Rain Man, dude...

Found this in the archives somewhere...but since it was written, didn't wanna waste it ;-)

-Saw the movie "MyNameIsKhan" the other day...cant help but write a few words on it..firstly, that the whole concept is a little unbelievable...if one observes a little carefully, the only emotion Khan is not able to feel/express is sadness. He is shown to be autistic but able to feel/express happiness, compassion, anger, ambition, determination, pride in oneself, fear, hatred et al, but he can't cry! That emotion, he takes it in a 'matter-of-fact' way! KJo has been very clever with the whole autism funda...like all his other movies, there is no place for sadness here too!

Another thing which I noticed...that its easier for women to say 'I want you to go' in a fit of emotions than it is for men...more emotions make them stronger to bear heartbreak too?? Weird...

I say Business, U say 'Ahhh'...

Just thought - the 'Indian spirituality industry' in India seems to be/is all set to be the next porn industry of the world...giving orgasmic pleasure to those who 'practise' and 'practice' it, as well as providing the necessary 'practical' (read: financial) platform needed to practise 'philosophy' (read: heart-warming bull-shit) to those who preach it...

Today, I saw sane people talking about spirituality and its influence in practical life in a manner not expected out of business people...they were talking about a certain gentleman's way of teaching ' How-to-lead-a-fruitful,disciplined,successful,blah blah-Life' and how it helps them do better in business...all this talk in office, while wasting precious business time!! What they didn't realize is that the preacher's business is to preach...and he doesn't talk anything except his buiness during his 'business hours'!!

Humbug and Blah Blah!

Have taken to reading books again, after a long time…I guess one tends to rebound to books after any major “gear-shift” in one’s life…now I’m not going to go into the details of the clutch and which gear, etc. Just be happy with the books I’m recommending! J

In the last 6 months, I must have gobbled, what, 6-7 books…all of them, awesome! Since I am a late follower, I think most of you reading this would have already finished them off too…

The first one I got my hands on (after “The White Tiger”, I think) was ‘The Kite Runner’ – a very famous title and an absolute must-read for someone who can remain engaged to a book. The most striking thing I noticed about it was the honesty with which the author describes his journey – the honesty with which he realizes his cowardice, selfishness, courage, indecision…and all the negativity which any normal you-and-me probably don’t have the guts to admit even behind closed doors.

Went on to read “The Six Suspects” by Vikas Swarup (the gentlemen who wrote ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’) – simply amazing. One must congratulate Vikas for managing to hold the rein so tightly over the six different life stories and the ploy to bring them together under one roof. The agility with which he can slip into different styles of writing for each character speaks a lot about his abilities as a writer (considering this is only his second book) and instills that much more life into them.

I was going through that sad phase after completing a very good book…had almost started to name the extra time in my life as “incompleteness”, when I bumped into “Eclipse” by Stephenie Meyers. I’d seen the movie and thought oh well! What the heck…

The addiction to the book was such that I immediately went on to complete the prequel (yeah, I’d started reading from the 3^rd book in a 4 part series!) “New Moon” and the sequel “Breaking Dawn” (and in between, caught up with the new movie as well ;) ). Now the only one left is the first book, which I’ll complete asap!

Am currently reading “The New Collected Short Stories” by Jeffery Archer and oh! What a refreshing change…Jeffery Archer is truly a magician when it comes to story-telling!

Just Thought...

- that one of the most meaningful poems that I've read...and can relate to..is "If" by the great Rudyard Kipling ... http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm

One wonders....kitna badhiya sochte the us samay mein....kitni unchi soch thi...and this, coming from a man whose country which has nothing great to write home about in today's time...whatever happened to the thoughts left behind by people like him? Only worth teaching in classrooms, is it?

Just Thought...

- Why does Lord Shiva do a taandav (a form of dance, an angry dance) when he is angry?

I was curious about this, so I searched the net for an answer...and true to its promise (the internet today can give you answers to almost every qn of ours!), found some great explanation...those who want to read the full article, click here. I'm just putting an excerpt here --

Shiva is believed to assume two states - the superconscious state (samadhi) and the tandav or lasya dance....Shiva showed the uddhat dance, which He had performed earlier, to Sage Bharat through the chief of His attendants (Tandu). He also made Parvati perform the lasya dance, with great enthusiasm in front of Sage Bharat. Lasya is a dance form performed by women wherein the hands remain free. Sage Bharat and others later taught this dance, performed by Tandu known as the tandav dance, to man...

...This dance is of seven types - 1. Anandtandav, 2. Sandhyatandav (Pradosh dance), 3. Kalikatandav, 4. Tripurtandav, 5. Gouritandav, 6. Sanhartandav and 7. Umatandav...

...Of these seven types the verse (stotra) Shivapradosh (alias Pradosh) describes the sandhyatandav as - Shiva performs this dance in the evening with Gouri the creator of the three worlds seated on a throne studded with precious stones...Of the above seven types the Gouritandav and Umatandav are both fearsome in nature. In this dance Shiva assumes the form of Bhairav or Virabhadra and is accompanied by Uma or Gouri. He performs this frightful dance in the crematorium...during such a destructive, fearsome dance Shiva not only destroys the world but also frees embodied souls from bondage. The crematorium is chosen for the dance to depict that the ego of the embodied soul is reduced to ashes. Deities as well as demons are enthusiastic to accompany Lord Shiva during the tandav dance...

I like and believe in the explanation given below...I also understand the fallacy in my question above -the Taandav is not an "angry" dance only- but still my question remains -- why a dance form to explain/exhibit the Truths that He wanted to convey?

Is it possibly because even God was getting bored of teaching the "Truths and Lessons of Life and Living Life" in the same rudimentary way -- by word of mouth of gurus and the written word?

We all are His children and like it or not, need His Teachings (and His thappads and shabashees) once in a while...Is it His way of symbolically telling us that Change is something even He has to follow...so Man, you'd better embrace it willfully...

Or is there actually no reason behind it? Is this one of those cases of Origin, where a thing/stage/position just comes into existence for the world to follow, without any particular rationale which one can pin-point?

(P.S.: I am not satisfied my reasoning of the above, so please contribute with all your comments and knowledge...)

What's in an "About Me" Anyway?

I really can't get myself to write on this one topic..."About Me" ...and like the mad street dog that you're really scared of, this question keeps popping here or there everytime I sift my eyes on a site...like this one too...I realized that at some point in time, I had filled the "About Me" section on this blog too...don't know what crept into me that I read it...my gosh! what a loser of an "About Me" that was!! Not that the current one is going to send flutters down anybody's stomach on reading this about me ;) ...But, honestly, what should I write here?

Which takes me back to my teenage days...in those days, like a lot of other teenagers, I too underwent a phase of introversion...that feeling of being a misfit in every circle...I mean, there is this one time when one is neither fully accepted in the grown-up circle nor does one feeling as child-like as one used to a couple of years ago (remember that feeling of "ab main bachcha nahi reh gaya" thomping in the head 24*7??) ...

So, at that time, I had - painfully and over time - made an "About Me" ! which went --

Who Am I?

I am Me. Myself. The sum of all that I think, do and react to. I am also the sum of all that I don't do or react to. I am You, Him, Her and Them. I am your mirror. I will be as you are. To me and to you.

Duh!! Sometimes, I think...am I moving forward in life or backward? Or is it just that I had time then and not now? (Psst! I think the second one is just a lame excuse for the lack of inclination!!!)...Lol...but I think that this small piece from the past is better than any of the ones that I try coming up with today ;)

The Shifting...

Had some drafts-to-be-posted in my folder...don't remember why I hadn't posted this one then, but ... here goes --

Shifted to our new office – “our own premises” – on the 1^st of December, 2010. Yippee!! Feels great to come to your office and realize that the place belongs to you…not to mention the real estate appreciation!! :-P

I’m sitting here in the new office, having finally found a place for my lappy (on a shelf in the saree rack!)and myself in front of it…the work hasn’t started full-fledged as yet because the interior decoration work is still pending…will take a week approx. for the office to be fully functional.

The last week in the old office is worth a word, Bloggie…the roller-coaster that it was…got to also know more about human nature. Our land-lord, Mr. Tapan Ghosh (‘Tappu’ for us), who was so sugary-sweet till 10^th Nov. (that’s the date on which he used to get his rent every month) started to “keep an eye” on us as if we were going to take away his switch-boards!! All this, while maintaining a “smile” on his face…and in the end, admitting that, “ aamar toh ghor khali kore diyechen” (literally: “You’ve vacated my place”; figuratively: “You’ve taken away my income source”) …it’s worth noting that Tappu doesn’t work; his only sources of income are rent from his property and income from shares (if he can make any money in this market!)

Anyways…the mazedaar time was in the last 2-3 days, when all the packing had to be done…sarees which had come for work, worked sarees and all the sundry items that had to be taken there. We ‘decided’ that this was an uphill task and worked doubly hard to ensure we carry the minimum no. of worked sarees to the new office. So on the penultimate day, we started packing for the dispatch…and man! Did we rock! A record no. of parcels was made ready before half the day was over! Kudos to the whole packing team to put in the effort and ensure that the goods were ready to go on time! To their credit, it was because of them that we were able to finish off a lot of the other packing the same day.

The next day was a crucial one. We had to ensure that all the sarees were safely packed. Each plain saree also costs around 4K-5K, so we were concerned that there shouldn’t be any mistake. So out came the note-books, the format of coding the parcels, the double-counts, et al.

The last hour made me realize one thing, which XL has also made me realize…no matter how much you plan and execute before the dead-line, there is a chunk of work still left to be done at the last hour. This chunk, incidentally, appears small in the beginning, and as large in the end!

Finally, the packing was finished, barring a few brick-bats, which we thought we’ll put in a sack and take it along with us (how ingenious!). Once the truck was stuffed with the bigger bundles, we got down to packing the ‘brick-bats’, realizing only after half an hour that this packing itself is going to take us another 2-3 hours!!. The sack ultimately turned into 4, and then we realized, “oh! The chairs and a table are still left!”….ummmm….errr…oops! “Hey, get back to work, guys!”

The task of unloading and taking all the goods up the first floor in the new office was another peak to be won…this time around though, the “method-in-madness” approach was followed and the best thing we did was to follow and channelize the flow in which the coolies were comfortable. Lo and behold! The unloading was done in half the expected time! It’s amazing to see the speed of the work when it is done according to the comfort of those actually performing the task. (It did help us that we had thought of the sequence in which the goods had been put on the truck firstly.)

Once in, we breathed a sigh of happiness…we had finally come to our new office J J