Hum Log - ep 2 "awaken"

we are simpletons, we indians. we are intelligent, but we use our intelligence to mostly sit in a group and crib about whats wrong with the world, whats beyond the universe and of course whats happening in the neighbour's house.now don't imagine mahatma gandhi,subhash chandra bose et al, i'm talking about the common man...hum log...what we lack most and which makes a hell lot of difference is ATTITUDE..you don't need a PhD in comparative social studies to figure that..just watch an india australia cricket match...while an indian batsman, in a crunch situation, looks to defend every ball; the first thing, an australian, even a tailender, would do is ,maybe, step out and hit the bowler for a six and dominate him...thats ATTITUDE and it has very little to do with skill...we've all seen Irfan Pathan's devastating form in the ongoing indo-srilanka series...its attitude dominating there!..a devil may care attitude, coz he has nothing to lose if he gets out for a duck...his reputation remains the same..but that cannot be said of sachin,dravid,yuvraj,kaif...they are burdened by expectations and that gets to them more often than not...the australians don't seem to have such mental issues...just watch gilchrist playing for that matter..absolute abandon! and that's why he's able to play like he does...its very difficult to have such a mental frame..and thats why i say its genetic...or from a different perspective, socially induced...

Afterthoughts:
we are an 'unsure of ourself' race..maybe we became so as a result of british domination...we look down upon ourselves and look up to the west...because our society brainwashes us to do so...because, in a way, its true...but don't forget that our histories are different...our generation is more confident, but we are yet to bravely look everyone else square in the eye...that day will come and it will come soon...and then there is no stopping India...All of us should do our bit to make the future generation of india confident..we have one of the best cultures to fall back on, we are among the most intelligent races in the world, we are globally acknowledged as a peace loving nation...we have what it takes.
..Be proud to be an indian,Be proud to be yourself.

hot cocoa psychology

i was having my morning cup of hot chocolate when i was reminded of the innumerable ocassions when authors have extolled the combo of a hot drink on a cold/rainy morning...i went on to relate it to the feeling you have when u'r all warm and cozy in your seat,looking out of the window of a car/train at a wintry morning..its a very nice feeling, very romantic too!..nothing like it, if there is someone to cuddle up with under a thick blanket and watch dew drops condensing on the window pane......well,aside for the romantic touch, my point revolves around the human thought process. the pleasure we derive in such an environment is not as much as from being warm than from experiencing the contradiction....just imagine, would you feel as happy if you are in a closed room all warm and cozy....definitely no! knowing that you're warm, while seeing that everything around you is in the cold, gives a kind of ego boost and that is what makes us happy. So childish is the human mind!

Hum Log - ep 1

i closely observed a man yesterday..... for the record, i'm as straight as a lamp post ,but, i was in a lift and moulded aluminium cannot sustain my interest for long. Fortunately, my senses were treated to an interesting, though commonplace phenomenon... That is the beauty of places like lifts, long, slow queues, deserted bus stops.. you tend to realise the things that are so in your face, yet normally unnoticed...So, this person here, let me name him Mr x, rushes into the lift on the 13th floor. He looks to be in his mid 40s and has the airs of a managerial position. The lift starts to move down. Within a few seconds, Mr x gets a call on his cellphone. what transpires is interesting.

Mr x: hello
other end:
Mr x: tell me tell me.
other end:
Mr x: go back go back.
other end:
Mr x: fine fine.
other end:
Mr x: ok ok.
other end:
Mr x: ya.

and Mr x hangs up.

Didn't it strike you as odd that he repeats almost every word that he speaks. Yes! but then it doesn't strike you when you yourself do it..i'm taking the liberty to call this the lift effect..anyways the point is, whatever be the psychology behind it, isn't it wierd to sound like that?

The reason as per first thought is to explain urgency of some kind or to assert importance to. But i believe, in certain contexts, its also a case of low self esteem. i.e, the person is subconsciously convinced that people will not pay attention to him/her and hence involuntarily repeats himself

its all blah...basically. the observation was interesting. needed some inferences to lend support...

Being Big B

Amitabh Bachchan is taken ill and the entertainment industry suffers a loss of 120 odd crores of Rupees.Just as the first impression registered is the power of this great man, similarly is the thought that goes towards the people at the receiving end of these losses. I'm very poor in finance, so i don't know if producers are really affected by such ocurrances, but if they are, it must be a really risky proposition. Set aside for a moment the initial risk associated with launching a production venture. That is valid for everything. But to be vulnerable even when your production is a success; thats scary. Taking the instance of KBC2, probably a week of shooting has been postponed now.So many losses immediately come into the picture: studio rental, man-force compensation, participant's boarding/lodging..and lots more that i'm unaware of. On the non-monetary front, pressure of production deadlines, pressure from advertisers and the nity gritty...
Baseline..Amitabh Bachchan cannot afford to have a stomach upset. Henceforth, every time he sneezes, the producers of KBC and of the zillion movies that he's a part of, will miss a beat

movies huh!

One fine day i decided to update my profile on orkut. After having done that, i focussed my thoughts on the difficulties i faced while doing so. well, for one, i didn't have a definite answer to the music,books and movies fields,especially the movies, so much so, that i left it as it was filled in. i think i did a fair job of defining my kind of music. But i reckon, its difficult with movies. there are so many good movies and so many categories if you try to sort them.

At one end you have SWORDFISH, where if you're observant, you might just get the gist of the movie in the last frame. the level of satisfaction that such movies provide, of course, when u're able to figure out the proceedings is awesome.

At the diametrically opposite end, you have A WALK TO REMEMBER. Beautifully played out emotions and an adorable mandy moore. In the same league is NOTTING HILL. Each time i catch a glimpse of it on TV, i end up watching till the end.

At another corner of the ring (double pun intended) we have the ROCKY series.Now thats what you should watch and 'eye of the tiger' is what you should listen to before an exam.You just can't categorize movies like this one here.

For pure genius of conception and technical perfection, we have the MATRIX TRILOGY.

Now what do i say about movies like THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, FULL METAL JACKET and FORREST GUMP?

Full metal jacket reminds me of the armed forces and i recall AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN; powerful dialogues,powerful emotions, powerful performance. Tom cruise transports me to THE LAST SAMURAI, beautiful for its melancholy yet aggressive feel. the samurai leads me to RONIN, which features one of the best car chase sequences in the history of hollywood. talk of cars and the adrenaline rush is immediate..TOO FAST TOO FURIOUS, for the car sequences alone, mind you!...a temporary blank drawn, i shift to A BEAUTIFUL MIND, no elaborations needed and Russel Crowe effortlessly takes me to GLADIATOR, with one of my favourite dialogues ever. I am not a war movie fan, but gladiator stands out..from gladiator, lets move on to.....ah! SCENT OF A WOMAN. Al Pacino all the way! He also reminds me of SCARFACE, for the initial 20 minutes., scarface to devils advocate to keanu reeves to.. but of course SPEED1, awesome movie..speed reminds me of the tube and tube reminds me of PREDATOR2, another great concept...from there to hmm, ALIENS..to jurassic park to sam neill to national treasure to nicholas cage to hoo haa, CONAIR!..moving on to face off to john travolta to BROKEN ARROW, mighty good! to OCEANS 11 to ENTRAPMENT to ITALIAN JOB and all great con movies...charlize theron reminds me of trapped which reminds me of the road accident which inevitably takes me to FINAL DESTINATION 1 & 2; ultimate conceptualization is what you get here...its all coming like a flood now..the cube,saw(not in bold cause they're worth seeing once),...i shift gears to comedy and immediately its jim carrey all over the place..BRUCE ALMIGHTY, ACE VENTURA,MASK...tough competition from MRS DOUBTFIRE and the emotional comedy of PATCH ADAMS to the action comedy of RUSH HOUR to jackie chan and lo and behold POLICE STORY,FRENCH CONNECTION, and many others , dunno remmember their names..jackie chan to the baap of martial arts...ENTER THE DRAGON,FIST OF FURY, THE BOSS...going back to rush hour and taking of in the direction of will smith's style of comedy, its MEN IN BLACK to ENEMY OF THE STATE...to harrison ford to air force one to mmm....enough.its never ending
Now i think u can understand my dilemna!

need for speed

it was one of those trips which for once and ever confirmed the fact that i love travelling by bus..for any overnight journey, henceforth, i'll prefer a bus to a train...lemme elaborate my convictions in this regard...i love adventure of any kind...and unadulterated adventure is what you get when u're travelling in a volvo at over 100km/hr all the while looking for 'prey' to overtake....catching up on them...tailgating them with a revving engine and lunging sidewards and ahead as soon as the oncoming vehicle has passed..its a treat! pure bliss!..to stress on my behaviour let me add that i abandoned my push back seat in the a/c cabin on my journey home to sit on a foldable seat in the drivers cabin talking about the vehicle and enjoying the mile munching. the vovlo happened on the return journey. but the to journey wasn't bad at all..it was a rip off on a vovlo but not bad at all...an ashok leyland product with a 7 speed gearbox and fuel efficiency of 4 km/ltr....now thats awesome when u consider that the volvo gives u at most 2.5 km to the litre..the gear box, i'm unaware of, but while a volvo costs anywhere around 50 lakhs, this baby is yours for 35...well, the volvo's price is not unjustified, it sure is a class apart when it comes to pickup...even this baby can't match that...all in all i had a great ride to and fro..the best part, however, was that the owners had the decency to not label it a VOLVO or a VALVO...

Thank you God!

yesterday was a very happy day for me....just wanted to let it be known.......

i couldn't think of a title

i read other blogs and am left to wonder, " why don't just i have anything to write about?"....Reflecting on the previous sentence, i find it interesting to note, that 'read', pronounced as when in past tense or present tense, makes full sense... Definitely queer, is the English language, build on the whims and fancies of wordsworths and shakespears, the identity of the latter, incidentally, now being suspect. Every body must have heard of the 'gh-o-ti' to fish mapping. its too cliched to reproduce here. when i see it from that perspective, english as a language, definitely sucks! On comparison, i feel hindi is a very complete and refined language. till date, i have not been able to find any flaws in hindi............mmm..... she just walked past. there is something about this girl who just walked by. i just feel like staring at her...there is this serenity on her face and in her gait...someday i'll tell her.........ladies! don't despair, she's older than me.

poof!..coming back, the most beautiful word in hindi is 'aap'. there is no word in english that comes anywhere close in sense and respect as conveyed by 'aap'. Again, phonetically, hindi is perfect and gh-o-ti proves sufficiently that english is not. I realised this when my dumb-c team happened to participate in a hindi dumb-c and we successfully used the few 'matras' to illegally decipher the words...sigh, those were the days...

well, all that English has on its side is its universality and the thrust-upon sophistication...well maybe earned too, i dunno. But i'm not complaining. Its just that i read other blogs and am left to wonde.....................

bowled over!

i've been smitten by gul panag ever since i saw her in the toyota corolla ad with rahul khanna. Boy! what a powerful face! what a powerful voice! enchanting, enthralling and what not! fida ho gaya!!

an altruistic detour

The following is something that i've wanted to express for some time..and now is the time...its the result of an analysis of India's problems and a solution for the same...as a consequence of my thoughts, i have come to the conclusion that each and every issue that the country faces can be traced to our 'bursting at the seams' population..how? let me explain in view of known problems:

CORRUPTION : we're in the top 10 in the world when it comes to this...lets analyse..corruption originates in the minds of a few...these few are ubiquitous...every state/nation has them. It is not corruption as such, but the proliferation of corruption that decides these rankings...proliferation of corruption is a vicious circle in india wth population being its originator...every public activity in india involves a queue..where there is a queue..there is impatience...and where there is impatience, the devil creeps in....seeds of bribery sown. again, with such a huge population around, cases of corruption never come to light and this emboldens more people to join the bandwagon..to the extent that bribery in india is the norm...our judiciary is so overburdened that, with little power and the right contacts and some more bribes, a person can be confident of shaking loose a corruption charge on him/her....to sum it up, corruption dwells coz noone finds out and thats thanx to our population

POVERTY: no groundbreaking theories required here...we are too many and the government doesn't have enough...and since the poor don't have enough, they produce more chidren hoping to gather more of what is around...vicious circle again...

CRIME : some are born criminals..forget them.majority are made by their environment..an environment which lacks in everything, even basic...places of living are overcrowded, places of work/business are overcrowded, means of transport are overcrowded...when there is a crowding, there is friction; friction creates frustration; frustration harbours anger and anger is unleashed as crime...

ILLITERACY : sure, the government assures free education, but it cannot bring the children to school. that is to be done by altruistic individuals and social organizations. they are less in no: and why not? most people who are into social service arethe ones who don't have to bother abt an income for a living. the others cannot support themselves with just the blessings of the target group...as far as i believe, in developed countries, there is a lot of govt: fund involved in every conceivable sphere of activity, such that it becomes a viable career path as well. here only the truly altruistic can do that...it shows.


SOLUTION: the following is inspired by a piece of writing i happened to read some time back. can't remember the term, hence am rechristening the concept as POPULATION CONDITIONING..so what is it and how is it different from population control and how can it be more effective?
population control refers to curbing the birth rate by whatever means..its not logical according to the poor as such and the logic that is fails to percolate down to them; so it fails mostly
population conditioning is different. it refers to concentrating on the minds of the population and conditioning them to realise that 'the fewer, the better'...but,by indirect means....by creating employment : with employment men can forget worying about supporting their families, by concentrating on female education: the enlightened woman can influence her man...together we have a 'susceptible to other issues' man and a woman
'who knows the other issues'...that may do the trick....this is my version of the concept, hope its not full of blunders

DISCLAIMER:what i have attempted to present are justifications apart from the normal; the cliches definitely hold true. can't think of any other major problem at the moment, but am sure, any that is suggested can easily be traced to our population explosion.........also, i have based what i hav written on my feelings. many of you may find it to be silly/wrong/whatever...please air ur views/critiques...it'll be a learning for me and that's important. thank you.

Pseudo cowboys!

It was originally the cowboy's sunburnt attire...the leather 'skin' on the jean, keeping intact the original colour around the waist and along the sides, while the climate faded the remaining..... soon enough, we had the trend of 'faded' jeans...what the cowboys achieved over several months maybe, was available on the shop shelf, ready to buy and flaunt...ok, for those who want to...others had a choice then. but, now, there isn't much of a choice ....my recent attempts at getting myself a uniformly coloured pair of jeans were all 'washed out'...they just don't have 'em anymore...disgusting!...the craft work is all over the place...designer fades, multicoloured stitch lines, jean threads unstitched and left loose in patterns...some of them look war ravaged...the point is that people are being compelled to change their dressing sense by trends...there are so many people who just wear all this assuming it to be hip..when it doesn't suit them at all...wearing isn't enough, you ought to be able to carry wht u're wearing....and that's why they are the pseudo cowboys....u can never achieve the naturally faded look artificially...but then, who cares as long as john abraham/some apt female wears them!

What can i do?

i want my blog to be an extension of myself..something i can use to help me define myself..but its not turning out that way...i've become desperate enough to recount my travel experiences...this is not going anywhere...wht shoul i do abt that?

lately, i've been a little pissed off, with people not reacting the way i expect them to or rather would like them to...what can i do abt that?

i want to get rid of some adipose, but can't focus on going to the gym regularly...jus make it twice or thrice a week...what do i do abt that?

it takes me 30 minutes to commute from my house to silk board(b'lore), a distance of 2 kms while the remaining 5 odd kms to office takes me 10 minutes....what can anyone do abt that?

.... many more laments, but i'll miss the 7:30 bus.....what can i do?

Advaith's snaps

what the rock?

When people ask me of the type of music that i like, my standard answer is "anything but heavy rock and metal"....why do i say so? i feel its because i have not learned to enjoy that genre of music...and honestly, i've tried.......... and failed...several times on my box..and a few times at concerts courtesy college sponsored trips to cultural fests...i recall listnening to parikrama singing an ACDC song at spring fest '05......the lead singer was howling ( no offence meant there, but that's how the sound struck my 'untrained to decipher heavy metal/rock' ear) and everyone around me was jumping in his/her seat.......in the midst of trying to comprehend all this, i decided to consciously try and enjoy the proceedings.....no chance there!...and its been the same to date....i wan't to find out what it is in this genre that appeals to its fans?.....thats the intention of this post....my ideas on the same?..well, occassionally the guitar pieces sound good....'sound' here is very contextual as it is the complexity of the piece that appeals most to me....does that pass as a 'factor of enjoyability'?......the drums are always good to hear..but i can't enjoy them with the intermittent 'howling'....do let me know, wht i'm missing there....offlate i've started enjoying aerosmith....but i know, its nowhere near the genre at hand.....help!

what is this?

Blogging is good for the mind, they say. I did feel good after publishing my first post...for the current post, i'm experimenting with an idea...that is to start from nowhere and end up somewhere...the brain doesn't seem to have registered that coz i'm still nowhere....but while typing this the slide show running at the back of my head was of a cylinder trying to fire its piston into motion....i'm now thinking about the jaguar XJ and the mercedes S class, but am not informed enough to vrooom on.....this is probably the worst piece of writing ever recorded during the course of human history and i'm wondering why i've decided to publish it...that's how i am, i guess....GUESS??... brings back the point i made earlier....u just cannot know yourself just like that...it'll take years of introspection and tonnes of experience....by the way, should a piece of writing confirm to any topic or standard?....but then i ask, if there is no topic, then why the hell are you writing?.......i better leave it at that....if anyone can get any insight from this, do let me know...........

THE weekend in Chennai

It was a weekend spent in marvelling the creativity of the almighty..there is now amongst us a small guy, who until 2 days back was all cuddled up inside, oblivious of everything...now he's adapting to the change, consciously and sub consciously absorbing everything that is different...................

My trip to Chennai was very informative...i realised that never ever should i get myself allotted a seat in the last row of a bus...whether it be a volvo or a non a/c semi sleeper...the frustration levels were very high during the journey, watching people reclining comfortably in their seats while me and the rest in the last row...suffered frm cramped leg space and nearly non existent reclining and no foot rest...wow!...and we paid the same 500 bucks for it...and!........ nothing can be done about that!....and to top it, being in the last row had the effect of travelling on a see saw, for every dip/bump in the road was multiplied threefold or more by the excellent suspension to continuously give the sensation of current flowin up my belly......it was hell until i slept!..........that's one blessing i have...i am more or less a log of wood once i'm asleep.

But God is a great pacifier, as in he more than made up with the return journey....here i was in the front row of the bus getting a decent view of the proceedings ahead and with a very promising driver at the helm of affairs.....if u aren't getting the drift, i love speed.....if that wasn't enough, i had the company of an intelligent 'stranger' and we had an interesting conversation over the course of the journey...happy ending!

Older by a generation

Great news! my dearest sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy today morning. i'm a 'mama' now...wow!

Devil's workshop

.....truly what an empty mind is...it brought me here and it created wht follows...being optimistic is surely convenient, ...u can forget ur worries and hope for the best...the 'worries' as first observed above, are insignificant trivialities of a confused mind...which brings me to a point..why does it give people immense satisfaction, when they are able to replace simple words with elaborate phrases?.......'worries' as in trying to figure out who i am...which per individual is, i believe, the most difficult ask....in my case, its a big jigsaw in there, where the pieces are so minute, that frm afar they look completed...in a way they are too if i want to just play by the rules of the common world...its when i think of transcending it, that the scope zooms in to show the disarray....its a jigsaw within a jigsaw...the pieces forming the outer jigsaw are jigsaws by themselves..the composite pieces of the sub jigsaw morph into a meaningful whole in several ways (nth degree equation with all real solutions!)...as a result u have the outer jigsaw whose pieces change shape continuously...the outer jigsaw will complete when each of the sub jigsaws settle down to a unique shape which can interlock with each other...that is the ultimate goal and that is difficult!...as a concluding thought for the day,.... when u r midway up the rock and feel tired, which is a better source of inspiration...to look down and note that uive climbed so much or to look up and observe that so much more will get you to the top!