturally turn towards others from whom one has perceived oppression. Is it not natural that a ‘WAR’ of independence should ALWAYS lead to a civil war? But then MKG also says that he knew that the soul must act on another soul? So is that second statement bull shit; or more accurately, since India is perhaps, paradoxically (is it paradoxical?), one place on earth which at least till recently managed to stay open to any religion and yet every aspect of lives of the majority population, Hindus, is governed or at least touched by their religion. In such an environment, is it that the only solution that MKG had was sublimating the religion to ground realities of the country? So, my question is, was MKG cloaking a pragmatic approach, pragmatically applied, in the only cloak the general populace would see it, that of religion? The question, dear readers, is, was ‘insistence on TRUTH, satyagraha’ a cloak?

Depending on where you stand it is just as tempting to say yes, as it is to say no. Of course, I do not know what to believe either.

In the above section, I think, I have presented the argument for it being a pragmatic approach. But an interesting argument for it being a spiritual/ethical* tool is that only an ethical/spiritual tool, a tool in tune with the most fundamental realities of our existence, in tune with LIFE itself, will be something pragmatic enough to work. Having said that, lets get back to the perceptible realities of how satyagraha worked. If we look at people who could make Satyagraha work, if we look at MKG, we see a large part of why it worked, was MKG’s intuition, his uncanny sense of how most people would respond to a certain environment. Another reason, I think, was that he would not give up his cause; he had the commitment and the patience to keep at it. The question perhaps then is slightly different. It is not whether satyagraha was a cloak on something pragmatic, something far more hard nosed. The question perhaps is, what is the source of human intuition? Commitment? Patience?

*By ethical/spiritual tool, I mean, any tool that aligns itself with the idea that all creatures are all expressions of Life and thus interconnected. To serve them is to serve ourselves; to hurt them is to hurt ourselves.

Science and Hypothesis

2008-05-27T19:11:00.000+10:00

On my to-read list:

Science and Hypothesis
Henri Poincaré

there is a book on Orwell

2008-05-21T13:35:00.000+10:00

... which was written some 6 years ago, and I just read an article about it.

Why Orwell Matters? by Christopher Hitchens.

Dont know much about Orwell and Hitchens but the article is good. More on it, soon, hopefully!

2008-05-08T11:29:00.000+10:00

When you need to think - think.

When you need to work - work.

As a rule of thumb, dont mix the two.

Pop environmentalism (another tag!)

2008-04-18T10:58:00.000+10:00

Environmentally what is the worst thing, you think, you do:
Waste a lot of paper;
Write on, Print on, Re-print on, Re-Re-print on, Read from, Clean the table, Dry my hands, Wipe my bum, Blow my nose, Carry groceries, Package stuff, and what not!

One habit you think you might have changed:
I pick up less number of plastic bags during shopping, I should like zero bags, but I am getting there!

One general habit that baffles you:
That people actually buy bin bags!

One question you would desperately like answered:
What is the connection between money/economy and natural resources?

If you could change the way people think, you would:
Like them to ponder on the Gaia hypothesis; and reconsider what constitutes happiness.

Tag it!

2008-04-10T17:26:00.000+10:00

I just feel like doing a tag:

My special dates on the calender:
1 July – I was born on this date, I joined my bachelors on this date, and I joined my masters on this date
10 July – My brother was born on this date; I reached Australia on this date
10 April – I started my working life on this date; I just had my first magistrate’s court experience on this date

If I could change one thing:
I would be less than 5 hours and less than $150 away from my family.

One thing that’ll make me laugh:
A Wodehouse or people who follow in the same vein

The weirdest thing I do:
Somehow find the difficult way of doing things, most naturally

One thing I wish I could do:
Make sense to people

One thing I know is a rage, but I don’t care for:
Travel

One thing I know isn’t a rage, but I care for:
Making sense of it all, solving the jigsaw puzzle called life which is made of pieces called experiences

My favourite city:
Melbourne

My favourite house:
Sonfiyad, Trivandrum

My favourite room:
12.12.21 Melbourne

One thing I know:
I am loved

One thing I don’t know:
How someone else would see what I see

My favourite colour:
Yellow

If I had the time, I’d pay to do this:
Be a carer at after-school. (Primary school kids let lose make the most fascinating study, perhaps of human kind!)

I would like to get paid to do this:
Make sense of ecology, and also to see how we can/ end-up affecting it.

The cliched stuff - mind, matter, and the end of it all

2008-02-21T12:32:00.000+11:00

Heath Ledger died. If you knew me you’ll find it very unusual for me to regret that. I believe, to a very large extent, one death is a catastrophe and a hundred is news. That is irrespective of how good or noble we are. It has got to do with the amount of emotional investment we have made; it is about the habits of our mind.

But Heath Ledger died and somehow I do regret that. That perhaps has something to do with the fact that I was quite moved by Jack Nicholson as Joker in Batman; and when I saw Heath Ledger’s face in the newspaper as the Joker, I was rather impressed. It is the kind of face that haunts, it is story that captures you and you don’t want the experience to end. To think that the guy won’t, definitely won’t, tell you another story… well, it makes you regret. Not just the experience of watching the act, there is also pleasure to see someone doing something so well. It’s like seeing Federer play, it’s like reading your favourite PG Wodehouse, it’s like watching the Thin Red Line, it’s like seeing Jack Nicholson as the Joker, it’s one of those things that make you so happy because they make heaven accessible. To think that someone so close to heaven just died, it does make you regret, doesn’t it?

But on the other hand, sleeping just about an hour a day, what kind of heaven is that? Perhaps people just come, experience and go and accidents are pretty handy. I don’t believe in life being important in itself, it is the ‘values in life’ that give value to life. Life (with a capital L), on the other hand, is Life and we needn’t worry about that. I believe in re-incarnation, so suicides don’t work for me. You see, you’ll find yourself in exactly the same situation in your new life. (I look at it as entering another section of exactly the same maze, i.e., you’ve moved but haven’t gotten anywhere.) So, might as well deal with it with least amount of negative memory.

I am still not convinced of the chief components of life, as we experience it, so I am not sure how much of it is outside our minds, how much of our minds are we – I don’t even have a favourite theory. So I am not in the position to discuss the other side of accidents, the people who have emotionally invested in you.

But strangers are doing what strangers do, they are dying. A rather intelligent American soldier also died. (the American press seems to deal with such dumb people that I never thought such a person as an Intelligent American actually exists, but I shouldn’t be saying much after watching a few hindi movies, including Rama Rama Kya hai Dramaaaa (please note the drama with 3 a-s), over the last couple of weeks. ) He had left a blog post behind in case of his death in Iraq, you can read it here, http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html

I was almost tempted to do the same thing myself, you know, in case I died have a post ready etc. But seriously, I think the chances are slim. In spite of the fact that I think that accidents are just too convenient, I have too much of a will to live and even the roads are work health and safety approved. And then of course is the question - I am not completely sure exactly how much of you actually exist and how much of you are in my mind.

Home is where - the boots are/ heart is/both the above/ none of the above

2008-02-21T12:31:00.000+11:00

I was recently reading an excerpt of William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal, a book I am slightly hesitant to pick up because of (a) the size of the book (b) the price of the book and (c) the general wariness I have against authors who write about my home. Somehow, like all of us, they try to understand what is going on, and very very rarely can they avoid some major faux pas, something that wrecks it all – the investment of time and money and mental space, all go down the drain. I think I am being harsh, but I just do not have time to read other people’s prejudices about something I carry around in my mind. I love Delhi and I somehow don’t expect anyone else to. I can see why you wouldn’t. I do enjoy the excessive smells and the sounds of the place, the fact that I am familiar with the veins of the city, that I can use the utterly dependable and cheap bus service, with a distinctly unique flavour which makes it rather unfriendly for people who do not have a clue.

That is not to say that I do not love other places, I do feel quite equally at home. It is weird that tho I do feel at home in some 3 cities at least, 3 cities that have generally treated me with much love and where I have been simply been involved in the business of living not site-seeing. I cannot find a good reason to travel, and I have been looking for a reason for a couple of months. The past book which I read, Paul Sinclair’s Murray and then again the excerpt that I read just brings up the layers and layers and layers that city can have. That you can live there all of your life and yet be blind to the most beautiful aspects of it, the most significant aspects of it. I have a massive distrust of tourism brochures which I have found to be telling blatant lies out of sheer malice, stupidity or difficulty.

I do not believe in being part of the furniture either, the most un-questioning way of living your life based on the general social norms. Ah and what social norms are we talking about here, they depend simply on the group you belong to. Conflicts arise where none should be, like the presenter of a wonderful wonderful black comedy on radio claimed, “There is no one held in as much contempt as an aboriginal who can speak English.” Does it matter if you are held in comtempt? Is it just one of those we tend to take personally when it isn’t? That there is no one anywhere who ‘belongs’ and there is no substitute to human kindness. And human kindness can get past the barrier of cultures, cannot it?

i'd like to see what you did,.not how you looked

2008-01-08T14:57:00.000+11:00

Swami Vivekananda complained ages ago that written books don’t mean as much as meeting a person, especially a person with a personality, a charm. I believe, he said there is something to be said for the aura which we can only experience on meeting people.

I think I have come to terms with the books; they give you time and space to absorb ideas at your own pace. Since I cannot meet Swami Vivekananda, and the very few who were/are his likes, I am glad enough to get the books.

But one thing I cannot stand much is photographs, especially portraits of people – for any purpose other than identification. For the moment I’ll leave identification aside, it has its limited use – you will probably identify the person if they are wearing a similar shirt. But how and why to capture so fluid a creation as someone’s face? Frozen on a computer screen, amplified to the n-th degree, all we see is disproportional features, expressions that seem Botox® induced. To add insult to injury, 99% of the photographs that I will view will be ads. Paint brushed and unnaturally good looking people, they will make everyone else look rather ugly.

In contrast, when so many muscles and so many million of years of genetics and so many decades of habits and so many visits to the hair-dresser and the gym combine to reflect like a mirror, for a fleeting moment, the experience of a mind; what technology can match that?

If any, I wouldn’t think pixilation will have much to do with it.

The cool people in life, and the bother of dealing with them

2007-12-17T00:32:00.000+11:00

there are these cool people, about whom you know nothing, but around whom having an opinion is quite hazardous. because the moment you form an opinion and state it, Goodness! These ultra convinced people with bloody brilliant debating language (I say debating, because in debating it is - my way or the high way) and stupid opinions (ok, PRESUMABLY stupid opinions) suddenly make the worst possible snide, which makes you stop in your tracks and bury your head in the nearest possible sand hill.

which makes you stop and think, why oh why did you not do your homework well; and you wonder if even with all the effort you could have put in, would you have had the intelligence, the sheer brilliance to come up with something really insightful!

i hate the above mentioned feeling, which unfortunately comes often enough. i hate the people around which it comes, because who people who make snide comments, generally have little to add to the debate. hang around them for a bit longer, and you'll see they are pretty petty loosers themselves, i.e., they might or might not know about something, but they are convinced there is little or nothing more to know about it.

But, getting back to the above feeling, and pretty yucky one at that... i wonder if it has got something to do with me or something to do with the people. This also reminds me of what this one guy wrote about a celebrity who had made stupid comments about a rather serious issue, (I paraphrase) "When i started working in the area, i had similar opinions which were dispelled in the first group meeting i had with the relevant team. What I object to is not the ignorance, but the public display of the learning curve."

Ah! to be right in the first instance each time. And then think, we are always convinced of being right... what an irrational self image we have... The solution is not, I think, to be convinced we might be wrong all the time. But to be open to suggestion ONLY WHEN suggestions are being offered, and not when we are action on the decision, the cool people in the world be damned!

A list of titles

2007-10-23T08:54:00.000+10:00

A list of titles of books lying on my reading desk, for eternity now, maybe making a list might help me crawl thru them. here is the list in no particular order -

1. The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
2. Nonlinear Time Series analysis by Kantz & Schreiber
3. Stream Hydrology: An introduction for ecologist by Gordon et al.
4. Silmirallian by JRR Tolkien
5. The book thief by
6. String Theory by Brian
7. Ramanujam by

The ones that really want to read are numbers: 3 and 4.

Why say, when you can read

2007-10-13T23:00:00.000+10:00

I was flipping thru the blogs... much like flipping thru some TV channels or some random magazines in some waiting room. No, it is actually much much better than both. That's because they are predicable and some of them really good.

But what is interesting is, the tones of each of the blog. Some with so much of similes and beauty, that when it does not hit the mark, it brings your hand to your throat - the closest it can get to choking the other person is chocking the person who is reading it.

Some others in oh-we-are-so-not-awed by whatever, kind of dry humor. A few actually belong to the club of people who will not be a member of any club that might be ready to have them.

And then those that go on to claim they are a fan of things that most reasonable people would be embarrassed to be a fan of. If you read them, you do not get an enthusiasm for whatever; you get a feeling that 'others are embarrassed to know we are a fan of this'. 'We never pretend, but choose carry our weirdness on our sleeve.'

Hmm, much fun flipping thru the blogs...

It is not what you think...

2007-10-02T00:03:00.000+10:00

It is not what you think, but how you think that matters.

Growth

2007-09-08T14:57:00.000+10:00

Isnt spontaneous growth the oddest thing? Without exertion or pain, a natural change - like a couple of weeks ago i found i did not care so much for my favorite poet any longer. Parts of the world suddenly relinquishing their control over us.

22/3/07, 2:22 AM
(Found this little piece in the drafts; added it today)

Forced to think about thinking

2007-06-21T11:32:00.001+10:00

There is no TV at home or internet. It is a choice I made, although in a round about way. I chose not have TV as the centre of my lounge room and I cannot imagine having TV in my bedroom. (I intend to buy a laptop and connect it to the TV tuner.) Add to it my inability to buy light reading books, and the fact that I live by myself. And I have no car. Thank God I have a radio, and I think Art Sound Radio is one of the best things in Canberra. Apart from that Radio station, the next good thing is Big Issue only magazine that I can afford to buy at a regular basis and enjoy reading. Big Issue has beautiful graphics. And I do access SBS on my mobile; SBS is, usually, not mindless either. Sometimes it is and thank God.
Living by yourself is about making choices, concious choices. If you do not have TV, and internet, and trashy books it leads to very thoughtful kind of living. Facing yourself, you wonder why do you want TV? What is it you are trying to distract yourself from? What are you doing, anyway?
Those answers are hard to find, but I have started reading again. I think it will take time for me to pick up 'Weather Makers' but I think I am a step closer with 'Eintein's clocks and Poincare's Maps'.
PS: I think subconciously we are all in love with ourselves, it comes across in many an introspective pieces I end up writing.

God I love rivers

2007-03-25T13:12:00.000+10:00

The river is bending and it is difficult to say what will the view be like on the other side. It has been interesting, all the forces that come into play when the river bends. I like this example, for one thing, what would you say - is the water the same or has the water changed since the bend. :D

Anyway, the point is that I know that I am moving cities and I know that I am not going to spend my weekends in the university, like I did for the past couple of months. So, to anyone who has come here to read these pages, thank you I am glad you came. If we ever did talk about anything, even if we disagreed, I really enjoyed talking - words are much nicer than the gray and yellow walls. Do drop a line, if you feel like it.

A couple of blogs that I have read for the past few months or sometimes longer. Oh do I need to tell you what's good about each one of them? They are all people really, much like anyone of us, with their own sets of the good, the bad and the ugly ;) and, there have been times when I have found the communication gaps too big while communicating over blogs, such a pity!

So, having said the previous statement, I can honestly say all good things about them now - so here goes, in no particular order -

Jabberwock - Jai Arjun Singh, also writes professionally for the newspapers. He mostly has interesting things to say about interesting things. Much much fun.

India Uncut - Rave Out - This is written by a geographically diverse group of people talking about similar things. Basically reviewing books, music etc.

Mukta writes Chiffonesque - A cool little charming blog, its hard to put your finger on what is so charming about the blog, but I guess it is the honesty.

David write Relative Poetry and thinks Deep Thoughts - if you search around on his blog, there is an excellent story of a mouse :D. The first time I came across Dave's blog was thru 'NEXT BLOG' button and it was during a four part (1, 2, 3 and 4) series (it was of course cool that he ended up the series for me - thanks), I am glad he wrote about it again too. There is a whole lot of meaning on Dave's blog.

Scott Adam writes the Dilbert blog, of course.

Brian is finishing an MFA (which is something to do with writing fiction) has one of the most sarcastic posts, sometimes puts pictures of himself and his cat on the blog - but most importantly has Haiku Saturdays. Tut, I dont think I will be able to write there with the weekends being spent like normal people. (and just because i have to say this - american saturday is australian sunday)

and Quinn has a project on. Hear him talk about writing and you wonder how did you never realise there is so much to it before. Anyway, PFANM publishes a magazine, so this is one thing I can see past the bend.

So this really is kind of part-1 leaving. there might be other parts and then, finally, i might shut up!!

The picture on the top from here

Today

2007-03-19T16:48:00.000+11:00

Some days are long days, and sometimes they stretch into weeks and come close to months. Some times your daemons find you, and strike you from within and without. And so relentlessly, that you begin to see, their (the daemon's) outlines fade and what was disagreeable begins to numb.

And the what ifs have somewhat changed because you cant see past the cloak in which they come and don't know which one choose. And yet you begin to realise that a speck of dust in the eye is quite a different thing to a full blown storm; only fearing that one could be the harbringer of the other. And the trivialness of a lonely storm in the bigger picture, maybe someday, we'll get there too.

But for now, it's about time things get better!!

The law of the land

2007-03-18T17:22:00.000+11:00

On law - Martin Luther King said

The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

here

India does not have a unified law. This is an article about the situation.

I support unified law, if a religious or any other fanatic doesnt agree with justice or equality, surely we cannot SUPPORT that by having different laws!!

Much a do about nothing

2007-03-17T10:31:00.000+11:00

Let me begin with a confession, I am, in fact, a loser to notice things like these and desperately need to get a life. Someday. I will. Change the world. But today let me just get this out of my system.

So, is it just me or do you find something odd with the above picture? (I always notice the odd thing in pictures, it is the common theme running thru all of mine. That is mostly a terrible thing, but sometimes it comes in handy because it gives me the moral right to make fun of odd pictures.)

I saw this picture months ago, and my first thought was - why is the guy not leaning on the tree? surely he is not trying to put Cirque du Soleil to shame, because he is so going to drop as soon the camera has clicked! But why would anybody sit like that? now from personal experience (yeah i know you know about my social life, no point pretending) I can tell, the guy went to this beautiful looking place with some other people and then the other guys who could see nothing but wet grass, some wild trees and cloudy skies and could not appriciate the poetry of the moment said -

'Hey this is boring lets go back!'

and our friend said -

'But but.. this is so beautiful!'
'It makes one think of poems and such beautiful things'

and they said -

' '

and he said -

'Ok take a picture at least'

and they said -

'Hurry up then'

and in the hurry, people, in haste, we find this most unnatural pose ever; which has bothered me sufficiently to finally put it right for myself.

*sigh*

2007-03-06T14:19:00.000+11:00

I was in a big hurry yesterday and I only had time to post Piolin Fax’s email. I must thank her again, and I must explain how I love that picture.

Firstly to Piolin Fax - you are an amazingly talented person and I wish you good luck with your art, I do not know the language you write in so I haven’t been able to decipher anything on your page.

Now about the girl you see above - Do you see the rough edges, the yellow, the blue, the red, the green at the background, the black hair, the unconventional black smile – a huge one too, the unruly black hair, the big huge flower. The unkempt girl, un-barbie-doll-pretty and charming. Do you see that there are such strong colors and yet nothing really stands out, everything is in some kind of harmony.

Oh I love the girl you painted, Piolin Fax!! Many thanks!!

The Mystery Revealed - For You

2007-03-05T14:51:00.000+11:00

I just got an email from the lovely person who drew the picture on my profile, A BIG THANK YOU to Piolinfax. Read below (excerpt)-

Hi, Neha! I am Piolinfax.

Please keep the picture as your visual ID as long as you like. :) Thanks for asking.

I use that picture here: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Piolinfax

I keep the picture small there so that people who click on it can see it more clearly because the text below is not Spanish but Polish. "Dla ciebie" means "for you"... I like giving simple things and flowers are great. Well, it says "for you", so I guess it also is yours now ;)

Anyway, if you like I can send you a copy of it with the text below cropped out. Just let me know. :) I tried to post this message in your blog but I could not because I needed to do it from my blogger account and I do not have one... yet...

Hugs, kisses and flowers :)
Piolinfax

2007-03-04T15:51:00.001+11:00

a book review

about pictures of people

2007-03-04T13:40:00.000+11:00

First let me explain why am I saying this -
(a) To procastinate
(b) To stop me from putting my pictures on the blog, if someday lightening strikes, I lose my head and think it might be a good idea.

I guess if you are normal and lucky, you have atleast one picture in 1-2 years that makes you look decent. If you want people to have a face in mind when they read your posts, this picture would already be in your profile.

All other pictures of yours are going to make you look crap. If you have a LIFE of anykind you will not have perfect features of a Barbie doll (or her male equivalent); if you do not have a LIFE and have Barbie doll (OHME) features then you will look PLASTIC in your photographs - and from here on i am not talking about you ;). So charming people with wonderful lives, there is nothing in a photograph that is reflecting the real charming you with fuzzy expressions merging into one another and dancing on your face. What ends up showing on your photograph is a weirdly frozen expression, which lefts people wondering "what on earth were you doing?" and "why on earth did you want people to see this?"

See, there are 2 kinds of people who read your blog, those who have seen you and know how charmingly wonderful you look. These people dont need to go to your blog to see your pictures. Then there are people who just read your posts, and thru them come to think you are a wonderful clever human being, why would ever want that image shattered for them and replaced by this new photograph taken impromptu!!?!

oh sorry there is a third, an important third, category of reader who reads your blog - YOU. do us all a favour - whenever the urge strikes, look in the mirror!!