Ecstasy

Where do I find the word to tell the tale of the sheer grip of emotions? All the time I've spent on contemplation, the resulting joy, the outrage, the sense of victory, the helplessness - How do I describe them? Never were they so intense before. Can you fathom how it feels to dwindle between the extremes? Extremes... That's something I always avoided. Now face to face with it, its a journey I'm taking that only few know of... Did I have an option to avoid it? No! I had to know it, make it my friend, be with it. Someday my friend, someday I'd tell you, and that day I hope, you have the strength to know it too, for I am living it today, lacking words, in my esctatic state of mind...

Whoa?

Q: How to keep your guests guessing?

A: Tell them: "No formalities, please"

A look into the 'True present'

It’s precisely because light has a finite speed, and our nervous systems are slower, the accident you just saw, actually happened just fractions of the second before you saw it. And by that measure, you have taken an eternity to realize that it was, in fact, an accident.

So is it not correct to say that you are looking at your world, as it was, a fraction of a second ago?

There's a time-lag involved between the true-present and perceived-present. Mathematically, it can be described thus:

t = (d/C) + n,

Where,
't' is the time-lag between the true-present and perceived-present,
'C' is the speed of light (always constant)
'd' is the distance the reflected light had to travel to reach your eye and (can be a fixed value)
'n' is the sum of time taken by your eye, optic nerves and brain to 'see' the image (variable).

This time-lag however, is unnoticeable, and insignificant to us humans. But if we delve into this little time-lag, some fascinating concepts arise.

How does the person with nervous system slower than that of yours see the world?
He would be farther from the true present than you are, back in time.

And if your nervous system is faster than that of his, then you are seeing things happen even before the other person sees them. If you could relay to him what you see within that small fractional difference of time, then you could claim that you are looking into his future! But in any case, you yourself, are still looking at the things of the past...

Thus, to look into the 'true present', theoretically, what barriers must we break? Speed of the light? speed of our nervous system? What else?

Suicide: Absence of hope

When the policeman entered the house, he found that all the luxuries of life were in place, intact, before he beheld the woman hanging from the ceiling with a crumbled paper in her hand. When he was done reading it, he muttered to himself ‘Alas! If only she had hoped!!’

To try or not to try

Me parroting about valentine's:
"To love and lose is better than not loving at all"

My friend (married man):
"But to love and win is worse than not loving at all"

Tathuvams

ஆயிரம் தான் கண்ணு கூர்மையா தெரிந்தாலும்,
தன் மூக்கு முடியை கண்ணாடில தான் பாக்கணும்!!

Hurrah! It's 2009

Now I'm officially in the year 2009. While the change of year in my calendar does not necessarily change anything for me, but it is like a birth of a new year.. New...

2008 was quite an eventful year for me. With lots of trekking, travelling, and success at work, I am immensely satisfied with 2008. On the same note, I have a strange nervous excitement for the year 2009. In order to make it better than 2008, perhaps, I'd have to do different things all over again, or do thing differently, but what must not change is the aim of ultimate satisfaction in doing anything.

So here I am, after partying hard, almost mute, and almost deaf (temporarily), starting my great march into yet another year. I'm already feeling good about the year 2009, as I'm unaware of what lies ahead of me... Now that's a feel good factor! :)

Wish you a very happy new year too! :-)

Time Travel - Back to Childhood

After 17 years of parting from them, I am on a pursuit of my school mates. All 5th graders when we parted.

With the passing of time, much has been forgotten. The name of my primary school is changed now to something new I don't know. Names have been forgotten. Faces have changed, and at the faint chance of stumbling across their passport-size photos, I'd have to rely on my fading memory to identify them. No social networking site has this facility of '5th grade batch of 1991'. Not all would have the same or similar technology at their disposal as I have. Not all would post their contact details in public domain. Conventional networking sites haven’t been of any help!

Few names that I do remember are the names that are quite common ones, and there are thousands that come up in google. Phew!

I’m sure they are out there. Something eventful has been happening in each every one of their lives through all these years. Every one of them, after leaving the school would have devoted at-least one second of their lives looking back at our school…

Mind racing... They must have done their 10th and 12th standards somewhere at the same time as I did... Some would have done their graduation...

I wonder how many of them would have tried to reach me, or are still trying to find me and others.

With a bag-load of old stories of 5th grade, few hazy faces, and even few names, I’ve set out to find them. Let’s see how many I manage to trace. What’s going to keep me on this pursuit is the very thought of seeing the expressions on their faces when we finally meet!

Ghajini (Hindi) - Movie Review

After having seen both ‘Memento’, and Ghajini (Tamil) in the past, I’m just out of the Cinema after seeing Ghajini (Hindi).

Short review: A must-see movie. I strongly recommend you to see the movie. Only ‘minus’ about the movie are its songs.

For more, continue reading…

About direction:
When the story is strong, director is clear-headed, and actors are honest, the result is a masterpiece. Ghajini is an example for such an effort. There has been much hype around this movie for quite some time. Such hypes in the past have contributed to historical failures. But this time, it is not so! The movie has turned out to be worth all hype. The storyline is quite different from that of Memento, with some overlaps of course. I leave it to you to see it for yourself. But I think that this change in story is much needed to present to the Desi audience at large.

About Aamir:
Aamir Khan, as usual, has done a phenomenal job. The eight-packers, and deltoids actually are not another cheap marketing stunt, rather, it is needed by the character he plays in this movie in order to make the fights look believable. (There are a few places where you get a tinge of Tamil-movies’ fights! But this is where Direcotor’s/Aamir’s level-headedness comes in to keep it in check).

About the story:
‘Sanjay Ramasamy’ played by Surya in Tamil version is played by Aamir as ‘Sanjay Singhania’, the chief of a major company, who flies in and out of the country in his private jet, and whose assistants jot down addresses on MacBooks. That rich! Even after Sanjay manages to win Kalpana’s (Asin) heart as a common man, Kalpana never comes to know Sanjay’s truth as the story takes a tragic turn, rendering Aamir with Anterograde amnesia. Rest of Sanjay’s journey-of-revenge, is the story of this movie.

About Asin:
During the first half of the movie, the theatre was full of laughter – courtesy Asin. It is to be noted that this is her debut in Bollywood, as was the case with the Tamil version in Kollywood.
(Tidbit: This Malabar girl is blessed with 6 languages in real life – Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, French and English.)

The character she portrays is that of girl making a living out of a small-time job in Mumbai. While she’s brave and full-of-life, she’s also kind, unsophisticated, humorous, and almost child-like in nature. Exactly the kind, for whom, any man would lay his life for her protection. Somewhere during the first half, you fall out flat for her refreshing character. And when she comes in the way of mortal harm, it turns the saint-like Aamir into a killing machine, equipped with just 15 minutes of memory.

About music/general stuff:
Aamir has very few dialogues, and does most with his acting, which is a delight to watch. His dialogues could probably be fitted in one side of an A4 size sheet, while Asin’s can fill up an 80 pager – 80 pages of pure fun! But while Aamir is basking in the fame, Asin has been set aside in general media at large. She's no eye-candy in this movie, but a very real character, and a very admirable performer. You cannot escape noticing her, and will have nothing but sheer appreciation for her performance.

The background scores are neat, and the visuals pleasing. However, I felt that the movie would have done just as well without the songs, which is a major disappointment (maybe, my expectations are held high after the Tamil version, whose songs had made to the top of charts for a very long time). There are other known faces from Tamil version as well, like Riyaz Khan (the police officer) and Pradeep Singh Rawat (the villain, as Lakshman in Tamil and Ghajini in Hindi).

An excellent movie, which can deserve no less than a solid 4.5 stars. Now go, watch it if you still haven’t. :)

Happy holidays!!

The Light'ER' side of life

Once, at the peak of my frustration after a particularly long and depressing spell of debugging, I realized that the ones doing the coding were the ones, who put the bugs in the codes in the first place, and considering my state of mind, I named them – Buggers.
It’s interesting to see how nouns from existing English dictionary could be twisted to define a non-existent/uninteresting noun or a verb into something funny and definitive. Below is a list I created with this in mind.

One who debugs computer codes – Debugger

One who puts bugs in computer codes – Bugger!
One who’s wet due to mist – Mister
One with an upset gut – Gutter.
One who throws a loaf of bread – Loafer?
One who chops meat – Meter.
One who does a butch haircut – Butcher??
One who’s a sum of all screw ups – Summer.
The one who punts a football – Punter.
One who operates on ‘cells’ – Cellar?
One with baby’s butt – butter.
A good cop – halocopter??
To correct a squint eye, use – eye liner.
Ones who makes men – Manners (manners maketh man? They must be a busy lot!)
One who makes the others corny – Corner!
One who always pays in cents – Center!!
An expert in drawing – Drawer.
A singer with pronunciation issues – Finger.
One who makes mats – Matter
One washed away by flowing water – Flower.
One who loves eating hams – Hammer.
One fireman who lights flames – Litter.
A seaman stuck up the ship’s mast – Master
One addicted to drugs/pills – Pillar
One bitten many times – Bitter
One who drowned in a pond – Ponder.
A “Sentence”; with “many” ‘punctuations’ – Puncture.
One who thinks he’s a wizard – Wander

Exercise for you: The one who_______ is -
‘Water’, ‘Powder’, ‘shoulder’, ‘Winter’, ‘dinner’, ‘clever’, ‘eager’, ’Father’, And paper?

Also the ones worth pondering upon:
Cancer, Danger, Dagger, Fever, Tiger…

A Home Away From Home

I was expecting two of my friends to reach my place soon after I reached my home after work. Their car's tyre had gone flat, but they would be back anytime now... So I kept waiting, and drifted into sleep. When I woke up, it was about 9:00 p.m, and the phone was ringing. My colleague with his wife and kiddo invited me over to see what they had shopped a few days back. "I'm expecting my friends to arrive anytime" I told them. But they insisted.

So I went downstairs to meet them. I rang the doorbell, and my colleague's wife opened the door with the usual 'happy evening' (or morning, as the case usually is). I also wished, and stepped in.

Yikes!! Out of nowhere, jumped the crowd of four in front of me. My two friends screamed out to shock the heavens out of me, while my colleague and his kid and wife joined the commotion - "Happy birthday" they wished me in unison, followed by unstopping clamor of giggles and laughter.

Still recovering from sleep, I found myself speechless...

There it was, on the table - The Cake!

How beeaauuttiful! :)

The candles - There were small sparkles as they burnt. I spent 5 full minutes to blow them off, as they would light again and again as if someone had magically modified it to keep burning for ever. What a lovely way to convey their wishes!

After cake-cutting, cake-feeding and cake-fight, we had a grand dinner, starting from junk food, juice, main course, ending in desserts. Phew! What an experience it was, for the commotion never stopped at the dinner table. The surprises were not over yet. While having dinner, there came the big box of gift!

Man! I was entirely flabbergasted! When did they plan all this??

At the end of it all, when we got up to leave, I was so overwhelmed at their love, I was finding hard to swallow my emotions. I merely managed to say a broken 'thank... you...', and, left with others...

The after-taste of the events still lingers around fresh in my mind; and on my taste buds. This, for sure is a home away from home!

Puddle Adventure

After the rain had stopped, I stepped out of my house just like every other kid in the neighborhood to play out in the open. With rain, came the ubiquitous puddles, and with them, came a host of fun things to do.

I still remember – Looking into one such puddle, I would see the reflection of the house next to it. Blue sky, with small patches of white cloud would appear crystal clear in it. I would stare at the still reflection for a while, imagining that through this puddle, the image I beheld was actually that of a real world. Then I would bring one of my feet over the reflection of the sky, just an inch above the surface of the puddle, careful not to disturb it. Slowly, that reflection would turn into a real world.

Just like a parajumper would see his feet dangling in the cold air, a fraction of the second before taking the plunge from that plane, I would feel that at any moment, I could tumble down into the deep blue abyss right below my raised foot, into the infinity. The nervous excitement was very real, and thus I lived the adventure to its fullest, to the brink of toppling over.

Just when the illusion appeared to become too real, I would to pull away my leg from that puddle in that moment of fright and excitement. Stepping aside, I would wait and watch the puddle again, this time, with its surroundings. I then, used to chuckle at how I managed to create a reality in my mind, that was so very real, and that the adventure was so much scary, so much fun!!

The puddle, it appeared to me then, would lie there, awaiting its next prey, as I walked away to amuse myself with other indulgences of a typical child in the after-rain, knowing that the door to the other world lay ajar right behind my back…

So this time after the rain, watch out for the puddles… They await you!

Irony

"When he was in misery, and in pain,
Struggling and straggling,
She looked up to the ones
With riches and fame,

When he won that success,
That glory, that gloss,
She admired the one,
Who had these not!"

Fall Colours - Lost and Found

"The storm had passed, and it was bright again, though not sunny. The light was strangely homogeneous, and hardly managed to cast well defined shadows, thus ending up as dull gloom beneath the trees. The scent of wet soil was fading away even as the fresh leaves of green, of red and of yellow, the fragrance of barks, and the contrast of the sky, all invited me with open arms. Mother Nature was displaying her grand splendor, with occasional accent that was a distant rumble of clouds somewhere far in the horizon.

And so I went on, into the wild, on a trail guarded by the solemn trees guarding it since ages. Every anxious stride anticipated some deep mystery conjured by the mind, a pressing need, to be there – to the bosom of the woods. On I went on the snaking trail, where there was no sound, but that of crickets, and returning birds. No patch of land was to be seen, just hedges of green, and leafy vistas. Where it went to, I never knew. I did not want to…

Thus began my journey into the woods, with no desire to return; to come to be known as ‘lost’, and ‘to know’ to have been found by the wilderness."

A Short Story

He looked at the half-finished portrait, and knew it will never be completed. With the last bit of will-to-live fading, his heart wailed, and for once and for ever, begged for a concession of self-pity...

Drona

Monday morning started watching a completely harassed face of my co-worker. On enquiring, I realized he had been to a movie the day before. “Drona”.

He said I looked haggard too.

By far the most depressing movie of the year, Drona has hit #1 in my list of ‘most wicked’ movies of all time. I heard someone saying ‘it’s gonna beat the s*** out of Krrish’. What? I’m sure he must have been the distributor of the movie. Here are my opinions:

About the story:

A perfect example of discontinuity. Roads in Banaglore show more continuums. Intense scenes (pun intended) are followed by perfectly out-of-place songs. All the while, the time and the plot of the movie were working their magic, and soon enough, I found myself absolutely confused. My co-worker admitted that he saw many roaches lying face up on the floor when he left the theatre. I’m not surprised.

Songs:

Don’t remember any. Sorry about that, but to retain the songs in my head would have caused me nausea.

Graphics/SFX/CG/Whatever:
My vote goes to ‘Shaktiman’.

Screenplay:

Priyanka Chopra: She’s done well for what she took up. Abhishek Bachchan: He’s also done quite well too. I mean, it is no easy task maintaining same expression (or rather, absence of expression) all the time, regardless of what comes to him. Try it?

Fights:

Two things about fights:

1. All high-action fights are in slow motion.
2. All other fights are in slow-motion.

And much more...
Then there are innumerous magicians, cut-paste from Lord Of the Rings (pardon me LOTR fans, I mean no offence), and enough content to make you panic.

So I recommend you to see the movie too so that you too can enjoy and appreciate the true value of life, and that of being at home, away from all worldly evils.

Cheers!
Om

Capitalism - Recycled

For a moment, consider time travel possible. Now take a team of 100 workers into the future about 5000 years from now. A new revolution has just taken place, and modern working models have been built. People are excited and are bashing the corrupt system created in the time you come from. They call it ‘capitalism’.

You observe that Capitalism, that you’re blamed to have created is unlike anything you had seen. “Capitalism is not bad; it builds economies, and has brought prosperity to nations worldwide”. The new system the revolution has brought seemed to be nothing new to you. However, the people of revolution claimed that their system is far better than yours ever was.

The very ‘rewards’ you’ve known are now seen as matters of discrimination, and people now demand for equal rights at office, while their rewards were being given in the form of social standards, as work and life had fused together.

Capitalism, to them, was corrupt from day one, and was believed to have been put in place to divide people in the name of rewards, to classify them, to suppress the underdogs. All your efforts fail when you try to get them to know ‘the’ Capitalism that you’ve known, only to realize that it had corrupted so much over 5000 years, and the memories of Capitalism as it was in 21st century had faded into dust.

Passing a judgment over Indian Caste system – Have we explored it to the fullest on what it was originally designed to be, and how it was known 5000 years ago? The discoverers of ‘0’ (not the person, but intelligent decision makers) were not idiots; they should have known that the caste system will get corrupt over hundreds of years, yet they classified people based on their jobs?

I think they realized that caste system is inevitable, and will remain in the society in one form or other. Perhaps they realized that regardless of race, or country or religion, people will naturally classify themselves and others for various reasons, with or without the knowledge of ‘casteism’.
If not, then why then MPs get class-A jail for felony, while ordinary citizens get lesser ones. Why? Is this not a caste system in disguise? Open your eyes, and look out, the examples lay wide open in front of you…

Mistakes Repeated

What are your answers to these questions:

Can you book the board room in your office for some kind of meeting on your own?

Does the idea of ‘job-grades’ offend you?

While on a business travel, have you been sent in an ‘executive’ class seat? Which class does you manager take during business flights? (If not your immediate manager, then consider your manager’s manager).

Have you noticed a different colored badge of another employee who’s stuck to your organization longer than you have? Why do you have a different colored badge than his?

Why can’t you park your vehicle at the ‘reserved’ slots? (Why, even if you are physically challenged).

Does a guy of a higher job-grade travel more than you do to come to work? Yes? No? Not sure? Why then can he claim more petrol expenses than you can?

Have you taken ‘mandatory’ polls and ‘trainings’? Who mandated them?

If you think that the above mentioned discriminations are justified, then you’ve Just accepted the caste system of the modern world. I’m sure you’d bombard me with numerous ‘+’ points about this modern system, and how different it is, but remember, the differences will vanish if only you take your research a few thousand years back in Indian history.

We've learnt nothing from the classical Caste system. So let's go on, repeat its mistakes. Our descendants are going to hate us for that, just as we hate the creators of the caste system.

(so much more to write in too little a space...)

The Offender

Sam was not like this, but wonder what happened to him…
Here are some excerpts from his recent life...

"He was rude to his friends, often told them things they didn’t like."

"James got divorced after his wife learnt that he was a doper. Thanks to Sam."

"Sam’s own girlfriend broke up with him after seeing the signs that he’s so ‘calculative’."

"He was not a team player, and easily managed to offend people around by saying something that they did not like".

"Sure, his manager didn’t like it after Sam protested the rejection of his ideas for a ‘better workplace’. The manager chose to remain silent over his demands".

"He was charged with a fine of $200 for over speeding by 5 mph, but he corrected the judge saying it was in fact 8 mph".

"His neighbors hated him as he used to tell them that he hated them with all his heart".

"He lost his job. No one is hiring him now. Wonder what they saw in his résumé…"

Many such incidents about Sam, but none from the month before and the months before that. This is the month when Sam decided to do two things – 1) Not to tell lies anymore, and 2) Not to speak of anything unless asked about.

The Gaze

I was waiting for John, my friend, as we were going to F1-race today. Just then I met this person. He was so familiar, yet he looked like a stranger. It was clear to me what he was thinking even as he stole his eyes away from me, but he quickly learnt what I was thinking, and forcefully steadied his gaze into my eyes - Like a shield. I believe that one needs to have a clear conscience to genuinely look into someone else’s eyes. I felt happy about myself for being able to do it. He knew it too, that’s why he was not able to look into mine. I pitied him, for he was feeling bad about something he did; or rather, something that he should have done, but did not.

I had no solution for the state that he was in, for he lived in the past, and hoped for the future, while I, lived in the present. His misery was his hope that he could fix things one day, while for me, things are good as they are, as they were, and as they will be. My gaze was hurting him. So I did the least I could do for him – To relieve him of my gaze. He looked relieved, and he looked aside, perhaps over my shoulder. So much was spoken, yet not a word uttered! I sure knew him too much...

Just then I heard someone knocking the door. John stepped in and called out. “Hey, you, we are getting late, and if you’re done with the mirror, can we start now?”