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.

by Amit Gawande Tags: blank, dreams, random, thoughts | Posted in instant thoughts, non-normal, repost, sensible

Thoughts on movie making (and reviewing)

Just finished watching “The Negotiator”. A tense drama between two negotiators that was . Well at least for three-fourth of the movie. After which I think the director fell prey for the behaviour which I am seeing a lot recently. However I have no intention here to post a review about the movie.

  

Actually these days I have lost belief that reviews actually hold any credibility. Not just do I find them monetarily inspired, but they are also dependent on many external factors. This makes it practically impossible for two viewers to watch a movie with same frame of mind and same expectations.

Well not to forget the reviews themselves rig their own viewpoint on the moviegoers. So a Taran Adarsh might make each Yash Raj Film an extreme must watch while Masand makes the same one the extreme bore of all time. Two thumps down he would scream. However what the movie ends up being is not any of those.

Not just is this case true for the actual critics whose bread and butter is film reviewing. Even friends that unwelcomely review a movie for me, make it difficult for me to watch any. One likes any movie he watches, another says “ah Bollywood sucks”.

So hardly is it possible for me to decide which movie to watch based on anyone’s comments. Ironically the most of the movies that I have loved recently are the ones where I had no clue about their plot or performances. So no reviews for me I say.

Anyway back to the pit that most of the directors fall in. I call it the “lets-make-it-goody-goody” pit. See when you have made a strong impression on audience by throwing at them what they least expected, you don’t take an unwanted faltu turn saying “Hehe buddy, there I fooled you.”

One most cliche scene I would like to mention. In a movie with 2 heroes, one kills other at the most unthinkable stage. Only is it revealed momentarily after that both were together in this and no one’s killed. That was part of the bigger plan. Villain is caught and yippie, everything is goody-goody.

Well, screw you Mr. Goody G. Goody. You could have made the movie hell lot better by killing that god damn hero, and making this gaddar friend fly away with villain and all the money. Why is there a mental block to show “achhe ki jeet aur bure ki haar” (good wins bad leans)? Well not that this is how the real world behaves, is it?

Anyway even extreme wonderful movies like The Departed could not dodge this pit. Only thing I can say is it takes guts to end movie with not so “goody-goody” a situation. I remember one movie which managed to do that. The Mist. I still fell saddened when I remember the ending there. Hats off to you Mr. Frank Darabont the director. You had managed to give a most unthinkable horror an horror movie can give its audience. Extreme unthinkable.

Image Credit: darpantheatregroup

by Amit Gawande Tags: film making, movie, review | Posted in instant thoughts, judgement, sensible

The useless “S” word!!!

As i was tottering along the floor today, i reached the door of the washroom whose door, thanks to the awesomely random designs, opens inside. So a person standing in the washroom is bound to get a hit for just boasting to his mirror self on how handsome he really is. Anyway so today as i reached the door, a person came out and we just had a eye to eye contact. There was no collision nor even a touch involved. But the first thing i spoke was “Oh, I am sorry”. I was like dude, this is too much. Why do i have to blabber out this senseless “S” word first thing, irrespective of what the situation is?

Few worse situations do come in my mind. I have never been in the “outside washroom door opener” category. I always get hit. Now even if i do get hit, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “Am sorry”. I always think why do i have to be so passive when it is me who is hurt. However it is not like i always am passive about the things when i speak the “S” word. Even are the situation when i go sorry with a tone of “you ba**ard“. May be i have developed a way to swear by not really swearing. You know that cute little silence maintained when someone is boasting about himself, just to convey “go to hell. am least interested.” I guess this is something on similar lines.

Moreover its not just about the “S” word. He has got an equally senseless stepbrother which goes something like “Thank you”, the “T” word. Now this too is used in a similar context free manner. I remember a time when i thanked a guy who actually was helped out by me from a critical situation.

These situation make me think, is there really any use of the words like sorry and thank you when they are used so freely without really giving a second thought on why am sorry about or what am thanking about. Leave aside the crap that it helps in conveying some feelings. Com’on, there are better ways to communicate the same feelings. After all words are not everything. An expression like below can surely make anyone forgive others. Silence is golden as they say. Rather i feel silence, bundled with perfect expression, speaks a thousand words!

by Amit Gawande Tags: english, silence, sorry, thank you, usage | Posted in instant thoughts, sensible

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.

by Amit Gawande Tags: driving, experience, hindi, india, life, story, truck | Posted in non-normal, real-life, sensible

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.

by Amit Gawande Tags: ambition, definition, lost | Posted in life, non-normal, sensible

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.

by Amit Gawande Tags: before sunrise, life, love, movie | Posted in non-normal, sensible, sudden words

Switching lives…

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.

by Amit Gawande Tags: confused, dream, portkey, puzzled, weird | Posted in instant thoughts, real-life, sensible, weird

I am superstitious

What follows is just a prologue. If you want to directly hit my thoughts on me being superstitious, surf to the last line

A guy named B.F.Skinner once carried out an experiment on pigeons to demonstrate the formation of superstition. He placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon “at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird’s behavior.” His discovery in his own words:

The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one’s fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one’s luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing — or, more strictly speaking, did something else.

More on this and its connection with me and my being superstitious here.

by Amit Gawande Tags: first look, superstition | Posted in sensible, sudden words

Superstitious and Me??? ..Nah…

Yep that’s the way it is whenever you ask that renowned question to even slenderly educated guy. There is this eerie feeling in being superstitious. But i feel knowingly or unknowingly, we do follow superstition. Ok, lemme not talk about the universe for whole. Taaadaaa … I, myself, do follow superstition. Or lemme say i am the most superstitious guy among the people i know. No better proof than my following acts …

1. I maintain my position for the whole match whenever india is winning a cricket match. Or whenever something, out of my control, is happeing in accordance with my wish.
2. I try and change whatever i can when something is not betiding as i wish, to find out that right position to maintain (refer 1)
3. As far as possible, i try and avoid … Uhhh … the path crossed by a cat. I know thats really foolish of me. But that is just to keep my mind away from any unwanted superstitious thought, if something bychance goes wrong.
4. I have my own “tasks-not-to-do-now” list which i, by all possible means, avoid to carry out.

Ok, i will stop this whole self-bashing ceremony now. I know there would be pretty more. Will add them whenever am frustrated with myself. Anyways, I feel most of my superstitious acts are more of an attempt to prevent my mind from wandering in the dusty desert of superstition. You see if something does go wrong if i didn’t do __, at the back of my mind it keeps tinkering me, further adding to my superstitious feeling. That’s superstition to prevent increasing superstition.

But i know whatever i say, i need to stop doing this. I need to stop falling to superstition just for the sake of not falling for the greater ones. I know .. I am working on that … Have already overcome few of mine. Blog on them soon …

By the way, i did find an interesting article. A guy named B.F.Skinner carried out an experiment on pigeons to demonstrate the formation of superstition. He placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon “at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird’s behavior.” His discovery in his own words:

The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one’s fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one’s luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing — or, more strictly speaking, did something else.

So i guess i now know how it all started for me. I was ruined socially. Heres all my energy to end that …

by Amit Gawande Tags: acts, reason, superstition | Posted in acts, sensible

Vande Mataram..

Wishing all Indians, including myself, a Very Happy 62nd Independence Day. Been a great start, let me revisit the most prestigious moment for an Indian.

Its really an amazing feeling watching Indian flag raised above others. Kudos to the Golden Boy, Abhinav.

Update: I dunno for some obscure reason, i see most of these videos are pulled out from youtube, for some copyright infringement i guess. You can watch the video here.Thanks Shrirang for bringing this to my notice.

by Amit Gawande Tags: independence, india | Posted in sensible, sudden words