Realm of Randomness ..

Switching Lives (Repost)

Prologue: I have been working on quite a lot of posts recently but could not finish them and bring them to any bloggable format. So finally decided I should repost some old post. Here goes one such post.

Yesterday i had quite a random dream. Random indeed it was. For the most part of it i was pretty happy about what i was experiencing. And suddenly i went blank. I would say the dream went blank. Making me befuddled. Completely perplexed. Full of queries, queries for myself to answer. But before i get into the dream itself, let me blabber my views on dreams in general.

Dreams are angels. Yes, they have the power to make you experience the bests and worsts of your life at the same time. Indeed we experience the dreams, not just see them. How else can you explain your turning, jumping, twisting, crawling, grawling in the sleep. We are experiencing the event, the dream. I myself have woken up thanking god for turning whatever i experienced into a dream. And then there are those times when i just put myself to sleep again, just to experience what remained incomplete, unexperienced.

Further, the dreams are mutable portkeys. I feel i change lives in dreams. Butterfly effect you can say. But there one can decide if he wants to change his life. Here i don’t. It all depends on my other self, the dreaming threaded me. If he wants me there, i go. Otherwise i just lay here, wake up and continue.

Details. Two threads, if dreaming together, show how the life each is experiencing. We exchange both the positives and negatives. Yes, if you notice, each dream comprises of both goods and bads. We experience some scenes of that life, both happened and yet to happen. Yucks and Wows. If both agree to switch, we switch.

Now you see this concept explains a lot of usualities. Take Deja Vu. Yes indeed it is that ‘yet-to-happen’ scene of the life. We experienced it in the dream before we made the shift. Those jerky wake ups. May be the other self just slapped me for spending such sucking life. Or may be i did it to him for his sucking life. Roaming with unknowns. Yes, you don’t afterall expect two me’s having the same set of friends. Those long nights can be the result of just a mismatch between timings of two threads. Same goes for the short nights.

I will stop. Remove your thinking caps and plunge into the dreamland with the view. You might find quite a few interesting answers.

Anyways back to my dream i dreamed yesterday. I dreamed i was a singer, i was singing well. (Ok, i never said the other me has to be “me”ish. He can indeed me quite contradictory to who i am right?) Audience were happy. I saw my struggle. I saw my first assignment. I was watching myself happy. I watched all the happy me’s. Nothing bad. No yucks. And suddenly it was blank. I don’t remember something like this happening earlier. The dreams changed. The places changed. I woke up suddenly. But it never happened that the dream turned blank, with me facing eternity full of whiteness.

Puzzled, I lay there, closed eyed and open minded, waiting for something to happen. But all in vain. Blank. Whiteness everywhere. Finally i woke up and tottered my way along … With mind full of questions. Unanswered question.

Is ignoring climate change a risk worth taking?

He gets up in the morning and sees sun rising at him through the small slit, left open at the window by curtains. It is that soothing early morning which he has always savored. He crawls out of his bed and takes a warm shower. He gets all tidied up with a desire to embrace the pleasing spring morning. He puts his foot outside and starts his walk towards the office.

Hardly does he walk hundred meters, dark clouds start gathering the sky. He looks at the sun and loses him among the clouds.  The spring morning is ruined by the darkness of the clouds hovering above. They roar and kill the sweet chirping noise of the birds and burst into a heavy uncalled and untimely rain suddenly.

Now the situation above is not just a one off incident.  It is not the roaring clouds or the rain that bothers me. It is the untimely fashion one faces them. Any living person can personify the “he” described above.

Have many times will I lure days in and out just for a moist rainy morning only to end up to be greeted by scorching heat?

How many times will I leave the house to spend a pleasant summer weekend at the beach with family or friends only to end up sipping sodas in a closed car peeking at the pouring rain?

Why should I always carry the sunscreen lotion and the umbrella with me irrespective of which season it is?

As an Indian, I was blessed with distinguished 3 seasons. But these days everything has changed. Winters aren’t chilly. Summers have intermittent burst of clouds. Rainy seasons have hardly 30 days of rain. I won’t be exaggerating if I say that summers have more rains now than actual rainy seasons.

I don’t know if this is actually a result of Global Warming phenomenon. I don’t know if this is really a effect of greenhouse gases. There are facts and figures which say they are. Then there are those who say this is just a cyclic effect. This does happen in centuries where climate behavior repeats itself.

For me what matters is what I see and I can guarantee something is for sure not normal. I am tired of watching farmers committing suicides because the climate does not behave as it should. I am tired of watching crops getting ruined by the lack or or sudden pouring of rains. I am tired of watching people die because of all the floods and droughts, storms and tsunami. I am really tired.

The effects of, if it exists, global warming are pretty saddening.  I had decided I won’t take the risk of ruining what has been a pretty wonderful place to live. I will do whatever I can for that and have already started that by thinking about it.

After all I don’t want to end up telling my grandchildren, “Once there were seasons and climate changed with them”. And I surely don’t want any one to end like this.

PS: This is my attempt to put my views on climate change and participate with thousand others in Blog Action Day.

One Fine Morning…

Incidents wait for a perfect time to pounce on you, especially the bad ones. One such incident pounced on him too. One fine morning, it was.

Alike any normal day, he woke fully throttled up, with a hope for fruitful work at office. He rushed through the daily chores, preparing himself for the regular grinding sessions. However there was a tinge of excitement within him today. Surprised as he was with his full on enthu to reach office, a thought brushed his mind, ” something new, something good is about to happen today”. He knew today was, in someway, special.

He jumped into the office bus, just to get further surprised. Usually crowded, the bus welcomed him today to free spaces. He chose the best among the window seats. Clouds had already swarmed the Bangalore skies, further elevating his pleasant mood. “Something is surely in the air today”, he thought.

Whole day he yearned for the change he was sensing from the morning. However except for the persistent clouds, nothing indeed was pleasing him. He had a pretty workless day, which he hardly abhorred. But something was missing. He knew that, he felt that.

And then, on the verge of he giving up on any hope for the welcome change, it loomed, loomed through the hazy weather. He was introduced to the One. He was informed that One would be bossing him now onwards. The first few sentences from the One and he knew this was the change he has been desiring for. Fully impressed he was with the One’s fluent and vast knowledge flow. Fully impressed he was with the One’s sensitiveness for a person’s goals. Fully impressed he was with the One’s clarity of thoughts. Fully impressed he was with the One.

Few chats later an invitation was thrown at him, ” Join me for a smoke. Will you?” And that is how it all started. The incident had pounced on him, he though remained unaware. It all started one morning, one fine morning…

PS: All character are fictitious, resemblance to anyone is completely coincidental.

An Experience

“Learning how to drive has been too easy these days my friend”, he said, “It’s a simple principle. Throw money learn honey. I learnt it not by choice, but by compulsion.” He had a sense of austerity in his voice. I knew i was about to embark on a journey of one of his lifetime experiences.

Though highly disinterested, flaunting my  phony curiosity i queried, “So when did you learn driving then.” I was more worried about me bumping the vehicle into the truck ahead.

“Long back,” going into a hazy flashback, he said. “The moment i knew school is not my liking and studies hardly interest me, my family started looking for some work for me. There was no concept of job actually. There was work which would earn money for the supper. Who best to earn it than a lone useless, dumb fellow in the house”

Frisking what i listened for a question to throw back, i asked him “So you were the eldest? The only bread earner in your family?”

With a sudden smirk on his face, he replied ” Actually i am the youngest among the siblings. I have 3 older brothers, all well educated and hold nice jobs. But soon they left the home. Ashamed may be of the illiteracy in the family.” I knew the reason was more a taunt to them than a reason.

“So what did you do then”, I asked him, my eyes glued to the traffic signal ahead approaching faster.

“I didn’t have to do anything actually. Those were the days when the transport business was calling out for unskilled labour as conductors. My father pushed me into one. The work was simple. Whatever the king of the truck, the driver ustaad would say, the conductor would do. Whatever was literally ‘whatever’, including washing vehicle, buying him a beer bottle, bidis, making him a peg, washing the beer glasses. Anything and everything which by social thoughts would sound as child torture.” I hoped he was not talking about sexual one though.

Being a bad listener to one’s saddest and ugliest of the experiences, i did not want to go in the details of the torture. I queried him further “So what about driving then?”

“Aye bha*ve hat na baju” he sweared at a cycle rickshaw ahead. The rickshaw puller pedaled for another 100 meters before siding, least affected by the blasphemous outrage thrown at him. “These bloody idiots wont listen as long as you don’t use below-abdomen swears. Maa Behen pe na jao to palle nahi padta inke. My ustaad always used to tell me, best horn is that which is particularly customized for the one you are blowing at. Use your mouth in cities more than honking”. I decided not to listen to this teaching of his, not for now at least.

“Anyway about the driving, that was another role the conductor has to play when the driver was talli with beer. Suddenly one day he would pass the steering half crawling and say sambhal isko. It started with a prank, when ustaad had a good laugh along with his drunkard gang over my terrified face. I came to know after few months that actually that was the first step of my driving class under ustaad. That was my first experience of driving.”

Damn interested i asked, “So what next. Did he teach or just played rash on you?”  Cool and calm, he pointed at a tea corner and said, ” For now i am teaching you. Lets take a break. Lots of rash experiences did follow. The experiences that collated to form my driving sessions. Aaram se baithke sunte hain. Do kadak chai dena chotya. Special.“

I awaited agog to listen to his series of driving sessions with his eccentric ustaad. I knew there were many experiences worth pondering over going to be unbundled soon.

At the other side, Chotya was cleaning the table in front of me. Suddenly he looked to me completely oblivious of the experience he was part of.

What really is ambition?

Today it happened again. A previous post has had many hits from the Google search. I know there is nothing surprising about this part. But what follows is.

The query type was usually like “My ambition in life” or “My ambition” or “What are my ambitions” or “My plans and ambitions”. One query was also of the sort saying “Why have i lost my ambition”. Instant reaction was like, ok, i know Google does answer your query. But i dearly wish it does not move to this personal level. I dearly wish a day would never come when i would google for “Where have i forgotten my underwear”. I dearly wish i don’t.

But after some time, I thought fare enough. Someone must have searched for an essay with this topic. Afterall even i remember how, during the 2nd -5th standard, my ambition changed with changing teachers and essay books. It mutated from a nation serving politician or soldier to a hard-working-son-of-soil farmer to a life saving doctor. Frankly speaking, considering the level of english i could blabber on my own, the essay that was not lengthy enough not to be mugged up, at the same time sounded good and earned marks had content for “My ambition”. But i don’t remember myself ever scribbling about being a “gibberish-speaking” sleepy bug dwelling in virtual reality, being a computer engineering, i.e., to be specific.

Anyways this fact urged me to think what really is an ambition. I thought of mining the precise definition for the word and to my surprise what it really means is “an ardent desire to achieve something”. An ardent desire? That is it? Boss, i have been ceaselessly told my ambition has to foretell a long time down the future. All those “cheek-bursting” aunts and grandmas and uncles danced on my head for ages to know what i would be when i grow old, what is my ambition. I always doubted if they wanted to boggle the million rupees estate i would have. To such extent was my fear that i started publishing “social service” as my ambition just to push the demons away.

But now i feel pity that i was wandering along without really answering that question in the best way. If an ardent desire is what ambition is all about, then yes i would have had hundreds of ambitions. And the list has grown to a thousands now with passing age. With each ambition i achieved, i feel i have installed few more in the list. I know and still remember the whole gyan about a life lived without ambition is like an arrow fired without an aim. But then if i have to talk practically I feel it is highly impossible to lay the path for whole life right at the birth. Nah one can’t.

And that does not mean as a child i spent my life without an aim. I still had an aim to complete my homework just to rush out to play hide n seek or help mom out with an aim to go out for a walk in some mela or finish every possible household exercises even on a foggy Sunday with an aim just to use that as an excuse while am watching a cricket match. Now i know these were my ambitions. Far more practical than being a politician or a doctor.

Yes i know there are still these whole lot of concepts of long term goal and short term goals and art of living and blah. So I feel skeptic to use ambition as a word. I feel i better call it a simple desire.  I have decided to pursue my billions of small but practical desires under the hood of long term, impractical or rather unverifiable ambition of being a respected and followed both professionally and personally. I have already mentioned how my ambitions faded away with time. I know my desires won’t. I would be happy if the list grows to some tens of thousands, that would imply that i atleast completed 100 such desires. 100 such ambitionsi will call them.

A passage I long to live…

Just finished watching the most wondrous poem on love and life, “Before Sunrise”. I am so damn impressed. Its pretty amazing how the author’s, the director’s view can change a dragging chitchatting of a “just-met” couple into such awesome a journey for the viewer too. I mean, even i kind of get surprised that i thoroughly enjoyed a normal passage of some hours of two-people’s life, their passage from strangers to lovers.

Everything about this movie left me impressed. The sweet time it takes to unfold itself, the locales of Vienna crawling beautifully behind the leads, the gentle music in the background. All these small little things just heaved my experience of what lied at the core, the subtle talks of the couple in lead. I relished everything the author was trying to say. It made me think, made me revisit my thoughts about many things. I mean not just about love, about life too. All it had to say about death, god etc. Small little gems like the one when the actress, Celine, talks about the old man who spent his whole life thinking about his career and his work. That was just a spectacularly well written scene.

And about love, well its better experienced in the movie itself. I am speechless, out of word to spell out my experience. Its not just for the one’s in love, but also for the others to relish.  All those  pretty words, the moist  eyed stares, those mushy silences, the tender touches. Everything. The poem in particular written with so plain a word, milkshake, as its base. Man, spectacular is the word.

Yes, I want to wend one such passage before sunrise in my life, if possible in Vienna. And yes, if so beautiful is love crafted on the moving canvas, am sure i won’t be alone feeling that way.

Mysterious Me…

The title does sound, atleast for me, a bit self-boasting one. I dunno about others for whom ‘being mysterious’ may quite well turn out to be ‘yuck’ish. (I know even my use of words sometimes is mysterious. You would surely have, if you have roamed round this blogosphere enough, come across many.)

Anyway mysteries has always kept on the edge of my seat. I have cherished even the worst of the mystery movies ever made. I even have a darn respect (!!!) for the makers of few of the movies, whose reason for existence itself was a mystery. Same goes for books or for TV shows. But more than anything else, what turn me on are the mysterious real life experiences. I have spend lots of my network bandwidth digging through the news stories about however foolish but mysterious incidences that happen around us. And it was this interest of mine that led to the existence of another blog of mine. Realm of Mysteries

Along the journey there, I will keep on jotting few mysteries i, over the net, bump into. The stories may not be fully inclusive of all details as I have no intention to ‘wikipedia’ize the blog. Though they surely will provide required links for fully understanding them.

Let the journey begin …

I am breaking….

My experiment with "Yahoo!! Pipes"

RSS feeds has wildly captured my imagination recently, which was bound to happen thanks to my new born hobby of wwilfying. I started to spend my airtel broadband completely to subscribe and unsubscribe from various different feeds. Now that i feel i have quite an interesting collection of RSS feeds from various sources, i thought lets share the same. But the problem that raised its all time jumping head as to how i should do that. Sharing my feed XML was too kinky a process with another shortcoming of limited reach. So started my experiments on web …

In came Yahoo Pipes. Quite a nice way to ‘single’fy feeds from various different sources. A simple and intuitive user interface with various interesting options to merge/filter the feeds. This post is not to explain why and how i did this experiment with Yahoo pipes. But is to provide with two output feeds i created using it.

• Weird and Funny Posts
• Technology Information

Both the feeds do provide quite an interesting collection. Do give it a try. By the way enough of this infoblogging. Should quickly get into my ‘funonomics’ version of my blog.

Speechless……

Speechless …. Thats how today’s incident caught me. Really felt am i missing something? Am i really enjoying my life? Corporate world has indeed made me dry. Juiceless. Deprived of whatever fun element I had in my life. Saw the wetted earth today and there loomed the childhood days in front of me.

Those hours I spent sitting on a sofa employing my eyes out at rain beaten roads. “Chai-Bhajji” or “Pohe” that i relished. Slightest sound of a rain drop that made me run towards the porch. Spellbound eyes of mine that tried to gulp up a sight of lush green fields. An enchanting effect that even a midget breeze created. The restlessness that a sight of river or even a small stream gave me. The dew-laden grass plates that endorsed the mesmerizing capacity of the nature. “Aai” who always dabbed me forcefully in the sweater and monkey-cap. Soothing effect that the cooler-chilled room created after returning from burning heat. Glasses of Rasna i gobbled. Waits for the “Chachaji-Sabu-Raka” Combo. Exchanges of comics and greedily moving through the pages, just to make sure we read the most. Carrom Games, Cards, Cricket matches that we played, ignorant of screeching sun, blowing winter or pouring rains. Dirty clothes that i washed so as to keep “aai” unaware of mud-ridden football matches. And the list just goes on, endless. I never knew what really allured me so strongly. But I do was.

And today, here I am looking at the rain-hit porch from my AC cubical. Without a sofa, “Pohe”or “Chai Bhajji”. Drops kept pouring, waiting for me to run into the porch. Lush-green lawn’s spread out there, just to make me spellbound again. Gone are the rivers/streams and am in the middle of bulk of fountains. But these don’t make me restless. “Aai Daddy” are there, always at the other end of phone line. Mirinda can’t take the place rasna holds. Dan Brown or Sidney Sheldon can’t surrogate “Raj or Diamond”. “Batman-Superman” can easily be kneeled down by “Druv-Nagraj”. Gone are the games. Gone are the friends. Gone are the fun-filled days. Nature’s still out there. Calling me. Waiting to mesmerize me. With me completely oblivious.

Thanks a lot, corporate world. Thanks a lot!!!