Day 17 : Mr. Mopey Vs Mr. Cheery

Things have a way of coming around to to bite you in the butt sometimes.

I remember this one guy from work that had a serious inferiority complex with respect to another co-worker. Both came from the same town, same university, both even looked the same - short and stout, similar family background, drawing similar paycheck each month, working on same technology. The only difference one was a really cheery happy-go-lucky guy and everyone's fav guy. The other was sullen and silent, that guy in every group picture who's too shy/pompous to smile for the camera. You can never make up your mind whether you like him or not.

The sullen guy, we'll call Mopey, puts in extra hours at work does all the tasks on time, even earlier than most. Rarely gets up from his seat even for tea breaks, when he does he always goes alone. 

The smiley guy, we'll call Cheery, rarely stayed overtime, went for tea breaks and lunch like clockwork with a big group of colleagues, and still gets his work done by the end of the day. 

The only difference here was when people here knew who Cheery was; they just tend to think Mopey was part the office furniture.

Mopey didn't like it one bit. He tries, by God does he try. But I guess its just the way some people are and there is just no changing what’s in their nature no matter how much they themselves want to. He tries to speak with co-workers, opening up to people about him selves, trying to listen what they did over the weekend or when they crib about how the client is over-working them or how their wives are being a big nag-machine of late.

But he soon gets tired of all the talk. His mind drifts off to someplace else, and starts taking glances at his mobile screen checking out the time and everyone knows he is not listening to single word what they are saying.

That's where Cheery really trumps, he listens. He knows everyone's story. He knows whose relationship sucks, he knows who is dating who at work, and he even knows if someone likes books or shoes better as a birthday gift.

As a little getting back for being so awesome, Mopey pulled a nasty trick on Cheery last week. He overheard someone speaking to Cheery in the cafeteria, sitting on the next table to him while he was on his lonesome as usual. He came to know of some little secret about this someone, who was only comfortable sharing it with Cheery here. Mopey spread the little tidbit around office. He was real sly about it as well, proud of his own genius.

Well it worked it seemed. This someone and Cheery had big falling out, everyone started to wonder if Cheery could really keep a secret. Cheery started to lose his shine.

Mopey forgot one little detail. He doesn't talk to people much. When he does, the other guy remembers the conversation pretty well. And everyone was much better friends with Cheery than to him. The story un-puzzled itself before the work-week as up. Everyone now knew how Mopey was the real culprit. And now everyone is farther away from Mopey, and closer with Cheery as ever. All was right again in the universe.

Lesson to be learnt - before entering a game you don't know the rules to, ensure that at least you have you butt covered in case of a backfire.

Today, was conspiratorially enlightening.

Day 16 : Under Pressure

I know a lot many of us sometimes spend an obscene amount of time on self-contemplation and self-doubt. Half of the time when we go down this road we end up being more disheartened than we started with. Who wants to live forever in that maze of messed up psyche.

I suppose that should hold true for all of Bohemians. After all the things that we think of most is not of what we had done, but what we had not done. We put ourselves down so bad that we are incapable of thinking ourselves are able bodies to do anything. So we go in following the herd doing things halfheartedly and with the same mimic mentality that original herd-beings live by.

We are not cattle. We are the champions. We are not meant to just follow the lead. If it were so, I don't think would've ever found civilization to begin with. I think all our actions must define our personality. If something that we do feels out of character to us, it is probably because it really is and we'd be better by just getting rid of it. The best way to do that is by following one simple rule.

"Nothing you do matter, if you are not doing it for the right reasons!"

I know we do a bunch of things in our daily lives to keep the people in our lives happy. And to keep free from controversy and unwanted hassle. But do you think that actually helps anything? You'll never actually put yourself into it. You'll suck at it. You'll feel miserable about it. The person you're doing it for, gets a half-baked effort from you and is disappointed at you. You feel all the more miserable it. So in the end, what you get is your equation with someone is now much worse than what it was when you begin with. In the end everyone bites the dust going this road.

Don't get me wrong. Everything in life, everything, is about people. The 'somebody' you love. The people you like. The people you hate. The people you are jealous of. The people you think you are superior to. The people you look up to. The people whom you'd like to protect. The people who you'd like to strangle. Life is all about the people in it. And every aspect of your life revolves around what you do for and with these people.

In the end what really matters is, you yourself. You have to have the heart in the right place. You need to have to be able to do things, say things, feel things just the way you want to and at the pace you'd like to. Don't ever let anyone pressure you into something you're not ever comfortable with. Be free.

Today, I want to break free.

(Yes, today’s post is filled with a lot of Queen references!)

Day 15 : War of the Words

I've been watching old episodes of Scrubs of late. It's really funny, in a lame dorky sort of way. But I like it.

And the JD inner-monologue thing is totally relatable. I think we all do that. Maybe it is just me; I hope that did make it seem like me saying I hear voices inside my head. I do not. Most of the time.

Anyhow. I sometimes have this inner monologue with myself, most of these happen when I am especially pissed off at somebody or did some extremely embarrassing. I play it around inside my head, cursing myself over it, or thinking up of smart things I could've said to bring in a strong comeback line.

Alas, always after the moment has been passed. Funny, how none of these wit and spunk actually was around when I was in between the argument itself. So many wars would've been tilted to your truly's favor.

We all seem so smart and intelligent inside our heads, with all of our personality and charm at its best. I wonder if it gets lost in its way from our brain to our mouth. I think there must to be some sort of directions/sign-posts all along the way, which out our wit just conveniently ignores and we end up paying the price by embarrassing ourselves.

I remember at least half a dozen incidents since my wee-lad age where I stood there stumped and looking like a buffoon. Only a couple of minutes after the moment had passed finally figuring out the one-liner that would have been the perfect come back.

Well today was one of those days when I actually did that. Even the liners that I cooked up inside my head after the squabble did not come close to the scar that my original one hit home with my opponent. And yes, no matter what you may think of it, I am proud of that. This sort of success doesn't come daily to Mr. Nice Guy.

Today, was fun.

Day 14 : The Paper Presentation

I knew this girl when I was in Chennai. She worked in her parent’s tea shop near the neighborhood where I stayed. It was during the first weeks of my moving there so this establishment was the only one familiar to us and we used to frequent it each night post dinner - me for hot cup of masala tea, others to puff their post-supper cancer-sticks.

The store was run by a Telugu family. I hadn't heard the language a lot before coming to Chennai so had to use a mix of Tamil and body language to get them to understand what we wanted, they didn't speak much of Tamil either. But since this had become more of a routine for me, and I had ended up becoming their regular customer and was was beginning to get a hang of their language and these people itself.

The girl I mentioned earlier was in her early teens, fifteen I'd guess. But she looked and behaved like someone who was much older. She had the grace and confidence of someone who knew exactly what's on her mind and how to express it. And was never embarrassed that she didn't know the language she was trying to communicate it. I thought accomplishing all that was a big feat, as most of the southies I meant in my time here were really shy when it came to communicating. She was in some distance professional education I don't remember which. And by the looks of it, she was pretty serious about it.

One night out of the blue, her father came up to me while having tea. He looked like he wanted to speak to me, but was unsure of how. So he simply handed over a pamphlet to me he was carrying for me. There was "Paper Presentation" written in bold italics at the top. It was an advert for an inter-collegiate technical paper presentation competition in a local Chennai university. Apparently he thought his daughter wished to enroll in it. So I took it from him and went over to his daughter who as usual was seated at the cash counter.

She took once glance at pamphlet, and the look on her face said clearly how sad the sight of it made her. "I no go, no money for printout", her reply was barely a mumble.

Then I somehow asked her about the topic that she was thinking of presenting. It was about some sort of cleansing process that reprocesses domestic household waste water for agricultural use. She had already prepared clippings from her textbooks and some Xerox pages from library books. It was almost all done really, just needed to get it all put together on a document. It was a Friday anyway and it was only a little past 8 at night and I didn't have anything else going for me. So I thought, what the hell. Let's do this.

I got her to carry her pen-drive and materials to a nearby internet cafe. I asked her to sit with me and recite the whole paper. Within a couple of hours the whole thing was done. It was not more than 25 pages really. Not too much of a worry.

I got it printed, spiral-bound and gave it to her and sent her on her way saying I had some of my stuff to do online. A few minutes after she had left, I got up and went over to the counter, the guy just asked for Rs.213, which is less than what I'd spend on a McChicken burger. But somehow this felt a lot more satisfying.

She didn't win the presentation, yes. But she'd win one on her third try, which was just a couple of month later. She learnt fast.

Today, I added her on Facebook. We chatted for a little while. She has completed her course and is now working in a university in south Tamil Nadu as a research lab assistant. Her English has gotten much better. She even used a word that was new to me - abeyance. Normally that would make me kick myself. But today I sort of felt pretty proud of her. Good going, kid!

Day 13 : Why Don't You Drink Alcohol?

One more person to ask me this question, I am seriously going to start contemplating bloody murder. Freddy Kruger style.

Come on! The fact that I do not drink alcohol is not going to mean the end of the world now, is it? I don't drink and that’s that, it shouldn’t be a cause to make so much of a fuss around. Every single party I go, this question is posed to me at least half a dozen times. And at least one of these bozos would make a glass for me and try to get me to drink holding it inches from my face with the stench of it all the more nauseating for me. Not helping guys.

Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against the liquid or any of its devotees. For Pete’s sake, almost all of best mates are alcoholics to some level now. And if had any hatred towards their kind, I will be without hope of friendship anywhere. People drink in parties. People throw a party to drink. And these days, everyone drinks. So parties are just a reason for people to drink together.

And at every such party there is someone to whom me not drinking is like the biggest mysteries on this planet since JFK. I don't drink just because I don't feel like it.

Whenever I ask any one you guys why you drink, the answer ya'll give is because drinking is fun. Well here I am, having fun and not drinking. You don't see me slicing my wrist or something now do you? I mean, why else should you think I am not having a good time? Actually in some cases, I am having even a better time than half the drunks that I see in the parties. The sad mopes. The heartbreaks. The inferiority complex group. My father didn't love me group. I mean come on! Do you really think those guys are drinking because it is fun for them?!

And at any case, any person who hasn't spent time in a booze party without drinking, maybe the pregger women, will attest this. It is way too much fun to witness the sheer stupidity of you drunks when ya'll really lose it. I knew a guy who used to sing in a woman's voice when he was high. Another one who used to abuse his spouse and supervisor, with a very language so creative that it would make even George Carlin proud. There is this other guy, to put it mildly, who’s chubbier than any guy you know, he would do a mean break-dance right there no-matter-where if you put on  the "Lungi Dance" for him.

I've had been to a lot of great parties. And I have not been drunk in any of them. So I think it is safe to say I am going to survive just fine in the near future as well.

Guys, I am way too loud. Overtly frank. With no filter between mind and mouth. Way too imaginative with way too many innuendos for any given situation. Way too physical. Way too big. Imagine adding alcohol to that equation. I don't think it would be a pretty sight, not judging by the many nasty things that I've seen you drunks do around me.

Today, I think I will just be happy with another orange juice. Thank you.

Day 12 : Workaholic

I am not sure if you, who are reading this, are already in my daily good-morning mailer list or not. If you are you might've already seen the above picture in my today's mail, and if not I'd really like it if you’d send me you personal id so that I can add you to my list! :)

Anyhoo. The reason that this picture got to be here is that A: I was feeling too lazy today to think up something interesting to write about; B: Damn, this one does feel so true!

Every person I see these days, no matter what sort of job they are doing are workaholics or are slowly and surely on their path to become one. Everyone is in a hurry be the big dog of the park that we all are too invested in our professional lives than the life that we have outside of it.

Our personal life takes a drastic hit. I mean just look at it. The image does say 8 hours. But I don't remember the last day I've comfortably worked just that much hours. I don't think many people in Indian IT market have. There's is always more work to be completed and not enough work hours in the day to do them. So we take the work home, with friends, with family and everywhere else that we are supposed to be with anything but timelines and deliverables running through your head!

And all for what? For some promotions to a position in which you will have more responsibilities to shoulder and longer hours to put in. The work is not going to get any lesser, and you're not going to get any younger. Sure you will work your butt off each day, put in all of your skills and brains into what you are doing. And why shouldn't you. Most people like to be good at what they are doing. But the things that you are going to able to do now, when you are twenty-something, will not be available for you when you are a thirty-something with that couple of promotions under your belt and a family of yourself to feed.

What you can do now. You can only do now.

Today, I would like to do at least one of them.

Day 11 : Creatures Of Routine

There is this song I heard recently. I am not sure who shared it, or from where I got it. Do beware it is not all that great a song to write home about (or a blog about). A couple of lines from it did stick with me though.

Judge them not by their beliefs,

The creatures of routine are lost without their guide;

Be aware that underneath,

Lies a longing left forgotten under fear and pride.

Today I had a sudden urge to Google it up, hated most of the band pictures. Never liked punk. But still I liked the first verse of the song. Sounds pretty accurate don’t it.

We are all creatures of routine. We are all guided by the comfort that we feel in following the same stride we've had for ages now. We don’t really plan on changing anything anytime soon. Because we like the way things are now, it is good because it is familiar. Some things we are really not very happy about in our lives stay with us because we are afraid to break the chain of familiarity. If we decide to get rid of this thing, we will have to face with the burden of choice again.

And no one likes to be the one who takes the wrong choices.

The ways our lives are led are really ours to mould. We are the creators of our destiny; yes I read that in some newspaper commercial. But that doesn't make it any less true. We have the choice to build a wonderful life for ourselves and the only think stopping us is ourselves.

I don't imagine it is going to be any easy for anybody to just go up and rid their lives of everything wrong in it that has stayed on just because we are used to it. A vice that has become a daily habit is much tougher to get out of than some acquired as a passing phase. Ask the guys at the rehab centers if you don't agree.

We are all creatures of routine. Afraid of our own shadows just because it shows us just what we are. We are shapeless pointless things in the immense width of creation around us. Just a speck of dust in the grand scale of things. A shadow cannot decide what shape it would take. The way a light falls or the distance and many a bunch of other stuff decide things for it. Just as us.

We are all creatures with very less choice of what we get in life. The best we can hope to do is to build something worthwhile with what we have. That is really not going to happen if we are stuck in loop like a tape recorder, doing the same things again and again; and playing to the same music again and again.

Today, I would like to add some jazz and folk and Spanish guitar to my playlist.

Today, I would like to try something new.

Day 10 : Be Patient

It is quite interesting to see the lengths to which we go to salvage a situation. You know at the core of your being that it is not going to work out. The time for any rescue is way past. There is no way in Dante's hell there is going to be happy ending to this story. But all the while, knowing all that, you still try every trick you can think of to sort it all out.

Most often than not, it doesn't.

You go ahead give it your best shot anyway, but then realize that your best is just not good enough anymore. Things that used to come so easily to you in the past are just not working anymore. The spark is gone; you've lost your mojo. Well maybe you did not lose it. Maybe it's time has passed. Everything comes with an expiry date.

Still being the optimist you always were. You give it an extra try. And you fail. You give it another go. And you fail. But when you try once more and still fail again. You should be already starting to see that something is off.

Some things are supposed to get screwed up over time. Some things you are supposed to suck at. And once you lose it, it does not always come back to you all peachy and happy happy during the climax. Life is not Notting Hill. And you are by no measure Hugh Grant.

You see, the world is a mess. Chaos rules all of creation. And in all of this chaos if you think this one thing is any different. Buddy, you're a fool. You've been played by your own faith in a person's capacity of friendship.

The best you can do in this scenario is to just let burning timbers lie. Let it flames burn through high and angry. Because in the end, all that would be left of it is a pile of grey ash. This would eventually be swept away by the winds of time.

Today, be patient.

Day 9 : I Opened A Textbook

Finally opened the textbook today. And I have not opened one since college. 'Twas surreal.

Sure I read books all the time. In that sense, currently I am reading Angel of Death by Higgins. But unless Sean Dillon goes ahead and discusses SQL query to transpose rows into column without using CASE WHEN, this book cannot really be called a textbook. Textbooks are basically a big boring book with a lot of pages, written in dreary language and occasional grammatical mistakes, every step of everything detailed out in even the tiniest of details. That does make it sound a lot like 50 Shades doesn't it?

Anyhow. Here I am with an open textbook in front of me again. The last time I ever opened one was a Mathematics one, filled with equations and calculus. I hated it. This is one about a SQL primer course. And I sort of like it. I think it’s because now the book that I've taken up was of interest to me, and maybe something that I would actually like to learn more about. Of my choosing.

If you know anything about the education system in India, you would know this much - the student never has a say in anything.

In any and every education up until Post Grad. The only choice you can ever take up is - engineering or doctor, biology or computers. Sure there are a bunch of others Bachelors/Masters studies available out there. But if you are from the middle class and have shown even an iota of brains during schooling, you are forced in either of these paths. Nothing else is even an option for you. Most of us choose engineering, because let’s be honest about it, medicine is a serious/tedious business. (Couple of years working in IT has taught me, our lives aren’t all that peachy either.)

Your choices when you do get into engineering are also pretty limited. You have mostly four - mechanical, computer science, electrical, IT. I still honestly think the Mech guys are the real engineers; at least they end up creating something that they can actually hold and say "I made this". IT/CS, even some ECE guys are just service guys without that sort of ownership privilege.

I personally know hundreds of folks from my college alone, out of which I can name just a handful of them who is actually doing something of worth, related to what we were taught in college. And from them only one is from CSE/IT. What most of us do now in their day jobs is a long way different from what we were taught in school. Sure the basic stuff is the same. But the application is poles apart. It might sound apples and oranges, but I really think if given a choice/exposure back then. There are a lot of things I could have kick started doing early in my career.

All that is gibberish I know. I tend to ramble when I am in the vicinity of technical documentation. Anyone who has attended an engineering exam knows this. You could ramble on about anything to get that 10-points answer right.

I remember preparing for exams, one month Prep Leave, one month of long exams cycle with bunch of gaps between papers. Searching of textbooks and class notes at the last moment. Put off the actual preparation up until the last couple weeks and sleep through all the previous ones. Spend hours just hanging out with friends, playing cards all day. Wake up at midnight, to drink team and biscuits from Hostel canteen. Damn I feel way too nostalgic right now.

Today, I think there will be a lot more of that than any real learning.

Day 8 : Growing Up Sucks

We all knew a great many men. From books, and novels, and ballads, and movies, and documentaries, and songs, and poems. History is made up of great men and great deeds. Great men are the main characters and leads in all of the great stories we read/see. And every great man (or woman, to be politically accurate) has something in common. They are good. 

Every great hero in every great tale is basically good guy. A person, we are taught to look up to, and respect, and awe, and swoon over. He should be smart, and handsome ,and charming, and witty, and strong, and just. But then imagine a world where every man is a hero. Everywhere we go we see tall guys in impeccable suits and diction, saying all the right words and doing all the right deeds. What boring world it would be.

I suppose others apart from me also thought the same. That how James Cagney, and Tony Soprano, and Walter White, and Pran came into being. These were the anti-heroes, and we seem to be living in the era of bad guys. An era where in being an A-hole is cool. An era, if you are not a badass or be a prick towards every (weaker) person that comes your way, you are not considered a man. At least not a man worth a damn.

I've seen a lot of people now treat each other like dirt. Even total strangers. We are overtly hostile to one another. We are closed off. Hidden behind the high walls we build around ourselves. I don't see a lot many men hugging each other by the shoulders or punching each other’s heads together in glee. We have lost our ease of touch. 

I remember having that up until when I was in college. I was comfortable with myself and with people around myself. And when college ended, something changed. Don't exactly know what, but something did. I noticed the same with people around me as well. We lost something very precious that day. They say this was growing up. Sad.

If growing up really was shackling your comfort with the outside world. I really am officially fed of being a grown up then. The responsibilities and duties should not really be meant to chain our personality. I would suppose its job is to make us better men by teaching us to overcome the burdens of your ever complicating lives. To make us well equipped to fend for ourselves and for those we love. Growing up should not also come with you becoming a shitty person.

I liked the way I was. I imagine most people did as well. That guy should make a comeback in this story don't you think?

Today, I think he has a fair chance of doing just that. 

Day 7 : I Want To Have A Fight

Let’s see. What shall we talk about today? Umm, did I tell you about the last time I got into a fight? An actual come-what-may, all-hell-loose fist fight? No?

Well I'll tell you why, because I haven't had one yet!

Isn't that a shame? I mean I have had been in some brawls and fights yes, but never actually an all out gritty dirty ones like they show in movies. Sad.

But then, when you come to think of it who has now-a-days. We are all too 'civilized', our conflicts don't always include broken bones and twisted limbs. Sure most of us know people who have done such things. People with a violent streak who lash out at other fellow earthlings at the very least of provocations. I know such a guy from Gurgaon with such inclinations. He is famous within the my group to be the first to throw a punch at someone, most of the time out of sheer spite. We worry about him at times obviously, given his puny stature but we had long back decided taming him was a lost cause.

One my friend thinks I maybe didn't get to have this pleasure so far given my own stature. Yes, I do agree I am a big guy and stand even a head taller than most people I know. Maybe that's the reason I've never really been graced with a real challenge. Nobody likes bruises.

I can understand if that sounded a little too pompous and gallant. Just a thought though. I mean, I read everywhere how the world is a dangerous place now. Evil and violence lurks at every corner. I just fail to see where the violence is. People are still timid and tamed. People still argue/yell to make their point to win disagreements.

Maybe I have been lucky enough to not know violence much. Maybe my own violence has been packed away someplace.

Today, I would like to punch a wall. Really punch it.

Day 6 : Cherish Them

Sometimes I wonder why things end up the way they do. 

Don’t get me wrong, this is not one of those sad mopey days. I am actually wondering now about the good things. How come they end up the way they do? If I count the things in my life right now which I think are amongst the good things that has ever happened to me over the years. Not even a handful of them are things that came about to existence by my wits or brawn. They were/are things that are completely out of my control, things that could have went any which way, for any number of reasons.

But still they did not. And I today have these little gems with me to call my own. 

I wonder. When the good things that happen to us, seem to happen in such unruly unpredictable manner; can't we say the same about our misfortunes? I mean, yes, we all think about the ills of the past and imagine "if only.." "What if?" "Why me?". Like it all happened because of us, because of some action we took, or didn’t take.

We are to blame!

Are we?

Sure the riches you earn requires you put in your effort and use your skills. The love you acquire needs a decent amount of emotional investment from your side and whole lot of patience. But in the end, couldn't these things have gone the other way just as easily given the wrong situations or sheer trickery of luck?

I think I am lucky to have a great many such things in life. I am grateful for them. And thus I fear and respect them. These good things could be snatched away from me just as easily as were bestowed upon me.

Today, I shall cherish them. 

Day 5 : Ray Bradbury

I had just read this book a few months back. Today, had this sudden urge to re-read one of it story again - The one with the lions. Before I knew it I was re-reading the whole thing.

I completed the it in just a few hours. It is not really a heavy read. Each story flows through like a breeze. But at the end of each there is a jolt, a precise surgical shove that gets to you.

For example this one:

“We're all fools," said Clemens, "all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly.” ― Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man

It comes right between a chapter, and it’s not really that much of a high-brow philosophy or MMT (makes-me-think) irony. But by the time you complete the story, this one is there at the back of your head nagging at you.

True.

We’re not perfect. None of us are. We like to think that there is something that makes us stand apart from the rest of the world. While the truth is that we are all similar fools leading similar existence going someplace. Where? Why? We don’t have a clue.

We don’t get wiser of age. Nor are any better than what we were yesterday. The best we can hope for is to just persist, and pray that we don’t commit the same mistakes again and make a bigger fools of ours than we already are!

Today, I declare Ray Bradbury is a freaking genius.

Day 4 : Your Virtues

Today's work goes here : Your Virtues

Day 3 : Feel More

Here I am sitting in front of the computer watching a fairly decent Will Farrell movie about a tax auditor called ‘Stranger Than Fiction’.

My mind somehow wanders off during the tax auditing scene; I mean that must be such a boring job to do anyways. Why would anyone want to do anything that happens to have you bending over piles and piles of old bills and receipts, calculating every minuscule expenses of a total stranger to find any discrepancies. And anyhow why do these people spend so much money anyway. The money they spend all their life earning, is blown up on some stupid expensive jewel that has no-chance-in-hell see the light of day/ballroom at least twice in a year. Gold has become so expensive. Better to invest in them than in realty. The market is dangerously unstable for real estate. Especially in the cities. Cities have become so crowded these days. Hate boarding the local trains now during the rush hour. Plus the delays in the trains add to the passenger’s turmoil. Trains have all become quite infrequent now due to the rains and all.

After almost an hour of this mind boggling train of thought, my mind somehow comes back to the image on the screen. I see the end credits of the movie rolling. And I don’t even remembering watching the movie. I have no clue what it was about or what was this big mystery about the Farrell’s watch. My mind does that sometimes, especially during lectures. And I am not the only one apparently. Almost all the students in class that used to sit with me in the class were all clearly in some other planet within an half hour into the lecture. They were all dreaming. Lord only knows what, but anything must’ve been better than those absurdly long lectures in school. An hour in class during lectures seemed a month. A month in the class with friends seemed just a minute or less.

Our mind is strange like that. We start reading some textbook, before we know it we are day dreaming about some girl we saw in the mall two weeks ago. When we are talking to that chick, or mind wanders off to something/someone else all together. We are writing an essay on Edgar Poe. It starts out well but somehow ends up being about cows. Nobody can really control their minds. And don’t let any fool tell you otherwise. Our minds are meant to do that. It is its creative process. It’s part of our evolution. Suppose we didn’t have that quality somatic to our brains, imagine how different our evolution might have been. Probably we wouldn’t have been evolved much at all. We would have been still eating raw meat off of the animal it came from. Cold and in the dark. Cause probably fire wouldn’t have been discovered by our ancestors if they were just playing with stones, when they were playing with stones.

Human mind is really amazing. It thinks of so much, of such a wide array of things, even when it shouldn’t be doing any thinking at all. And there is no way you can program it. You cannot alter something that has taken thousands of years to evolve, to get where it is right now. You can limit the mind’s activity to some extent. Numbing it with alcohol maybe? But, I actually think that you cannot make the mind do anything. It does stuff on its own accord. 

There’s this scene ‘Inception’, which by the way is an awesome movie, Leo tells the rich guy not to think of elephants, and asks him what he is thinking of and the guy replies, elephants.

Mind by itself is a vast entity, and by building a fence around it you’d just be shelving its natural prowess. Your mind is immensely powerful, and its best food is your own thoughts. Your thoughts define your outlook towards the world, your mindset. You’ll never know a couple years later why you hated that guy in high school, but somehow you will still have a huge urge to throw something at him whenever you meet him. That usually has something to do with your thoughts about him when you guys were in school. You probably won’t remember what they were exactly now. But you will forever remember what those thoughts made you feel.

Nobody will forever remember how you look, how you spoke, how you smelled or what you did. But they will forever remember how you made them feel. And the feelings, they happen in one’s mind. Mind makes up thoughts and opinion for you about things based on these feelings.

I guess our mind really does have a mind of its own. We cannot reign it, but I suppose we really don’t want to either. It is such a beautiful thing on its own. I think I am going to think less, act more, and all that based on feeling things on the spur of the moment. Maybe our mind does know more than our brain.

Today, I shall feel more. Think less.

Day 2 : ..Always Pays His Debts

Today clearly did not go as anticipated. This actually is a good thing I suppose.

I was to speak with an old friend with whom I’d lost contact for a long while, and with some bad blood between us. Sure it was still there right beneath the surface, but we both tried our very best to keep it hidden. This was surprising, because back when we were fighting, this thing was a really big deal.

It’s weird how different people, even once best friends, seem so different each other given time. Speak to someone after a few years and you’ll easily notice a change in their language, some of their quirks amiss. We all adapt to things around us. I’ve surely changed; my hindi wasn’t so darn conservative in college. I still have to remember to consciously add expletives to my sentences for my college mates to actually believe it’s really me taking to them and not some weird sanskari Prem-clone.

But no matter how much you change you still remain the same at the core, I guess. This friend I spoke today, did a huge favour for me back in the day. Those were some troubled times in my life and some people really helped me through it. This stinky duck-egg was one of them.

Though friends drift apart, you always subconsciously keep track of them. Your brain always earmarks little tidbits/news about them from conversations with other old friends etc, you store them someplace inside your head. This friend also had a little story that was doing the rounds. A vile one, and not completely true. There were parts of it that were being missed, parts which could actually redeem this person of any wrongdoing. I never corrected them, well; it was not expected of me anymore was it?

But always felt a bit ill about that. Came clean about it with the gang, including this friend and a few of the old mob those that still count.

I don’t know if it helped much anymore. And like WC said, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. This one probably has gone through the motions already, and has already become a fact by-word-of-mouth.

But nonetheless, felt good to empty your conscious, and return an old favor to someone who's been kind... That’s what today was all about I think.

Today, the Lannister pays his debt.

Day 1 : Getting Started

Right at the get go, let me tell you that I have another blog up called An Irony Called Life where I post the usual short stories and stuff. So if you had somehow stumbled your way here expecting something like that - you might as well click here to go there.

Okay, now that we've got that out of the way. Let’s get to business.

Hi, my name is Prem. And this is my ledger. You know, like the ones they keep in a ship where the captain writes down stuff that’s happened during the day, highlighting major events or things that have some meaning to it, mostly just ramblings I suppose.

I don’t think this would be something as exciting as James Bond’s adventures or as tragic as Anne Frank’s. My life is really not all that eventful right now. But I plan on making some changes about that especially.

There was this one episode in a Indian talk show that I saw on YouTube the other day. Some lady asked Salman Khan, what advice he would give her husband so that he can sport six-pack abs like the actor. Sallu looked at the couple for a moment and said sneeringly, just give your husband permission to take off his shirt in public, he’d get them abs. His explanation was that you don’t really get to work on things unless your own ego/pride/shame is at stake. You won’t want to open up your shirt to the public and show your fleshy hairy guts to the masses. Well, that is if your name is not Seth Rogen. That guy seems to be abnormally proud about his flabs!

This blog is something towards that purpose. My way to murder the monotony.

I have to find something to write about in here on a daily basis, and that isn’t happening if stay cooped up in my comfort zone/computer room all day. I’ve got to do, see, say, think something each day to write about later. I have been putting off a lot of things for the past, I-don’t-know, two years (?). Things that most would consider prudent to lead a great life. I guess I got stuck in the inertia of it all.

It is just so comfortable to go on auto-pilot sometimes. Boring yes, but oh so easier. Screw easy now, I guess, who’s ever had much fun by living it easy.

For today, the times they are a-changin'.