To be or not to be ?

Quite cliched as the post title may be, I revisit the question applied to my indecision on morality and the action of abiding by the law. I am still stuck in the quandary as to whether the answer has to be so binary or is there really an optimal solution to the question of being ethical. Neglecting the correctness of  Hazare and his army's movement towards political purging, I pose the question to myself : Should I fight till death to stave off corruption from my life, no matter how ugly the situation is, or is it reasonable to try very hard till it gets to the point of seeming unpragmatic and foolish? Alternatively choose the other extreme path of rejecting integrity by reasoning that the system is so corrupt that irrespective of my behavior, all my contributions would either way end up filling the personal coffers of the evil rulers.

At the risk of omitting deviations, my past has been substantially corruption free, whether it was school, work or for that matter, while obtaining a driving license or my passport, which are quite rampant corruption-free-free areas. Substantial, but not altogether. I have on an occasion or two doled out extra dough to the brokers to acquire reserved train tickets or movie tickets which we commonly call 'in black'. I accept that my confession does not make me any more virtuous. However, I take the initiative to pledge for the future. The question of whether corruption (pertinent to country like India) is avoidable still remains? To that, after much deliberation and a defeated idealist argument, I feel the answer is 'largely: yes; entirely : (muffled) no'. 

While sounding highly opinionated, I reject the defense on the lack of self-integrity by individuals who point their finger at the governing system, without practicing at home. The aim of embracing corruption is to illegitimately increase personal wealth or to use that wealth to bend rules to your advantage/luxury. And I believe strongly that, with such a mentality, irrespective of the location in the world and the degree of muck in the system, one would if one could. I conclude this post with an open ended question, if absolute cleanliness is utopian, what is the optimum? Where do we draw the line if such attributes are highly subjective? 

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On a separate note, I refuse to be a part of the facebook frenzy of echoing news already evident. Earnest actions have demonstrated the potential to overturn Governments (hail Wael), but more often than not it is quite convenient to participate in a virtual rally than join a physical movement. I understand your love-hate sentiments for the Indian cricket team, your veneration for Steve Jobs, or the hatred for the Late Mr.Osama-bin-Laden, and above all, the right and freedom of expression, I can only be thankful to Zuck for collapsing similar content in the recent update.

Boy am I glad to be back in blogosphere :D

The Irony called choice..

Despite keeping myself busy being lazy, of late, I try and tally the woes my life has handed me .... actually shoved down my throat. To avoid the depression, I have made failed attempts to glorify my position by watching disturbing documentaries, with an intent to justify, how well off I actually am. For that matter, I do feel like an asshole, cribbing about quite a regular life most people live. Waking up early, dealing with impossible people, eating shitty food, watch intolerable shows and sleep uncomfortably to wake up exhausted into the vicious cycle.

Winding back to history, ever since I wanted something badly for myself, not counting food cravings, I see how betrayed I always have been. So what if it was this close. But not there. Let's see, where to begin. I wanted to be none other than an IITian. I settled for something lesser. I wanted a high paying comfortable job. Instead I survived a blue collared traveling site job. Yeah !! Right under the South Indian sun. I hoped I would be in Virginia Tech. Par Rutgers hi sahi. To set things right the second time, I prepared a resume for a great job. I would repeat in my mind every time I hit 'Submit', "Consulting..Aaathoo". Billions of blue blistering barnacles if you are guessing where I am now.

Notwithstanding the reverse gear I have had to start the chapters of my life with, to my delight, I have been able to park quite in the spot. I had a fun-filled awesome college life, a truly learning 'experience', and a super-lethargic extended grad school life. Despite my ingrained hatred for big-mouthed, money guzzling consultants who re-state the obvious, I am one of them. Purely in my defense, with all honesty, I am thankfully spared from having to be a stereotype. I will pause at that before making any more judgments on my profession.

The statistics of my life, though obviously untrustworthy, have been uncannily consistent. May be, they are a coincidence, may be I tend to trend, or may be, simply, I aspire for a wee bit too much. Staying in the context, I don't think it would be too bad to aspire for a Megan Fox and settling for small town southern blondie instead.

The beginning of the end..

I do not know if anyone does, but even though I am enjoying a moment, at the back of my head I regret that this moment is passing by. Lets hypothesize, I finally acquire an abundant supply of the dish I have been craving for, and relish the unearthly pleasure, at the first bite, I still regret that with every progressive bite, my marginal utility is diminishing. It goes on till the point I stuff myself and regret that I ever craved. Till the vicious cycle begins again. (Perhaps why my buffet philosophy, contrary to a-la-carte philosophy, is to eat the best item first, and as quickly as possible).

This kind of takes me back to my previous post. At this moment, when after millions of explanations to thousands of people about my prolonged education, I have made it to the point where, if questioned, can give a definitive date of my MS defense, I look back and see how, just yesterday I arrived to the US of A, as a naive international student, one that can be identified from a mile away, from their attire, curious amazed eyes, empty pockets as a FOB. And here I am, standing as if those 3.5 years just zoomed past. My admiration of the surroundings, people, even the buses has diminished with acquaintance. But yet again, as my wonderful student life comes to an end, I regret the crossover to the professional life, and ask myself yet again, exactly as I did 5.5 years back at the end of my UG, "Will I ever live these golden times again? Will I ever be a student again?"

With age, the probability of the answer being "No" is obviously higher. Firstly, in the future, the bonding I develop with my peers will obviously not be the same. Secondly, I can see myself getting wiser everyday, but see it otherwise as far as smartness goes. I regret again the irreversibility of time, and take as a consolation that things will be good, if not better in the future. I take this moment to thank all the wonderful people I have met, lived with, during the glory days of schooling, undegrad and grad life, for having made my memories the way they are : memorable. I would be delighted if we could organize a reunion, at the exact same place with the exact same people doing the exact same thing. However, we are not the same. Cheers people !! Carpe Diem !!

The return...

I am back to blogging. And this time the break was legitimate. My head was clouded with uncertainties about my future, but some ray of hope has been able to disperse the fog. Fearing that I might have partially lost some penning skills I am going to keep this short and sweet about three independent thoughts.

People love music because it soothing, relaxing, entertaining blah blah blah. But there is one more reason I love music. Certain albums, songs or even jingles are associated with discrete moments of my life. Almost all of them happy. Often, a particular tune flashes me with memories of some particular event of my lifetime. There has never been two moments attached to one song, and neither are two songs related to one event. It is strictly a one-to-one mapping. Not only for the reason that these memories were pleasant, and are probably to stay forever, they are one of my ways to keep track of my life's timeline. If you were to ask, "Guess which year did he or she get married", my search engine uses powerful algorithms to track back to the song associated with the nearest memory, and inter/extrapolates the query with the music release year.

I am a facebook fan, alright. Not sure there is a way to actually become a 'fan' of facebook on facebook. However, I always knew it could be an excellent way to analyze trends, statistically. There are occasions when people have done that too, which I gather from posts. It is for its own reasons, a trendsetter, brilliant and many a time, ridiculous. I shall concentrate on my latter judgement. I agree, resharing does increase visibility of interesting articles (and of course if you are really trying, yourself), but come on people, do you really need to reiterate game results, announce movie climaxes and worst of all acquire hobbies. I observe, statistically, that photography is every other person's hobby (quite a blow to my knowledge from introductions in middle school, wherein I ranked stamp collection and reading as the bestsellers). There is no doubt technology has given way to cheaper cameras, inexpensive storing and processing of images, actually or artificially, and with practice or by sheer chance, you will eventually click some amazing shots. But till you do so, it is not absolutely necessary to show off your camera (whose functionality and versatility people barely know or care to read) skills or the lack thereof, publicly on facebook.

Lastly, if you are aware of South Park's Captain Hindsight, this is about how he is a close resemblance, in most cases, and with no offense to anybody in particular, women. I do not like when I am forced to acknowledge, repeatedly, that I was wrong. All's well with 'history repeats itself' and one should 'learn from past mistakes' crap, but the damage's done, and if it cannot be reversed, kindly stop whining and ranting about it. Women are excellent in reminding how and where you went wrong and what you should have done, but with absolutely no clue to what ought to be done now. I hate it and I am sure most menfolk would express solidarity here. This is not criticism but a simple statement of fact and a suggestion for corrective action.

This post wasn't really so short after all. More in the next. Adios!!

Free Willy...

Summer is finally in, and going strong. Yet I continue to disappoint myself by having lesser fun than I think I deserve. In fact quite considerably. Distractions, such as my thesis, force me to divide my attention to work and fun, obviously resulting in an insincere contribution to either. Since the topic is finally broached, lets very well settle this once and for all. I really am delighted about the concern showered by friends and family, near and not so much. Yeah ! We are talking about my graduation. But it intrigues me. Am I not the one who should be more worried? Well, I gather I am not. To all those, still pestered by the question, it is still indefinitely postponed, yet bounded by the expiry of my I-20 (Oct 2010).

Now, lets stop being a nerd here and steer this post to something slightly more interesting. After an incredible, inexplicable, long hiatus, I am back to watching movies. Yet the picks, were pretty unfortunate. But given the amount of bullshit being churned out, results were perfectly aligned with laws of probability. Raavan was a super disappointment. Senility strikes Mani Ratnam. AB 2.0 was pathetic. And watching Vikram was like ordering Chana Bhatura in Saravana Bhavan, or for that matter, a Masala Dosa in Sher-e-Punjab. As for Knight and Day, the sole reason I saw the movie was a savior in helping me tolerate it. Thank You , Captain Morgan. A-Team was brilliant. Non stop action. Talk about flying a tank. You make Newton proud.

Everyone knows I go to movies for the trailers before. And this particular one strikes me as interesting. Well why not, the idea of the entire life planned for you by people who monitor the world. Well, just for an instance, lets assume this to be true. My question is will you mutely accept the system, or would you find it unacceptable and suffocating? Getting back to the plot of the movie, why does it sound so familiar. Let me give you hint. How about fate and God. Now go back and answer the question above. Are you still 'willing' to accept the system, or are you okay with God messing up with your free will. In all my limited capacity, I am exercising my free will here and promoting atheism. And astrology, don't even talk about it. Though nearly convinced, my belief is slightly shaken by this psychic octopus which seems to have sealed the fate, yet again, for Germany, in the round of 16.

Caution !! Babies on board ...

What could be worse than departing from your loved ones to a land far far away. For starters, a delayed flight after a night out. My journey back to Jersey, was so, let us say, at the heights of euphemism, eventful, that this post on my return precedes my India travel journal. This is how it went. After coming to know that my flight was delayed by 4 hours, my hungry stomach refused to comply any further and compelled me to buy a thoroughly overpriced snack at the Trivandrum airport. Within 30 minutes another one followed. Upon moving to the gates, what do I see !! Our much badmouthed Kuwait Airways, in a bid to defy internet reviews, decides to serve a heavy breakfast in neat boxes to all its passengers. Delighted by the prospect of more food, I eagerly open my box, to see the sarcastic face of the exact same cutlet and sandwich staring at me with utmost mockery. Sorry, Kuwait Airways, I still have reasons to complain.

Much to my extrapolated satisfaction on my onward journey, where the connecting flight was held despite our flight's late departure, I failed to catch the one from Kuwait to New York. That meant an extra day at Kuwait. As for Kuwait, it is a wealthy metropolis sprinkled with a pinch of vegetation and blessed with infinite salt water and crude oil. Nevertheless, at best, dry. Dry in every sense. To be precise, it is a desert, forbids alcohol while men and women express their fashion statement in thawb and abayat. Needless to say, how disappointing my trips to duty free stores were. If by now you have started pitying my condition, wait for it, the rest is, as Barney says, 'legendary'.

Having obtained my requested window seat sufficiently in the front (12A) and boarding on the dot, I was gratified. A good looking female walks right upto the seat ahead and asks the hostess for 12B. "Cherry on the cake", I thought to myself. Well, it turns out, little missy here was carrying some baggage, a lot of excessive baggage. She comes straight to me and asks, " Do you mind?". Before I could ask, "Mind what?", came the B-bomb, "I have two babies". Plunk !! my heart dropped right into my stomach and I ended up exhausting all my will power to substitute my, "Yes, most certainly I do. Don't you know they have been allotted exclusive space in the cargo bay", with a nonchalant, "Don't worry. I would be fine". My situation was exactly the one of being fed well before the blade falls in a slaughter house.

To my dismay, the misery was not just two fold. I was literally the epicenter of a baby-quake. There were two ahead, one behind and one in the adjacent aisle. The remaining 10 hours were a disaster. The Turks say, the shortest measurable time is that between the traffic light going green and the first honk in Istanbul. I beg to differ. It is the that between one baby stopping to cry and the other to begin. I am sorry to say, I hate babies. They are cute, but for me only in pictures. Despite all the luxury they are awarded, why do they still have to express displeasure. They eat and sleep at will and consider the earth their dumping ground by pooping and farting shamelessly. For the first time in my life, I pardoned all those flyers who defy seat belt signs and jump out of their seats as soon as the plane touches ground rushing to make a beeline at the gate as if a time bomb in the plane was ticking to go off any second. I was ready to do the same. I exited. I breathed.

p.s. : If you are thinking of demanding sympathy for babies saying :

a)I was once one - Thanks, I know.

b)I will have one - Sorry, let me make that decision :)

Tongue of the beholder..

I am one of those people who has little taste for art. I do understand and admire the beauty of music, sculpture, literature but, come on, paintings!! No way. For me they are just there. With no functionality. I do dig comics. And totally see sense in it. But paintings.They just hang there on the wall, all day, all alone when no one is around, and stare blankly when people are around. Say nothing, do nothing and completely fail to grab my attention. So much said, that is not exactly my point. The point I am trying to make, is an expansion of of an interesting discussion in a movie I was recently watching ( And whose name I will not disclose. Well, Its okay to watch a chic-flick when you have absolutely nothing to do).

The question is, who decides what is art? A piece of work may be everything or nothing depending on whether or not "someone" decides it is awesome or a piece of crap. In most cases that "someone" is a big-guy in the field. Quite possibly, eccentric on the outside. Going with the flow, many often second that and lo and behold.. your work is art. But seriously, I am positive, to most junta, if sufficiently ignorant (not un-intelligent or un-observant) , a Van Gogh juxtaposed among others will easily pass unnoticed. Perhaps it is required to "be there, do that" to relish it. Or is it, that I just nod my head just because the world says "yes".

Thus in a nutshell my point is about letting your opinion be heard. How many of us have ever experienced situations as this where you went out with a bunch of people for a movie or dinner. And you just disagreed to disagree that the movie was somnolent or the food was pathetic. May be you just chose to be safely neutral rather than stand out in the crowd as a complete douche. I must agree, it is hard. Of course,there is always a risk of you completely being wrong. These are just trivial examples, but I leave it as an exercise for the reader to think in retrospect to chart your actions for the imminent. Who knows, may be your intractability stems a revolution.

Letter Writing..

An obsolete art it is. Thankfully not extinct. Its importance diminished by telephone, email, IM and (cmon!!) tweets and status messages. I agree that, all of the above are convenient, fast, real time and primarily guarantee delivery(except may be, Webmail), however lack, may we say, the exoticism of a letter. I haven't written a letter, or rather written anything at all in ages. Only typed and printed. But yeah, I did use to. In fact to a not very distant past. And should I say, I am grateful to my grandfather for being a technology illiterate (I didn't mean he cannot use a phone).

Back in those days, while a yellow postcard served the purpose of delivering a succinct 'I am still alive' message at the price of peanut (the omission of plurality is deliberate), a blue inland could still transmit the entire neighbourhood gossip at half the cost of a minute's local call. Either ways it was fun. While the lead writer (mostly mom) would claim 2 of the tiny three and half page for being one, the rest of the family could cram their Hi's into the remaining space, pushing the limits by scribbling into the flaps meant for gluing. What would start as legible neat letter would end up looking like a cheat sheet, with probably the essential information (recalled at the last moment) dismembered by the eager recipients.

Checking mail boxes was a thing of suspense (unlike today when you would be right 2 out 3 times if you guessed the sender was Capital One or Pathmark), because the arrival of letter usually meant surprise, mostly pleasant. Frequently informing a relative's upcoming visit or someone's birth, I have even witnessed recipes and horrorscopes (I hope I spelled it right) that eventually materialized into marriages. And for those who used to preserve letters, the sheer joy of revisiting those past days by reopening the chest and shouting out "Did X really write that?", "Was that what my handwriting looked like?" far surpasses the magnitude of annoyance of your boss's immediate reply on your report saying, "Redo this crap !", and the pain of doing English homeworks from Wren & Martin.

I bet even to this day, you would more than just please a friend or a relative by sending a postcard from wherever you are at the moment (instead of updating your Twitter) when you are traveling. Well, at least I believe, not from experience though, as far as love stories go, if a 100 proposal attempts has so far resulted in the display of the middle finger, a nicely written love letter might just seal the deal :)

The master of the universe.. Not !!

Key word for this post - 'I'. For most people on earth, if not all, the biggest thing that has happened on earth is birth. Specifically, their own. Fair enough. I do see the world through my eyes and expect everything to conform to my standards. In short, it is natural for one to assume, before some unprecedented reality check comes along (quite annoyingly frequently in my case), that he/she is right. Right about everything.

At a very young age, I had visualized myself as a visionary. I was amazed by how trivial concepts of science were yet not thought of. Flying fascinated me then, as it does now. The idea of individual flight rather than mass transit in air was foremost in my agenda. I had theorized the idea of using two magnets, one to be thrown in the air while it would attract the other in my hand, to fly. Sadly Newton's Laws were introduced to me later. On a different instance, I decided to build wings of wax (owing to its low density). My dream crashed, as I crashed in my dream, when the sun melted my wings away. To my great displeasure, Google has answers to every query that ever rang a bell in my head.

Academics. Well may be sports. Despite my initial failure at almost everything, I would grade myself as 'not bad'. Every time I hold a bat/racquet/ball, I say to myself, " This is it my boy. The next thing you hold will be the cup". Quite evidently, that was not the best phrase. I would spare those infamous moments for you to recall. Well, with all my confidence, I said to myself, Art it is. To keep it brief, I have confined myself to bathroom singing and notebook-last-page-doodling at the moment. Sports. Arts.

All my research with comic books and movies finally assured me. One who hath nothing endowed has to be a superhero. Not having seen any obvious powers, I have been to the extent of trying to acquire a few. My attempts of being exposed to radiation (X and Beta), getting bitten by insects (ants and bees, spiders very soon) yielded nothing. I have settled down with undergoing rigorous physical training as for a Ninja/Batman and getting exposed to the elements of nature (snow, heat and animals) as for the Spartan by deliberately avoiding protection. If not anything, I have learnt they are a big effing pain. I still believe, with all sincerity, that someday, not very far away (may be in 2012), I would come out as the 'chosen one'. My verdict for a superhero. Probably.

I fear of being tagged the title of a disgruntled 'stupid common man' (quite aptly quoted by Nasiruddin Shah in 'Wednesday'). Sadly, I criticize a lot assuming myself to be the Master of the Universe, not just mine. I even criticize people when they criticize a lot. At this point, post quarter-life (assuming a 100 year life span), I do not fear poverty. I fear not being rich. I do not fear being common. I fear not being distinguished. Looks like, when everyone is talented in at least one way or the other, I am not common after all. However, the tag 'stupid' still sticks :)

The Incarnation..

I have watched a ton of movies over the not very recent past, and loved a bunch of them. But not one among them, for a long time, qualified to deserve a place in my blog page. Avatar does. I got blown away. Any statement below that would be a gross understatement. As a warning, if you haven't seen the movie yet, back off right now. This post will contain spoilers. And if you do plan to watch it, don't let it be any short of a 3D in Imax. I observe many, quite surprisingly, disliked the movie. Whether you chose to save a few bucks to watch it on a plane, I am not sure of. But then, I fail to see why you would reject a nutritious dish served 'desi' style.

Here goes my interpretation of the movie. Yes, indeed it suggests that there is intelligent life embedded with modern technology in their nature, elsewhere in the universe and that it is worthwhile to explore the possibilities (all those cribbing about India wasting millions over a mere Chandrayan failure, kindly shut up!!) but it also hints at ways of tackling the atmosphere, flora and fauna, and above all, natives while convincing us to stay and continue our well established destructive ways of life. Despite all his visionary ideas of floating mountains et al., I seriously was disappointed in his assumptions that extraterrestrial life is so earth like (natives, dinosaurs, birds, pterodactyls, dogs etc), yet I give him total credit for making them look so attractive. At some point, I fell in love with Neytiri and so yearned to grow a tail. So cool.

To me, however, the question is, are we really better off than the ape men if we ever had to start off building civilization right from the scratch. We do boast of pumpkin brains compared to nuts in the ape man's upper compartment, our dependence on technology has crippled us to the extent of deeming vital organs and limbs vestigial. To me, it read out loud, move your a*$ from the stupid couch and go out 'Into the wild'. We are such weaklings without the aid of technology that I would not be surprised if we fail to survive a night out in a park, leave alone the jungle.

Well, he no doubt pin points to the war mongering expeditions corporate driven Uncle Sam's government in bid to exploit a country's resources while saving its own in the reserve. Quite aptly portrayed by the Colonel, you plunder their land, provoke them them to attack you and cry, "They are terrorists!! It is now our war". He raises environmental concerns yet again, raising strong fears by felling the Hometree. Believe me, despite my love for animals (on my plate), I was deeply touched.

Overall, there was not a moment in the movie which did not keep me at the edge of seat (and not because of annoying kids right behind me, as usual), it was a total entertainment. A perfect blend of Jurassic Park, Matrix, Princess Mononoke and a godforsaken Karan Johar flick, I bid for its Oscar claim. As an after effect, I still dream of flying the grand Toruk.