Half Past Four is the Time :)

• Half filled Sudokus
• Half written stories
• Lost thoughts
• Half hearted Okays
• Half eaten chocolates

I used to hate them once upon a time. But life, as it happens to be the most tolerant teacher EVER, time and again, teaches me one of its most valuable lessons - this time to appreciate the beauty of incompletion, which has some scope to lead to perfection. (Exception - Chocolates of course! It's either all or nothing!) And that's a disclaimer. Who would want mere incompletion ? 

A world full of perfectionists,  theories and idealism would have been a great place to live in! However, familiarity would slowly breed the obvious - contempt. And again, the world would have sucked, as it does now. So what is the point? 

That's one part of it.  Starting from the scratch to build what you perceive to be a perfect world around you is a feat in itself. But to untangle the existing mess and build your perfect world takes a lot of virtues, most of which a Homo sapien can trade off with some other creature for good riddance. 

Take that half-filled Sudoku which turned out to be a sour-grape for instance. The visible incorrigible mess is too much to take. The invisible sour-grape mindset is even worse! Any whirlwind that you have been caught into, is as good as this half-filled Sudoku. Take it or not! Nothing can beat the pleasure of giving this world an evil, wicked grin once you sort out the debris yourself. After all, I cannot think of a more polite way to show the finger to whatever put you into the whirlwind for whatsoever reasons.

So the next time you see a half-filled Sudoku, smile.. For the evil grin is just a mile away :)

P.S. : I thought I can make a short story with some anonymous Superpower telling a tale to convey this (You know, the Paulo Coelho way). But then, Superpowers are not the only ones who are bestowed with the rights to convey messages. Are they ?

P.P.S. : 3 months of blogger's block and Whoosh!! Blogspot throws a different interface that *obviously* looks like WP packed into G+ ! Neat! Ha! Everything happens for a reason, as always :)


P.P.P.S : If the post looks incomplete, don't bother. It's still not time for me to let out an evil grin ;)

Opinions

There is something and few variants of it that people must know. It would make the world a much better place to live in.

1) A ==> B:
One's opinions are quite precious (atleast to oneself!) . So do not go about telling it to each and everyone unless it is absolutely necessary (which roughly translates to when you are really really asked for them).

2) !B ==> !A :
Keep giving your opinions over and over, and wait.. did I say valuable ?? Not anymore!

3) A==>B DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN B==>A : 
 Just because you were successful in keeping your opinions to yourselves doesn't mean it is precious or worth considering in the first place.

Simple logic is all it takes!!

*P*E*A*C*E****O*U*T*

The Grand Comeback :P

Ok fine! The Super star is back.(2.0 as many of his ardent fans claim) Rana shooting will resume in a few days. And all of us will eventually go to any extents to get the first day first show tickets to watch this man perform his magic again . Hypes! Hooplas!! Hypes! Hooplas! Everywhere...  But then..

Before that... Wait! Did I say man? I know I will rot in hell for making such a statement :P Isn't he a phenomenon? Oh! Yes! That he is! If anything, phenomenon would be an understatement. What else can you call someone who has a gamut (in every sense of the word) of people following, adoring, worshiping (and what-not-ing) him ? On one side, there are bomb blasts that question the very building stone of the nation. And down south, there are people who rejoice the comeback of an old man because he fought sickness. Does phenomenon now sound like an understatement ? It better do.

We have all had friends and family who at one point or the other had been sick, whom we care for. Hasn't this man got much more attention than all our kith and kin put together ? The debate is not about whether he deserves so much attention.

Like the existing madness was not enough, the media, as shrewd as it can get, grasps the fact that a vast number of them are spellbound by one man's cast. And whoa!! Here is some news that can increase their TRP ratings by leaps and bounds. One trifle news! Spread the joy and let more people be happy! May the madness spread around.

As much as I am amazed by how one man's recovery (Again man?? What's with me :( ???? ) can bring enormous joy to quite a large number of people, I am pissed off by their stupidity too. No seriously! How many of them were jobless enough ( count the reporters and the black cats out ;) ) to go pay a visit to the airport just to get a glimpse of him ? (Check this page to get an idea) Various temples were flooded with some special prayers for this man. Social Networking is safely out of question. And take a look at the poster below. It is bloody self-explanatory

Phew!! I wish that each and everyone of them realize that the very fact that he is a superstar, does not make him immortal.

I have nothing against Thalaivar. Given that I am also one of his first-day-first-show types fans, it would be sham to claim the opposite. It is just that I fail to see a point when his fans exaggerate his stardom to levels beyond imagination. If at all 'Thalaivar' is that great person, whom we all perceive him to be, he would not see a point either :) *P*E*A*C*E* 

I Don't Know! Somebody Enlighten Me!

Everyone wants a time machine at some point of time in their life. No wonder, LP and CP have a HUGE (that's real huge) fan following. If you did not get the connection, chuck it. The post is not about them anyway!And why would most of them want a time-machine? Oh! Wait! I forgot! To rectify the mistakes of the past, Undo the done, choose what was not chosen, NOT choose what was. Blah! Blah! Blah!

Well! Most of these people want to be somewhere out there in the SIXTH dimension. Elsewhere, doing something else ! Making a wish eh ? Nice! It better be a sensible one(Disclaimer : It was 2011 when I wrote this post :P )  Oh no no! Fantasies are good dear Cinderella Men and Cinderella Women (Uhmm! Why doesn't that sound wierd to me?) . But not always! Seriously  if I get a time machine, I wouldn't waste my time in undoing, undoing , undoing things till a point where my life crashes and flashes a blue-screen. Of course life is as screwed as Windows.Wasn't it obvious? 

Which puts forth another question - Why exactly would we want to rectify mistakes ? There can be infinite answers to that question. They all boil down to one thing luckily. To have some control on our lives, universe and a few other things AND consequently be happy. 

Now the first part - Why would we want to exercise control over everything? What's with this never-ending thirst for power doing in this goal-driven culture? Everyone has power! So I want one too. Isn't it as simple a kid wanting a toy because others have it ? But yea, what we want is a wee bit complicated. Control is an illusion in itself. What looks like being under control might actually sound stupid to the one next to you. Sample this : As a part of exercising this illusion, you keep doing something. One out of the 10 others who see you doing this would definitely sit back, relax and give you a look - a look, that is synonymous with 'I know what you are doing and I know what the consequences will be. But go ahead! Do it yourself and get to know it' on a normal (non-power-thirsty)  bright Saturday.  Now guess who has the control :P ? Even if no Homo sapien (Duh! For the 99th time Spell Checker, it is not Homo Sapien, it is Homo sapien. Seriously, do you even know taxonomy?) does it, there is another illusion that casts that look on your thirst to an illusion. You know what I mean ;) !  Now again, guess who has the control :P ?

It is, indeed, easier said than done. To resist ourselves from wanting more control, more power and hence some amount of orderliness. What we fail to see is the Superpower's way of killing time. (S)He sees to it that your craving for orderliness, ultimately leads everyone (or a majority) to the exact opposite - chaos. That would never strike us when we are craving for control. Would it? And even if it does, one would never want to admit it or even consider it. Would one? A loud no, plainly because, when you have power, when you have things under control, it gives you some sort of pleasure - a fiendish one if I might add. It's a mind-thing.Why so? Well! Read the title of this post ;)

Letting go!! Going with the wind!!As much as these phrases have a loser touch in them, they are words to live by. Their only shortcoming being, you will never get to know the chaos that you had caused had you disturbed the equilibrium that the universe is already progressing towards. And yes. That would include the havoc that you might have caused by throwing away a pencil with full-fledged anger. Leave alone the butterfly effect. One negative action (heart-ruled people, read emotion) has the power to devastate all the nice little things built by 1000 positive ones. You would never know. Unless someone from a clandestine organisation makes a brilliant invention to perceive the sixth dimension without any difficulty and Dan Brown starts making money out of it :P  But trust me, You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. (Or probably, trust Max Ehrmann, for those lines are his)

With all its sham drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Live on. Or rather, be a free spirit. That's the only way to die when you are alive.

 Cheers

Sindhu

A Day without Spectacles! I won't Call it a Day

Ok! Those of you who have seen me in person, might have also noticed that I was never to be seen without my spectacles.(Exception - when there is something steaming hot and if the heat is 'attacking' my specs!). Others - Now you know :)  With that forenote, here goes something that I was musing over, over a power failure. Aaahhh... The magic that the absence of Internet and music can do ! For one, it did help a Bangalore-living, excitement-lacking, yet cheerful software engineer (there is a whole lot of them out here )  put on her writing hat AGAIN!

During one of those early days of December, one of my friends asked, "Can you manage without your spectacles?" Positive thinking got the better of my reasoning prowess and I said, "Yea. I can manage to see anything within 5-10 feet without my spectacles." Outright BAD assumption! Here is the fact. I don't know. I have never tried. Until one fine day, I came close to hitting myself on the back of my head and all that was damaged was my spectacles. Quite honestly, I did not realize the worth of my Black Metallica half rimmed specs till then. I wanted a replacement of lens, which would take 24 hours.

Ok. 24 hours without specs. (Conveniently, I had left the spare lens back home).  And this is how it went.

It all started at roughly 8 00 P.M. on a Thursday evening.

Hour 1: Tomorrow fully?? I think I can manage.But without a lappie? It's ok. Well! No books too. Ohhh kayyy.. I can still listen to music, talk to my friends or do something like that. It's ok! I think I can manage. Uhm!! Tomorrow is a Friday?? Not a Saturday!?!??!?! Hmph! Err... Office??  How long can I survive staring at the lappie? Lemme try at home.

Hour 2 : Disaster is not the word,even with all the exercises that Auroville taught me. And all these days, I thought I was devoid of tear glands. Where did that bunch of rolling tear like droplets come from? Damn! Was I this hopeless without my specs? I wish I had known this earlier. Can I avoid being in my workplace tomorrow? If so, I can still survive at office. Not possible! I wasn't sure how exactly I could keep myself occupied for a calculated 6-8 hours at office AWAY from my lappie. Fine.. Finish off the next day's work now and then BUNK!! Connect from home :D

Hour 3 : What do I do after bunking office in this booth-bungalow (Yes! My room looks like one!) ? (Read Hour 1 again ;) )

Hour 4 : Take a full look at the room. I can figure out the chair from it's outline. That switchboard at the far corner has 3 switches right? Why does it look like two to me? I was able to figure out that this was four and that this was two and this of course was one (To me all the fingers looked alike :D) from a pretty decent distance. Ok! That's it ! I have had enough for the day. I am retiring to bed.

Hours 5- 11 : Easily spent. Slumberville.

Hours 11-12: A day without specs well started :D Well begun, as they say, is half done. And yes, it was half  done. Breakfast and music kept me going.

Hour 12-13 :  This was the danger period. May be, I should go to office! Connecting from home doesn't sound like a great idea given the slow Wi-Fi connection here. I still have time to get ready too. The switchboard caught my eye again. Ok! May be it is a bad idea. Office lappie was staring at me now.  How difficult can it be after all? May be I should. It was Friday. And you spent one entire hour without specs yesternight to finish off things. So, chuck the idea of going to office, JUST for today. FINE!!!! Lemme just not think about it.

Hour 14 :  Drench yourself with some hot water followed by some good meeshic. Shaniyan pudicha playlisht. All you get is a situation song , in ways too many.

I wonder how, I wonder why

Yesterday you told me about the blue blue skies.

And all that I can see 

Is just a yellow lemon tree.

Hour 15 : Walk! Given that the road was empty and  that Bangalore could never get as hot as Chennai could, hopping around to get some fresh air sounded like a pretty decent option. Never have I appreciated the beauty of my neighborhood (Ok! I went a bit far! But any spot in Blore is still a neighborhood on some relative scale.. Hehe) with my proper FOUR eyes. And now, with just the two of the real ones, it was slightly difficult. I made a note of few places that I must get to see properly (You know what I mean).

Hour 16 : Ok.. Surviving 14 hours without lappie in itself is an achievement in itself for a netizen. So I decided to pat myself on my back by hunting to see what's going on in the office and the world. Uhmmm.. .All it took was a few minutes to figure out that it was a bad idea. My eyes were craving for my spectacles again. Squint! Does it work?? Not really! Rubbing my eyes. No! 

Hour 17 : You know what I had figured out by now? When you are deprived of your routine AND your passions, you resort to do something real crazy and lemme tell you - It helps. By my standards, staying calm was something real crazy :D :D Well! So was closing my eyes and scribbling; something in that day's newspaper which turned out to be some spaghetti language and learning French via your smartphone.

Hour 18 : That's it. I am getting my specs back. I don't care even if it means a jobless wait for two hours there.

Hour 19 : That's it. I am getting my specs back. I don't care even if it means a jobless wait for an hour there.

Hour 20 : Words cannot express the 'beam' that my face was wearing when I got my spectacles back! No seriously. Very rarely do we realize the value of trivial things around us. A spare lens would have definitely put me in my routine and i could have just had a pretty normal day. But time and again, everything happens for a reason. If we cannot find one, we might very well fathom one, which I think I just did :)

It's an Adam AND Eve's World

Well. First things first, the concept of a special day for women, actually bugs me, for the past few years. No seriously! Have you ever observed that people who are totally clueless usually talk like they know everything ? (Obviously enough, to cover up their being clueless). Now don't jump into conclusions. People who know everything also talk like they know everything ;) But back to the point, I think the way we celebrate Women's day off late is synonymous with this observation.

It is really cool that all the women and a few men (that's quite a good number of them) indeed realize how much yester-century's women have toiled to grab a fair chance in everything -  right from a trivial freedom to vote to holding positions that require strong will power (That's where the umpteen list starts :) ) And bows to all the strong women who actually made this change possible.

But with the attitudinal shift that has brought about a really significant 'leap' in a woman's emancipation, I guess most of us tend to agree to the fact that a woman can indeed be treated a man's equal (Whether they are actually treated that way, is a question that does not have a clear Yes or No.Not yet at least )

So, with the dawn of 2000, Women's day has become more of a day to celebrate our victories in gaining a louder say in the society, as opposed to being a reminder of our 'escape' from  a male-dominated planet, as it once was. But are we doing that right? Aren't we, by proclaiming out loud that we are no more the weaker sex, reminding others that we had once been and also send a notion that we are capable of being one again ;) ? (which is exactly the part that bugs me)

What does every self-proclaimed feminist want from the society, in particular, from the stronger sex? To be treated equally(That expectation in turn sounds kind of weird to me. Why are women even craving for acceptance from everyone around?)And how on earth do they expect to be treated equally when they call a day for themselves and do nothing significant on that day? . And no!! Getting chocolates and fluffy soft toys don't sound really significant to me.

 Let's take a second and look at it from a guy's perspective too. Today, a guy is getting used to the fact (Did he really welcome the change? Let's not go there ;) ),  that a woman could actually compete with him in anything and even worse, she could prove to be a real tough competition or a better companion -- a fact that might have scared his father. Given that his has been the only race that has been influential in 'most things societal' , since the days of Adam, it must be a real difficult task for him to share that space with someone he had perceived to be weak. And blaming him for something that is heavily influenced by his genes is just lame. Womenfolk, can at the least see to it that they ensure that Adam's great grandsons are actually comfortable sharing that space. And dear Eve's descendant --> chocolates, balloons, toys and flowers, no matter how cute they are, send a wrong notion to  women themselves. We seem to conveniently forget something - we have just gained some space in the society. We have to go a long way in retaining it, since deep down, everyone knows that we deserve it. And again, we have just gained some space. It is not even equal space. There are still a bunch of people out there who raise their eyebrows when a woman talks sports, or at times, when they do something that requires common sense (Am not sure which idiot comfortably named talking sense, a guy's thing!!). And it will be a 365 day ordeal to constantly prove ourselves. One March 8, per year will simply not do the magic. And attaching too much importance to treating a woman special, implies that we might simply be the weaker sex that everyone claims us to be. 

• Which means all those reservations in local trains and the parliament for women,as a starter, must not be there in the first place. (Like my cuz stated on her take on 'eve-ism' here, I am not talking about kickboxing  or arm-wrestling either ;) )
• which - in turn - means those eyebrow raising rate must be reduced to, well, zero.
• which in turn means male chauvinism, sexual discrimination and dinosaurs get to share something in common tomorrow - being extinct :)

Hmmm!! Maybe it is hightime women took exchanging women's day wishes to the next step. Like I said, all that is left is to see to it that tomorrow's youth can actually realize that being equals to one another (who knows, there might be more than 2 genders in the years to come ;) ) is no big deal at all --- a fact that scares their fathers and mothers and others. 

-Sindhu

When Was the Last Time You...

1. Slept with your spectacles on?
2. Wrote things in a plain white paper with a real pen? (Since I said plain white, application forms do not count)
3. Had a hearty laugh?
4. Cried out loud?
5. Talked to your best friend in person?
6. Got to realize that someone indeed remembers your birthday (the non-social-networking-way, needless to say)?
7. Experienced déjà vu?
8. Experienced goosebumps?
9. Felt hopeless?
10. Were beaming in pride?
11. Got an adrenaline rush?
12. Gave a genuine smile to a companion?
13. Had a sip of hot tea sitting at the end of an open terrace?
14. Climbed a tree?
15. Lucid-dreamt?
16. Survived a full day without cellphone and its apparent benefits?
17. Were just yourself?
18. Solved a problem in Math?
19. Crossed the rails while the train was at your vicinity? (and fast approaching you )
20. Had pani-puri?
21. Had a near-death experience?
22. Held your dad's hand tightly while walking in a crowd?
23. Were on a roller-coaster?
24. Bathroom-sang?
25. Enjoyed a power-cut, the darkness and the little candle flame?
26. Watched a friend suffer and felt like a cripple for not being able to help?
27. Danced while no one was watching?
28. Appreciated the beauty of a safety pin (or anything less trivial or insignificant)?
29. Made a wish?
30. Felt a "Phew!! Finally!!" moment?
31. Helped a stranger?
32. Opposed something that everyone else agreed to?
33. Were appreciated by someone whom you respect/value a lot?
34. Clapped your hands (like a kid)?
35. Felt embarrassed?
36. Were happy for a decision that you made?  

The point of this post --> Most (if not all) of these do not happen frequently in our lives and given the could-have-been-better-lives that most of us are living, it doesn't hurt to look back once in a while to see that life has indeed been fair to us in a way which we cannot comprehend.

That's the point and I've made it (Aahhhh!! The bliss of talking to the point and hence keeping up a new year resolution. Oh! That reminds me of 2 more things!!)

     37.  Kept up a resolution for quite a while? (Usually it is supposed to be a year long! Or wait.. Is it?)
     38.  Broke a resolution and smiled to yourself for doing the same ;) ?