the easiest way to negotiate social order is to firmly believe that its not for you, but for everybody else. trust me, its not for you. it is for everybody else who you don't care about

Today i have come to realise that there is a difference between passion and love. And with that I question my most fundamental assumptions..why do we confuse passion with love? why do we seek happiness in love? why do we seek love in marriage? are there no other possibilities?

Love is acceptance and appreciation. like white blinding light, sweet, soothing and vibrant. surrounding you.

A close friend's marriage and a close relative's death...All packed in one day

The reunion

"Gosh, you look great...I feel happy for you"
"I would have been happy, if I saw lost opportunity, the twinge of jealousy in your eye, and that fake smile when you said this..but you meant it. I am disappointed"
"I love you so much, that I don't even want you"
"You make me want to love you, I am unhappy"
"Now you know why I am not jealous"

The break up

"Its hard to leave all this...but its harder to leave you. And sometimes life demands that you do the harder thing"

Give people what they want, if you want them. If they want honesty, give it to them. If they want illusions, give it to them. If they want reassurance, give it to them

So discover yourself

Someone who can discover you or point out your worth is definitely secure about his/hers...and vice versa

Strong, weak, power and class #notetomyself

All human civilization asks for the stronger ones to be nice and look out for the ones that are not...and wants the stronger ones to not even seek power...how is that going to work, i somehow can't envisage a classless, less prejudiced society the way Marx did...what does the society give the stronger/more capable man for being so?

Life is not driven by knowledge, its driven by purpose

The stronger your opinions, thats what you will end up living for...opinions are more uni dimensional than people...

Passion and detachment

Life is that balance between taking little things that constitute in making life big seriously or not taking anything seriously, knowing that every little thing is only a tiny speck in the larger scheme of things

It might be lonely at the top, but its the perfect place if you enjoy solitude. And if you enjoy solitude, there is no top or bottom. Thats why it gets lonely at the top. It has much to do with the want for power, which by its very essence relies on others

Bite the bullet

Often u want 2 escape because u don't want 2 bite d bullet. Also often, tht bullet is ur mistakes, regrets, n consequences of ur past deeds

I say, bite the bullet. You'll survive the explosion

Manipulating is about creating illusions for others and controlling those illusions. To evoke a response in your favor

Manipulation might get you what you want, but usually not overt power..which is why women, especially the ones in repressed countries, are more manipulative than men

To improve your patience, you need to learn to stop waiting

Color Purple gives me hope. Because it makes hope accessible

There are two kinds of hope. The hope that expects good things to happen, and the hope that creates...
None of the guys in Color Purple depend on life changing things to happen to them, they just discover little things about themselves that change their lives...

Clouds

Saw the clouds today. They might as well be a metaphor for life. Deceptively tangible, while comprising of nothing

Grudging is a grave form of self - pity, and forgiving is grave understanding.

Imagine

How little we ask for, How much we compromise. How little we know about how much we are compromising.

Acceptance and change

First acceptance of a person with everything that he/she is, then change. One does not change because, they are seeking acceptance for who they are...Once they find that, it means that they don't have to change, which means they can :)

Meditating on 3 words: Love, Playfulness and Wisdom

From theory to practise...learning how not to give a fuck

I am going to try this experiment...Free myself. from pressures of having to perform better than those around me, pressures of having to be more intelligent than those around, pressures to be funny. Me and myself and in no race.

I agree with Frankenstein's theory of keeping mortality alive by giving birth. Most often our children end up burgeoning and developing hidden talents within us...without us asking for it of course, it just happens because there is evolution, and there is science....

Being an Indian, most of us try being good...but a lot of it is conditioning...but every once in a while, you meet someone who is good without his knowledge, without effort, because he doesnt know any better...he would have been the same at antartica, america or any other place in the world...whether he's born today, yesterday, or tomorrow

Gems from Bridge across forever - 3

"We're different, we're the same. You thought you'd never find a word to say to a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I couldn't imagine myself spending time with a man who didn't love music. Could it be it's not as important to be alike as it is to be curious? Because we're different, we can have the fun of exchanging worlds, giving our loves and excitements to each other. You can learn music, I can learn flying. And that's only the beginning. I think it would go on for us as long as we live."

"It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might someday be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be lonely and searching and lost. . . ."

"Real lovestories never have endings. The only way to find what happens in happily-ever-after ;with a perfect mate is to live it for ourselves. There's romance, of course, and the sensual delight of lust fallen in love.
And then what?
Then days and months of talking nonstop, catching up again after being centuries apart-what did you do then, what did you think, what have you learned, how are you changing?
And then what?
What are your most private hopes dreams wishes^ your most desperate if-onlys to bring true? What's the most impossibly beautiful lifetime you can imagine, and here's mine, and the two of them fit like sun and moon in our sky, and we together can bring them true!
And then what?
So much to learn together! So much to share! Languages and acting, poetry and drama and computer-programming and physics and metaphysics, and parapsychology and electronics and gardening and bankruptcy and mythology and geography and cooking and history and painting and economics and woodworking and music and music-history, flying, sailing and the history of sail, political action and geology, courage and comfort and wildplants and native animals, dying and death, archaeology and paleontology and astronomy and cosmology, anger and remorse, writing and metallurgy and snapshooting and photography and solar design, house construction and investing and printing and giving and receiving and wind-surfing and befriending children, aging and earth-saving and warstopping, spiritual healing and psychic healing and cultural exchange and film-making, photovoltaics, microscopy and alternate energy, how to play, how to argue and make up, how to surprise and delight and dress and cry, to play the piano and the flute and the guitar, to see beyond appearances, remember other lifetimes, past and future, unlock answers, research and study, collect and analyze and synthesize, serve and contribute, lecture and listen, see and touch, travel cross-time and meet the other we, to create worlds from dreams and dwell there, changing.
Leslie, in her dream, smiled.
And then what? I thought. And then more, always more
for life-hogs to learn. To learn, to practice, to give back to other life-hogs, to remind them we're not alone."

Gems from Bridge across forever - 2 On commitment, and phobia of it

Dearest Richard,

It's so difficult to know how and where to begin. I've been thinking long and hard through many ideas trying to find a way. . . .
I finally struck one little thought, a musical metaphor, through which I have been able to think clearly and find understanding, if not satisfaction, and I want to share it with you. So please bear with me while we have yet another music lesson.
The most commonly used form for large classical works is sonata form. It is the basis of almost all symphonies and concertos. It consists of three main sections: the exposition
or opening, in which little ideas, themes, bits and pieces are set forth and introduced to each other; the development, in which these tiny ideas and motifs are explored to their fullest, expanded, often go from major (happy) to minor (unhappy) and back again, and are developed and woven together in greater complexity until at last there is: the recapitulation, in which there is a restatement, a glorious expression of the full, rich maturity to which the tiny ideas have grown through the development process.
How does this apply to us, you may ask, if you haven't already guessed.
I see us stuck in a never-ending opening. At first, it was the real thing, and sheer delight. It is the part of a relationship in which you are at your best: fun, charming, excited, exciting, interesting, interested. It is a time when you're most comfortable and most lovable because you do not feel the need to mobilize your defenses, so your partner gets to cuddle a warm human being instead of a giant cactus. It is a time of delight for both, and it's no wonder you like openings so much you strive to make your life a series of them.
But beginnings cannot be prolonged endlessly; they cannot simply state and restate and restate themselves. They must move on and develop-or die of boredom. Not so, you say. You must get away, have changes, other people, other places so you can come back to a relationship as if it were new, and have constant new beginnings.
We moved cm to a protracted series of reopenings. Some were caused by business separations that were necessary, but unnecessarily harsh and severe for two so close as we.
Some were manufactured by you in order to provide still more opportunities to return to the newness you so desire.
Obviously, the development section is anathema to you. For it is where you may discover that all you have is a collection of severely limited ideas that won't work no matter how much creativity you bring to them or-even worse for you -that you have the makings of something glorious, a symphony, in which case there is work to be done: depths must be plumbed, and separate entities carefully woven together, the better to glorify themselves and each other. I suppose it is analogous to that moment in writing when a book idea must be/cannot be run from.
We have undoubtedly gone further than you ever intended to go. And we have stopped far short of what I saw as our next logical and lovely steps. I have seen development with you continually arrested, and have come to believe that we will never make more than sporadic attempts at all our learning potential, our amazing similarities of interest, no matter how many years we may have-because we will never have unbroken time together. So the growth we prize so highly and know is possible becomes impossible.
We have both had a vision of something wonderful that awaits us. Yet we cannot get there from here. I am faced with a solid wall of defenses and you have the need to build more and still more. I long for the richness and fullness of further development, and you will search for ways to avoid it as long as we're together. Both of us are frustrated; you unable to go back, I unable to go forward, in a constant state of struggle, with clouds and dark shadows over the limited time you allow us.
To feel your constant resistance to me, to the growth of this something wonderful, as if I and it were something horrible -to experience the various forms the resistance takes, some of them cruel-often causes me pain on one level or another.
I have a record of our time together, and have taken a long and honest look at it. It has saddened me, and even shocked me, but it has been helpful in facing the truth. I look back to the days in early July, and the seven weeks that followed, as our only truly happy period. That was the opening, and it was beautiful. Then there were the separations with their fierce and, to me, inexplicable cutoffs-and the equally fierce avoidance-resistance on your returns.
Away and apart or together and apart, it is too unhappy. I am watching me become a creature who cries a lot, a creature who even must cry a lot, for it almost seems that pity is necessary before kindness is possible. And I know I have not come this far in life to become pitiful.
To be told that canceling your date to help me when I was in a state of crisis "wouldn't work for you" brought the truth crushing down on me with the force of an avalanche. Facing facts as honestly as I can, I know I cannot continue, no matter how much I might wish to do so; I cannot bend further.
I hope you will not see this as the breaking of an agreement, but rather the continuation of the many, many endings you have begun. I think it is something we both know must be. I must accept that I have failed in my effort to let you know the joys of caring.
Richard, my precious friend, this is said softly, even tenderly and lovingly. And the soft tones do not camouflage an underlying anger: they are real. There are no accusations, no blames or faults. I am simply trying to understand, and to stop the pain. I am stating what I have been forced to accept: that you and I are never going to have a development, much less the glorious climactic expression of a relationship grown to full blossom.
I have felt if anything in my life deserved departure from previously established patterns, going beyond all known limitations, this relationship did. I suppose I might be justified in feeling humiliated about the lengths to which I have gone to make it work. Instead, I feel proud of myself and glad to know I recognized the rare and lovely opportunity we had while we had it, and gave all I could, in the purest and highest sense, to preserve it. I am comforted by this now. In this awful moment of ending, I can honestly say I do not know of one other thing I might do to get us to that beautiful future we could have had.
Despite the pain, I'm happy to have known you in this special way, and will always treasure the time we've had together. I have grown with you, and learned much from you, and I know I have made major positive contributions to you. We are both better people for having touched one another.
At this late juncture, it occurs to me that a chess metaphor might also be useful. Chess is a game in which each party has its own singular objective even as it engages the other; a mid-game in which a struggle develops and intensifies and
bits and pieces of each side are lost, both sides diminished; an end-game in which one traps and paralyzes the other.
I think you see life as a chess game; I see it as a sonata. And because of these differences, both the king and the queen are lost, and the song is silenced.
I am still your friend, as I know you are mine. I send this with a heart full of the deep and tender love and high regard you know I have for you, as well as profound sorrow that an opportunity so filled with promise, so rare and so beautiful, had to go unfulfilled.

Leslie

Just wondering...

Who is more evolved? a peace lover who is willing to die for the sake of peace or a brute who kills others for his survival? Doesnt the survival of the fittest rule by its very nature encourage violence, as opposed to co existence? Then as human beings, can we ever really make peace or unselfish love?

Of all the things in the world, repeated failure will atleast take out of you the fear of it...Or you can atleast use it for that

Only love can resolve conflicts amongst emotions, ideologies and people. Love understands, forgives and accepts.

Beauty of life is that just when you start believing in murphy, he gives up on you :D

Gems from Bridge across forever - 1

I lifted the pen again, to write to the boy long ago. What could I tell him about finding a soulmate? The pen waited above the paper.
I had grown up in a house with a fence around it, and in the fence there was a white smoothwooden gate, two holes bored round and low together in the wood so the dog could see through. One night, the moon high, late for me home from the school dance, I remember that I stopped, hand on the gate, and spoke so quietly to myself and to the woman I would love that not even the dog could have heard.

"I don't know where you are, but you're living right now somewhere on this earth and one day you and I are going to touch this gate where I'm touching it now. Your hand will touch this very wood, here! Then we'll walk through and we'll be full of a future and a past and we'll be to each other like no one else has ever been. We can't meet now, I don't know why. But some day our questions will be answers and we'll be caught in something so bright . . . and every step I take is one step closer on a bridge we must cross to meet. Before too long? Please?"
So much of my childhood is forgotten, yet that moment at the gate, word for word, stayed.
What can I tell him about her? Dear Dick: What do you know, twenty years have passed and I'm still alone.
I put the notebook down and looked out the window, not seeing. Surely by now my tireless subconscious has answers for him. For me.
What it had was excuses. It's hard to find the right woman, Richard! You're not so malleable as once you were, you've been through the open-minded stage. Why, things you've chosen to believe, things you'd die for, are to most people funny, or mad.
My lady, I thought, she'll need to have found on her own the same answers that I've found, that this world is not remotely what it seems, that whatever we hold in our thought comes true in our lives, that miracles aren't miraculous. She and I, we'll never get along unless ... I blinked. She'll have to be exactly the same as met
A lot more physically beautiful than me, of course, for I so love beauty, but she'll have to share my prejudice as well as my passion. I couldn't imagine myself falling into life with a woman who trails smoke and ashes everywhere she goes. If she needs parties and cocktails to be happy, or drugs, or if she were afraid of airplanes or afraid of anything, or if she weren't supremely self-reliant, if she lacked a taste for adventure, if she didn't laugh at the silly things I call humor, it wouldn't work. If she didn't want to share money when we have it and fantasy when we don't, if she didn't like raccoons . . . oh, Richard, this won't be easy. Without all of the above and more, you're better off alone!
In the back of the notebook writing forward, as we rolled in overdrive along Interstate 65 between Louisville and Birmingham, for three hundred miles, I made a list: The Perfect Woman. By the ninth page I was getting discouraged. Every
line I wrote was important, every line had to be. Yet no one could meet ... I couldn't meet those standards myself!
A burst of objectivity like cruel confetti around my head: I'm ruined as a mate even before I make it to advanced soulhood, and advancing makes it worse.
The more enlightened we become, the more we can't be lived up to by anybody anywhere. The more we learn, the more we'd better expect to live by ourselves.
I wrote that as fast as I could write. In the blank space at the bottom of the last page I added, barely noticing, Even me.
But change my list? Can I say it's wrong? It's OK if she smokes or hates airplanes or if she can't help gulping down a glass of cocaine now and then?
No. That is not OK.

Best of luck!

"Long ago, I lived on the even side of a street, at number 22.I gazed at the houses across the street,thinking the people were happier,their rooms were sunnier,their parties more fun.But in fact their rooms were darker and smaller and they, too, gazed across the street.Because...
We always think that luck is what we don't have."

Beautiful dialogue from the movie Girl on the bridge

Indian women are masters in the art of negotiation. There is just so much conflict and battles of desires to be fought everyday, that one can't clearly differentiate between negotiation with self, and negotiation with others for self....
There are conformists, there are rebels, there are cribbers, there are dumbs, there are good manipulators, and bad manipulators, opportunists, situation driven negotiations and compromises, half way thru walkings and a million other ways desires are realised, and socio cultural conflicts are resolved...
Thats the beauty of media research, it hits the eye of the storm of sociology...will write about my profiling experiences in Kanpur, Lucknow soon...

Me reading my blog is the same as admiring myself in front of the mirror. I have never admired my beauty, its just that I know noone else looks at me that way, understands me that way, forgives me for who I am that way, or loves me for no reason that way...
Its like an ideal parent child relationship, ideal lovers relationship...its not narcissism, its love for self...

Rejection by the other pushes you to the corner, and helps you accept yourself better...have written this in other words somewhere else in the blog, long ago...remembered it today...JK Rowling also says it here.
Kind of sums up a lot of things i personally believe and try implementing, or atleast want to implement

Content and Almost Nirvanic

I always valued intellect more than anything else...in myself and in others...now i realise, thats not what makes me any better or different from others, thats not what i love most about in my best friends...its something else, its something else...

There are days when you are just happy with being who you are, and dont wish to be anything more, or somebody else...

this something else about me, and my friends...makes me feel that way today :)

Tom Waits: Waltzing Matilda

Been listening to this on loop this today:
This song, and this voice has saved me today...

All i am asking for is a chance at life. I must stop asking. Only then can i stop being guilty for being myself

Artists celebrate their thoughts.
Just saw this video and thought of this
Its not like we dont have these thoughts, its just that we dont really celebrate them

Honesty is about having a courage to be so. Not actually being so

Have the courage to be honest anywhere, anytime, with anyone. Excercise this courage with discretion

There must be a lot of lost geniuses in this world. Gut wrenching politics can be played by only the ones who want something from this world

Voracious appetite for life

I find one thing really tragic about life...the fact that you can be only one person and have only one set of circumstances...that time is linear, and you are only one...
Must be the reason for why i am so commitment phobic...its takes time and something else to come to terms with this, deal with this...

Time for autumn, I am ready for it, because I am looking forward to spring.

Duality from Gibran

Everytime I read Gibran, I have something appropriate to the phase of life i am in...something that tells me bang on man, this is what i have been pondering about...
I often connect with Gibran, for his depth of thought, as if he were my soulmate..Never do I experience relatability that is as profound...whenever i say, appreciation is the best form of influence, I am thinking of Gibran...I don't know where i stop appreciating, and where he begins to influence me...my thought, my writings, my life...

Here are the gems that i most relate to now:


"I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us"

"Your other self is always sorry for you. But your other self grows on sorrow, so all is well"

"If you don't understand your friend under all conditions, you will never understand him"


"Lovers embrace whats between them, instead of each other. Love is the veil between the lovers"

"We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without"

"Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights!"

Business of the heart

Listen to your heart and pay whatever the price for it..because as a rule, and without exception you will never be able to buy out your heart...and then there will be debt mixed with guilt and regret..and EMIs to pay to the heart, for the rest of our lives....
And of course, the chances of your heart convincing your head, are far higher than otherwise...

"Everything's fair in love and the search for absoluteness."

"To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself." 

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Not that I didnt know this, but today is a good day to be reminded of it...after what happened at office

Sprinting through life...out of breath...know that this life is a marathon, must build up my stamina

Gossiping and bitching is like eating a pizza...not healthy, but quite irrestitable

You gotta teach, you gotta learn...teach without ego, learn without ego
You are always either a teacher, or a  learner...you cant always pick your teachers, you can rarely pick your students...you dont always have a choice about what you want to teach, and when, and whom...and what you want to learn, when and from whom....that's how it is, you gotta teach, you gotta learn, you gotta get your hands dirty, and soak your body in sweat...

In between realising some things are untrue, somethings are an illusion, and to realising everything is an illusion lies a mad, blinding, wild road filled with existential turmoil

Thoughts, opinions and ideas on one side...and action on another
Actions bring about change, everything has to lead to action....

Every relationship is built based on the nice things we discover about each other, and every relationship breaks because the ugly truths about the other become unbearable...but ugly truths always existed, and the nice things hardly go away either...its your eye, its you moving from one illusion to another...but can balance and thought create mad love?

"Everybody's an artist. Everybody's God. It's just that they're inhibited."

- Yoko Ono. 



I feel the same too...so figuring out how not to be inhibited

Don't let music get out of your life.Ever.Music can rescue you without you knowing, without you saying, without you calling for it

P.S: This is the picture of a special man who reminded me that life can begin and end with music.And taught me how to give the world to another person with just half a hug

Your conscience is your best friend. Its like a life compass, a google map pointing out to you where you are. Everybody else leaves, and you can survive. Your conscience leaves, and you've lost your sense of self, and almost everything else.

First you dont know anything about yourself. You learn about who you are through the world and others. That's a phase

Then you define yourself, and learn to love yourself. That's another phase

Then you get tired of being the strongest lover of yourself, you want others to know your definition, and appreciate it...so you express yourself...That's another phase. You also begin to open yourself to the world again, learn more, with discernment and concern...Its all the same phase

I don't know what happens next, I am still stuck in the last 3 phases...each one taking me over before I know which is which and what is what

Every misfit, every mad man is so different from another of his kind, that the only thing common between each in that tribe is their uniqueness and their difference from other normal people. When you fit in, you're just the same, just one of them..may be better than the rest, but almost always not necessarily different

Life is bittersweet. Like dark chocolate. Yeah, that explains things.

I learnt today that life is too short, and absolutely too short, for us to be inhibited, any moment

Of all the things in the world, there are days when I fear my heart and my mind the most. They are the only ones that are capable of driving me crazy. Everything else is almost always under control

Mumbai & Me

My relationship with Mumbai is tumultuous, explosive, and bittersweet. Somedays we love each other, and some days we are downright nasty to each other...
Somedays its that excruciating traffic jam, the fight for space, the realisation that you're such an insignificant tiny speck in the larger scheme of things in the city and inspite of having stayed here for eons, you don't seem to belong.
And on other days that smell of Pav Bhaji does not cease to amaze you, the fast pace is spicy, the anonymity gives you the freedom, that you possibly could not even imagine, and there is simply longing, love and gratitude that you can't express
These love hate relationships are so exhausting, its not even funny...

The role of an enemy

Was seeing Jhansi Ki Rani the other day on Zee TV. Manu or Jhansi ki Rani is totally not one of those regular 'Indian women' you would see on Television. She fights, she is bold, she speaks her mind, and most importantly she is smart...So I began to wonder how she is working, why she is being liked et al.. First of all, there are boundaries that she cant cross..so she is also a good wife - who loves her husband and respects him to the core, no matter what. And secondly, every act of bravery, every act of boldness is directed to protect her husband and country from an external, non - controversial, innocuous (its all past and over) known, and already well hated enemy - The 'unequivocally ruthless' Britishers. The presence of this enemy allows her character to be what it is; Another equally powerful character doing exactly what she is doing, behaving the way she does might not be appreciated, without an equally plausible + strong reason

Got me thinking - an external enemy is always necessary for the cohesiveness of a group. Only because of this enemy, do we look at diversity, and differences within us as a positive.
In the absence of an external enemy or a common goal,the group always divides. A couple is the only unit of group that can manage to without an external enemy, or even a common goal, due to the human need of wanting company, and our incapability to understand ourselves without the 'other'

P.S: Even a goal is an abstract enemy, a hindrance to what you want to achieve

Only art is powerful enough to make you live only for its sake.Thus art, can enable an usual relationship of an artist with the world...the one where he does not have to care for their opinion, appreciation, or anything else....

In the name of confusion

Confusion buys time till you can confront whatever else that its taking the blame for..have you ever thanked confusion enough?

McLuhan and immutable laws of media

Quoting from Vogel's Entertainment Industry Economics:

"To understand the role of internet, as it relates generally to movies, music, broadcasting, cable and publishing as well as to video games and gaming - the gamut of entertainment services - it is important first to understand the 'rules of the road' that affect the use and progress of any and all media.

Laws of media by McLuhan:

Extension: Every technology extends or amplifies some organ or faculty of the user. For example, the wheel (e.g. in the form of a bicycle or a car) is an extension of the foot. Media amplify or enhance aspects of social culture
Closure: Equilibrium requires that, when one area of experience is heightened or intensified, another is diminished or numbed. For instance, its possible to read a book and listen to music at the same time, but neither the reading, nor the listening experience can then be of maximum intensity. Or in another meaning, in watching a film or television show, the viewer's attention to dialogue and sound or vice versa will be overpowered by extremely bright colors or graphic images. New media create obsolescence or push older media out of prominence
Reversal: Every form, pushed to the limits of its potential reverses its characteristics (e.g. the network (internet) is a computer and the computer has become a part of the network)
Retrieval: The content of any medium is retrieved from an older medium or previous medium (e.g. the books spawns a movie, which begets the play, the record album, the video game or vice versa)"

Remember Shiv Visvanathan tried teaching us McLuhan at MICA and none of us got it one bit...this is much better no (ok, except for reversal may be..)? and to know it was all there in our text book all this while!

Miyazaki & Magic

Love the way Miyazaki combines technology, nature and imagination
The concept of the 'Catbus' in My neighbor Totoro for example. Check this out here
And the way Kiki's broomstick and an adolescent pimple faced geeky genius boy's handmade aeroplane fly side by side in Kiki's delivery service, here for instance
And a million other examples strewn all over his movies

Heroes & Villians - Part 1

A hero can be ideal like 'Ram', because of social conditioning; And also because everyone by the natural way of life, automatically tries to be a hero, by trying to walk down a well defined path, by doing the required things and right things

Noone however, ever sets out to be a villian by choice, and being a villian, while can be a function of circumstances, its never a function of social conditioning...therefore there can be a lot of complexity, and ambiguity while defining a villian. Also, a villian has more choice to follow and explore his desires, however primal or complex, because he has decided to go beyond social conditioning.

Therefore, being on the side of the society, you consciously aspire to be a hero, and subconsciously aspire to be the villian as well...to hold that power, to be able to confidently do wrong without regret or worry about the society

When the hero becomes ambiguous and the villian becomes ambigious too, it should be fun, because one would wonder a lot more...about society, desires, and heroes and villians as such

Must cook up a story with ambiguous heroes and villians sometime to explore this idea more...

My neighbor Totoro - Lyrics

Totoro, Totoro
Totoro, Totoro

Who leaves the Seeds?
For you to find?
Follow him and you will see
a Treasure there...

Then plant the seeds...
And help them Grow...
It may seem like a dream..
But things are not what they seem..
Now begins a new adventure for you!

Then you'll be with,
Totoro, Totoro
Totoro, Totoro
Living in the forest trees
For such a very very long time..
There you'll be with
Totoro, Totoro
Totoro, Totoro
You only see him when you're very young..
A magic ad-venture for you..
Its magic for you....

Rain Tumbles down..
The bus is Late..
But Suddenly A furry white giant
is by your side...
Don't be afraid..
Just open wide...
Your umbrella for him..
watch him play in the rain..
Now begins a new a new adventure for you!

Then You'll be with,
Totoro, Totoro
Totoro,Totoro
And on a moonlit night,
He'll play the magic flute in the sky..
There You'll be with,
Totoro, Totoro
Totoro,Totoro
You only see him when you're very young
A magic adventure for you..
It's Magic for you....

Listen to it here


I wanted to keep this song with me forever...

Futurdrama

I have always been curious to know about whats going to happen in the future..Now I realise, knowing the future does not equip you to handle it...
Only traversing the path of time - designed with emotional upheaval, good, bad & ugly realisations - that takes you to the future, becomes your equipment.
Good advice & foresight can be accepted when its comes to dealing with a rational issue, but with emotions..it has to be time, realisation and experience..
Otherwise, future is a pile of facts, an encyclopedia that can never provide the same magic that fiction literature can..because every page can add spice, and knowing the end does not neccessarily mean anything!

.
.
.
And then in the end, we are all going to die anyway

Donning the cloak of opinions to stay still on one point of the pendulum

Your enemy will help you understand yourself better than your friends...you define your enemy a lot more sharply, and let him influence you a lot more, lot easily

Anger inflames the ego, and obsession/addiction kills it...it would have been better, if it was the other way round

Expectation of reciproction is only a distraction to loving someone to the fullest and an uneasy distraction at that...

Something eerie about growing too dependent on the idea of independence...time to evaluate 'independence' on a different paradigm

Anger tells you more about yourself. Anger was your response, mostly uncontrolled, involuntary, unthought of

Movie story tracks in soaps

Many a times we see soaps adopting a film story track - Do Hanson Ka Joda unabashedly based on Rab Ne Bana do Jodi, or Anubandhan being based on Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
Often we wonder, how these obvious story tracks in soaps rate, why audiences watch them despite knowing the story. Cinema is obviously more intelligent, and has better performers, then why do they still watch these shows? Isnt it silly, isnt it a waste of time?

When I was a teenager, I remember, I didn't want a few movies to get over. When they did, I often wondered what next, they get married, but I still want to be a part of their lives...I still want to know what happens to them..
Good content, cinema or books or television soaps produce relatable characters...produce friends...and nobody wants to let go of their friend..esp after 3 hrs or after 200 pages..which is why bringing them back on television works. Television as a format, allows us to keep characters for a longer period of time, whereas cinema gives a heavy dose and pulls them away completely.
The story is predictable, but your friends are back! In these cases, the key hook for watching is not newness of story, but relatability of the characters

On another partly disconnected note,  its a myth that repetition does not work. I remember Nina Jaipuria, Nick's head telling us children love listening to the same story, there are only 75 episodes of Tom & Jerry, did you know that? Now that I think about it, its so true...
As we grow up, our need for consuming diverse content increases, but only upto a certain threshold, cos, we also seek comfort in repetition, just like we seek comfort in routine...

A Tibetan in Mumbai

The Tibetan in Mumbai
is not a foreigner.
He is a cook
at a Chinese takeaway.
They think he is Chinese
run away from Beijing.
He sells sweaters in summer
in the shade of the Parel Bridge.
They think he is some retired Bahadur.
The Tibetan in Mumbai
abuses in Bambaya Hindi,
with a slight Tibetan accent
and during vocabulary emergencies
he naturally runs into Tibetan.
That's when the Parsis laugh.
The Tibetan in Mumbai
likes to flip through the MID-DAY,
loves FM, but doesn't expect
a Tibetan song.
He catches the bus at a signal,
jumps into a running train,
walks into a long dark gully
and nestles in his kholi.
He gets angry
when they laugh at him
'ching-chong-ping-pong'.
The Tibetan in Mumbai
is now tired,
wants some sleep and a dream.
On the 11pm Virar Fast,
he goes to the Himalayas.
The 8.05am Fast Local
brings him back to Churchgate
into the Metro: a New Empire. 

Tenzin Tsundue

What I most like about this poem is that most often, than not, a Tibetan is confused for a Chinese 'Ching Chong, Ping Pong' guy , also that he is making a living in a Chinese Takeaway. And ironically Tibet is fighting against China.
I showed this poem to a friend, and he wasn't able to appreciate it, but when we went to a Chinese restaurant the next day, he did ask, whether for fun, or seriously, I don't know...but he did ask "Would this guy be a Tibetan???" I think the poem solves its purpose now.

You can and must read more of Tenzin Tsundue's poems here. This one is my favorite.

There is something dangerous about being a rebel. You don't know if what you are fighting for is what you want, or you want it simply because its being denied to you? So a rebel is already trapped. When you're free, you realise, you most often never want what you fought so fiercely for. With your life.

Seeking, searching, finding

 "Perhaps that you’re searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don’t find the time for finding?”

“When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. 
But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes.” 

--- Hermann Heese, Siddhartha

Objectivity and Retrospection go well together. In retrospect, you can be objective. Because there is no courage required, and there is no need to battle fears. Past is over. Judgement has been passed, the unavoidable has happened. For good or for bad. And then you see, in retrospect...

Note to myself

If it were only about desire, then enjoy the desire. Don't direct destiny about the right time, person or situation.

I have often heard that the person who hurts others, is hurt a million times already
Makes sense, just like we share our joy, we also distribute our pain. Knowingly sometimes, sometimes unknowingly

Bidayi vs How I Met Your Father

According to Shravya,

Our lives should have a comprehensive How I Met Your Father story. And it can go on and on for 2 years and stretch et al. simply because its a lot of fun. Unlike a Bidayi, on Star Plus. With so much Rona Dhona and boredom

Hats off to her analogies, sense of humor and Thanks for officially carrying the beacon of FUN for the world!

On the other hand...

Women don't have to conform to stereotypes as strictly as men have to.
Ever since they started wearing pants without throwing away the saree.
They can afford to be rebellious, and they can afford to be submissive. At their convenience.

Blogging is not very different from the message in the bottle concept. Who knows where the ocean of the internet might carry you, or what it might bring to you?

We write stories so that we can play destiny. We can't play it otherwise, in our real lives.
We write stories because we can imagine our alternate selves through our writing/expression. Because in this one memory of ours, we only have this one life.
Only destiny is privy to understanding chaos theory, if it were not for our need to explore, imagine and express

True appreciation takes form of influence sooner or later, in big ways or little little ones, in one way or the other

This blog is like a box, I put all my feelings in it.

Pearls and beads

Real, plastic and glass

Cheap & expensive

Accepting love is as difficult as giving love. Or as easy perhaps

Zen Koan - The goose is out, there it is!

A great philosophical official, Riko, once asked the strange Zen Master Nansen, to explain to him the old koan of the goose in the bottle.
"If a man puts a gosling into a bottle," said Riko, "and feeds him until he is full-grown, how can the man get the goose out without killing it or breaking the bottle?"
Nansen gave a great clap with his hands and shouted: "Riko!"
"Yes, Master," said the official with a start.
"See," said Nansen, "the goose is out!"

I don't know if I have written about this Zen Koan earlier, but very often I use it to get out of most things and situations that bother me.
If you're out of the situation, the goose is out of the bottle!

It took me a long time to understand this Koan. To understand this Koan better, and to understand Koans in general, try this

If I hold your arrogance against you..its only bcos its a conditioned response.

After reading Siddhartha

If freedom is an illusion, so is being trapped. Then..you're already free. Or you're not trapped at all

Killing me softly

Killing your own dreams is like converting a well colored picture into a grayscaled one. Everything else is there, but the color.

But grayscale has its own charms, a reminiscence of the carefree olden, golden days. Of an uncolored future filled with possibilities.

Does hope make up for a lost dear dream?

Sometimes I wonder, how the world would be, if we all end up doing what we want to, what we like to. How much of an individual can we be, and how much we need to care about/for the society

There are two kinds of tragedies. The ones that are comic and the ones that are not

Crash into me

A friend introduced me to this song...and I have fallen in love with it ever since.
"Pay attention to the lyrics", he said. Pay attention to the lyrics
Listen.

If all the chips were down, and hope lost its way too...
What is the one thing that will stop you from suiciding?
Curiosity to know what will happen next. For me.

Jack is the new king

I rather be jack of many trades, than master of any. A Tree has the luxury to see the entire world change standing in one place through its eyes of a 1000 years. I dont have the time to see the world change, i only have enough to see the differences across the different parts of world. Now.

Obsession takes up a lot of energy. And you dont even burn calories. Phew!

Confidence is upfront capital. Just like faith. Faith has assured returns, and does not even give us a chance to know if there aren't any assured returns. Because if you are after the returns, faith does not stay faith. It has to be complete, by itself, for itself.

And then of course, there are assured returns, or you have no way of finding out atleast. But once you know all this, what is faith then?

Obsession often visits loneliness. For a game of chess. Stalemate outcome

Vipassana did not calm me down, it shook me up. May be it does to you what you need most

The desire is always bigger than the people you manifest for the sake of fulfilling it

Sense of humor is a trait you discover only when you find your audience

Some things stay special even if you know its happens to everybody in the exact same way. Like hostel life and self - discovery. And unless you experience them, you'll always find it overrated

Introspection

is the medicine, manifestations are the symptoms

Feels good to have cash in your pocket, enough to spend on something cheap, something expensive. The idea of shopping is no fun without xcess money

Prejudice comes easier than empathy. Prejudices give a sense of false pride...an ego boost nevertheless

Idea generation is the not the problem. Assessing, reassessing and rejecting your own ideas on your own in the hope of finding better ones is the catch, the difficulty

Only half the getaway is about the destination that you are going to...most of it is actually the roadtrip on the highway, without the traffic, speeding wheels...when you are actually getting away

Giving space to another, is also taking space for yourself and finding space for yourself

Good boy, bad boy

Saw this really really amazing film called terms of endearment...and Jack Nicholson's role in the movie triggered an interesting thought
The bad guys really lower your expectations so that they can give you more, so that they never end up disappointing you
The good guys are just too scared to admit that they have anything bad about them...so they pretend to be perfect...
Bad guys pretend to be bad and the good guys pretend to be good...Lets stick to the bad boys, I say!

If you find courage, it must be your heart. If you find control, it must be your mind

Fears, dogs and desires

I often wondered why fears so easily overpower desires..why they always manage to manifest without fail...why they are scare us more than our desires excite us
Its because we never accept, embrace our fears...our fears get jealous of our desires and smother them....they scream for your attention, I guess....
Like two kids that we have, one of which we end up liking more than the other!
We keep running away from our fears, without realising that we are running into them
Fears are like dogs on the street, the more you run away from them, the faster they chase you
Articulation is the beginning of acceptance...accepting your fears frees your desires, and your desires will give you the courage to face your fears...
In an ideal world

Dishonesty can happen at two levels..with awareness and without awareness..the one without awareness is an attempt to run away from your fears, its innocent because your not only being dishonest to others, but even yourself.
Dishonesty with awareness is playing a game with the world with a glint of mischief in your eyes

Addiction

Taming your tongue is like getting over an addiction...the biggest hurdle is the starting trouble, the inertia, the going too easy on yourself in the first few days, yielding to every instance of temptation, not being able to visualise the other side ...

Met someone who fully enjoys who he is and doesnt regret what he is not...Lessons to learn

Pulp fiction

Watching pulp fiction will def. bring abt one change in you, if not many. The way you look at swear words

I don't think we should complain about the world laughing with you and letting you cry alone.Crying is personal, an intimate moment with loved ones.Laughing is fun with company. In fact, laughing is funny without company

With courage, you move one step closer to knowing yourself
And finding what you want
And..getting it

Responsibility

With responsibility, your heart becomes your mind and your mind becomes your heart
Its an absolute path, with pre defined rights and well defined wrongs...no discoveries, only a well defined high...
Don't listen to everything you're heart screams for....but let it scream...Atleast.

Save your modesty for another day...it'll come to your rescue, when you run out of your ego

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.
- Thich Nhat Hahn

Found this lovely thing somewhere. I don't know if I get what this man says, or if i can ever follow it...But, I like the way it makes me feel, just for that one moment
A momentary suspension of disbelief

Was reading Cuckold today. Kiran Nagarkar's point is so valid. The Rajputan hero who worried so much about upholding the values of bravery, honour and pride, also worshipped Krishna. And Krishna never cared about what anyone in the whole world said
So funny no, we are taught to pray, and somehow expected to uphold what the gods never stood for

Toppler Toddler

Life sweeps you off your feet, sometimes so badly honey..and sometimes goodly
So the grand future you planned in your past, becomes an alternative reality, for your alternative self...who you never grew up to be
Isn't it a mystery?
Don't you like mysteries?
Shouldn't you let them be that way then?
Just like you let kids be...Seeing the world through a blue blue eye!

Quixotic, exotic, the hero, the romantic

He could look stupid, he could be a fool...but he is always going to be an eternal optimist.A die hard romantic, with never dying hope, and a sharp eye with a lookout for rainbow colored possibilities

Never too old, never too young, never a bad timing for some love honey

There is something funny about love...it makes you a bit something of all ages...
As stubborn as a kid, wanting something badly, blindly willing to do anything...
An edgy teenager, tongue tied, awkwardy
Older than your age can allow, younger than your age can allow
All aged, everything you can be and all that you can be
Brimming with conviction, scared, and lovely 

Anger

When you're angry, you expect your anger to control other people's actions, you expect the other to do what you want them to...anger is the expression of helplessness, of expectation...anger also has strong ties with our ego and our pride..anger is the strong blind protective force of a narcissist...But anger can't be gotten rid of by just trying to control it...it can be only by awareness, patience and copious amounts of compassion and love for the self

This is a comment I had posted on this interesting blog on philosophy. This is a post on anger

http://mukundar.blogspot.com/2008/02/anger.html

Holding hope and despair together in this little heart of mine....and lets see what wins, what stays, what runs away...or if they both accept each other?