If you read the last post of mine, I have talked about how powerful time is. We can win against anything, but not against time.

Patience is that quality which makes us respect the above mentioned fact. It makes us respect the importance of time. The only way to not let time defeat you is by making friends with it. And the only way to do that is by imbibing patience inside onself. Once you have done that, you can win everything. Anything.

My best friend had these words to say about me, some time back: 'A perfectionist, he doesn't accept anything that is below his expectations of himself'.

Who isn't a perfectionist? I relate perfection to satisfaction. I don't like the idea of getting satisfied. I don't mind getting bored, or getting pained with doing something again and again. But even if I give up on something and move on to something else, I am never able to agree to the fact that I did not have the ability or capability to perfect that 'something'.

The only constraint to me is the constraint of time. One might beat that. One might not. Time is the only thing that I know I cannot win against. Everything else can be conquered. Everything else can be won. The question to be asked is: how much time are you willing to sacrifice to attain that one thing which you are so sure of attaining. To perfection?

So tell me now. Isn't each one of us a perfectionist?

Is winning really about winning? To me winning is all about believing that you will win. No matter what. There is nothing greater to the mind. Only a weak mind can lose.

Berry, 40, admits to Parade magazine that she tried to gas herself when her fiery union to Atlanta Braves baseball star David Justice collapsed, but pulled out at the last minute.

I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming when I had an image of my mother finding me....

...she sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do. It was all about a relationship. My sense of worth was so low...

...Because someone didn't love me didn't mean I was unlovable. I promised myself I would never be a coward again.

Isn't there a Berry inside all of us?

Read this statement: Two factors unite people/parties: 1. Benefit 2. Fear

What do you think of it? This statement was made by one of my Profs today in the class as he was talking about secularism. The course was Development Alternatives.

I wonder. Is there nothing else? If you asked me what unites two people, I would say something like a common aim may be? No? Ok, so you can anyways club in under benefit! Hmm, I get the point.

How about love? Two people unite because they love each other and can't live separately! How about this? Where is benefit? Where is fear?

Reflect.

Life flows. From here to there. From there to somewhere. It keeps on flowing. I have no clue what's happening to me. Someone up there is testing me. Someone up there is trying to kill me. Or rather, trying to see if I can survive any shit I am thrown into.

I sometimes wonder how do people really know how strong they are? Breaking up doesn't prove you aren't strong. It just proves that you are broken up. You might be ready to gather pieces of your flesh, lying around. You might not.

Life is a fucking fight. Every moment. And for some reasons, you can't stop being a fighter. You can take a pause, cry out loud, run away. And when that's done, you gotta be the fighter again. You just can't escape that. Till you are dead of course.

Oh what a mystery death is. Death is pure bullshit. It IS the only truth. No denying that. But it's the end. The fucking END. But don't we like the end to come fast when the movie starts getting boring? If you are sitting in a theater, you can as well walk out, if you are so sure that nothing's great is really going to happen even you sit till the very end. Sometimes you are just so damned sure. At other times, you just keep waiting. If you are watching the movie on a comp, you at least have this option of fast-forwarding. Move the mouse. Click here and click there. You just managed to escape the parts that you didn't want to watch. Life aint like that. You either face every second of it. Or you just quit it. The option is all yours. Oh really?

Ok, enough of bullshitting about life. Naah I am not pissed off. I think it's the dead effect. Dead effect? Ok, I described my death today to one and all. To cut the crap, today was the monoacting day. The IIT Madras inter hostel competition. A lot of people came. And most of them put up brillinat performances. Mine was ordinary. All I really did was cry, cry, weep and then cry. I wasn't really acting out there on stage. I was crying. And that got me a seventh place. Good enough! Yeah, I did speak for sometime whenever I found some time away from sobbing. You really wanna read that?

Does that mean anything? Lifing? It means a lot. It means loving your life. Love it for yourself. Live it for others. There's just one life. Live it with passion. Listen to Floyd. Fly at times. Blow away thou worries. Because there are no worries. Get inspired. Stop being lazy. Stop cribbing. Get a life. Borrow a life. Steal a life. Life.

And on a different note, you might like this quote. I liked it: Love is rarer than genius itself. And friendship is rarer than love.

I stopped. I had two options in front of me. A. Continue with the ride that had become too painful to enjoy. B. Discontinue and walk back.

No one cared about which option I chose. No one knew I was skating anyways. It was all about me. Whether I wanted to reach my goal, that I had set minutes ago or was I ready to give up?

The goal was to skate from hostel to the IIT main gate and then return. Close to six kilometers. I had done it before. But never with this pair of skates. This one with attached shoes was smaller for my feet. But I had taken the challenge. And it soon proved to be so painful. There was hardly any space for the toe. It got too squeezed in, as I kept struggling and soon it was hurting. With each roll forward, it hurt. I had to decide.

I was about to unbuckle the skates, and walk back to hostel. Bare foot. Main gate might have been a kilometer away. And then suddenly something happened. I heard a voice. It came from within.

'Isn't this how life is? Things don't always turn out the way you thought them to. Difficulties pop in from nowhere. The calculations go wrong and giving up appears to be the easiest option. But would you really like doing that? Just because it hurts? Can't you still complete the journey which you began with so much passion and excitement? Will you let the small shoe decide how you live? Can't you still talk to air, roll on wheels, and roll faster than before? How could you forget the phrase that when the going gets tough, the tough gets going? Or are you even tough?'

I picked option A. I took the complete round trip. I talked to air, rolled on wheels and let my toe fight for itself. Yes, some skin did wear off on both the feet and the hallux is still swolen. But then I felt powerful. I made the right choice. And I learnt a little more about life. I grew up a little more.

I am happy today. I know why. Some more know it too. And those who don't, need not. So what does one do when one is happy. One blogs? Well, I do! :)

This is about an old man. He looked like a labour kinda guy when I first saw him. He was wearing some ancient, worn out and not-so-clean clothes that hid his slim frame. He was not clean, had white hairs on head as well on face, and was sitting. He was sitting in a crowded bus. It was the Chennai city bus. I saw him when I entered the crowded bus which would bring me to IIT from Chennai Central. There was no vaccant seat. None! It was difficult for passengers to even stand properly. I had three bags with me. I had just returned from home. I was in this crowded bus. I saw the old man. He saw me.

While travelling in crowded buses, what I usually do is to go stand close to some seat so that whenever it gets empty I can let my ass rest for the remaining ride. I went near where the old man was sitting. I stood there. Few seconds had passed when he spoke in Tamil. I do not understand Tamil much, but I guess he meant to ask if I wanted to sit. I nodded. He left his seat. I presumed he would be leaving at the next stop. Afterall, in a jam-packed bus like this he would like to leave his seat a li'l earlier, so that he can reach the door cutting his way through the crowd. I sat down.

I was sitting. He stood there. The old man. He stood there without trying to reach for the door. A bus stop came soon. The bus stopped. Some boarded in, some stepped out. He remained there; standing effortlessly. The old man. This made me feel bad. I was a young guy who should be standing while he was the one who should be seated. How could someone be so nice to a stranger? I looked at him. He was looking somewhere else. He was not even bothered.

Next stop came. He still didn't leave. I started getting restless. I felt too bad. This world is all a race, isn't it? It's all about who can grab the seat first. And here this old poor and (I guess) illeterate chap had left his seat even without me asking for it. For whom? I had never done that for anyone.

Another stop came. He remained there. Standing. It was too much to take. I decided that if he didn't leave by the next stop, I wouldn't sit anymore. After about twenty minutes since he had offered me his seat, another stop came and he left. Finally!

The old man who had white hairs had left but he made me realize that this world is not just about the survival of fittest, not just about some race. This world is also about compassion for fellow human beings. I will remember this bus ride always. Our life is like a bus ride. People come and they leave. And some find a special place in your heart. Because you know, they were good to you even when they would get nothing in return.

There was this kid there, in my cabin on my way back to home from IIT a few days back. He was a small kid, might be 5 or 6 years old. And he was pretty active; kept running from here to there to the chagrin of his parents and custodians. And then there was this police police crap occurring every time he had to be stopped from running out of sight. I will tell you what I mean by that. Somehow the guys using the 'police police' fear factor had convinced the sweet little kid that if he steps beyond a not so well defined terrain, the police will take him away. Occasionally he used to forget that, but then he was reminded more occasionally and thus kept in control.

I do not really think it's a very good way of taming an otherwise agile kid. This sure is an easy way but certainly not the best way. The major disadvantage is that to the child, the word police becomes synonymous to something evil. After all evil is what you fear, don't you? I understand that when this kid grows up, he will come to know why we need policemen and what their real job is. But I am also sure that somewhere deep inside him, he will always fear police. And not because of any fault of his. There are things which settle deeply in your subconscious mind and they affect you later. The case is similar to the fear of ghosts. If you start trying to control a child by bringing in a ghost to him/her, it's a bad strategy. You are only making him a coward kid. Though I haven't read about child psychology at all, this sounds very intuitive to me. I at least remember reading some article somewhere which actually stressed on the need of talking about real things to children than making false stuff appear real. May be when I am back to IIT, I would catch up with some sites to see if my intuition actually has supporting data.

The lights were off; it was slightly more than half past ten, and the passengers were trying to sleep. And I heard this whisper once more: 'Police Police'. I guess the kiddo was not ready to sleep yet. Police at a rescue mission to make a naughty kid sleep! :)

It always feels good when a RAC gets cleared and you get a confirmed seat, especially if it's a night journey in a sleeper class and you are too tired to wait to sleep. This happened to me yesterday. But I do not intend to talk more about my journey at the moment, which is as a matter of fact still continuing ( Yeah, I'm relaxing in my upper berth). I think I have something better to write about. It's about my mother tongue.

When did you last write in your mother tongue (at least 200 words at a stretch)? I never did that after my class X. In fact in my entire life, the only time I have used Hindi (that's my mother tongue) as a written language has been only for the assignments and tests in school. Something similar cab be said about reading Hindi. I hardly get to do that. The sadder thing is that I hardly feel like doing that. I have heard people cry over preserving your mother tongue, but I am never moved. Are you?

I was reading this week's edition of BW to kill some time. There's this short review of a book called 'How languages work' by David Crystal. The subtitle of the book reads how Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages live or die. This very subtitle made the getting-bored-like-everyone-else-in-train me realize how rapidly Hindi is dying. Half the time when I talk even to myself, it happens in English. To be very true, the only time I use Hindi is when I am at home, or when I am chatting with my friends from north. There's one interesting incidence that comes to my mind. I think I was in class fifth or sixth then. I was sitting in the examination hall. There was this language paper that day, and as usual it had one question on writing a letter to your friend (telling him may be how you spent your vacations). I started writing the letter. I had written for about half a page when the invigilator suddenly noticed what I was writing and exclaimed, 'I think it's a Hindi paper'. Oh my God! It actually was a Hindi Language paper and just because I was so used to writing letters in English, I never realized I was writing in English all this while! I laughed at myself, struck off the words in English, and started writing the letter again, in Hindi this time. I am sure the teacher who later checked the paper would have laughed real hard, seeing half a page of English words in a Hindi paper!

Getting back to the old point of how senti we should be towards our mother tongue, I do not have much of an opinion. Why should some languages be saved from dying? What's the point? What's wrong if the whole world eventually starts speaking just one language? Thinking of the whole world speaking a common language actually sounds a great stuff. The way globalization is growing, I actually have reasons to believe this is going to happen sooner or later. And I really don't mind. I know for sure that there are folks with whom I am always going to talk in my mother tongue, and this is all I really care about.

Eveyone can be happy in a great company. But if you cannot be happy when alone, doing your work, you never really are happy. You never really are.

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?

Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.

When you remain alone and do something, you either end up performing better than everyone else or you end up performing worse than everyone else. When the first case occurs, you think you are the only smart guy out there in the whole universe. Deep sense of pride creeps in. When the second case occurs, you think you are the only loser out there in the whole universe. Depression creeps in.

Bottomline: Get out, get going. Find someone with whom you feel happy with. Stop being lonely!

Yes, it's coming back. What is the ultimate purpose of my life? Of anyone's life? A blogger-mate tells- it is to die. I refute this claim. My life means more than that. I had given up once and had declared that life didn't have any purpose. But right now, at this particular moment, I no more believe in that conclusion.

Is it Money?

NO. I reject this idea. Let's start from this. What will happen if I don't have money? I wont be able to buy myself food and clothes? Yes that's true. But I ask this: why do I need food and clothes? To survive, is it? Is this what you have to say? Well then it's just a loop, isn't it? The fundamental question remains, rock solid and unanswered. What is the need to survive? :) Earning money cannot be, because it just keeps you moving in a loop!

Getting out of the loop

Are you a part of this loop? Of course, I am. Can I get out? I want to. And since I am very sure, money is not a purpose, nor is death, I want to figure out the reason for the need to survive.

What is the future? I am talking about the future in general, that of the overall life on earth. Yeah, so what is it, how is it, the future? You don't know? Well, me neither! :) And even if you can 'see' some future, it's still just in your mind. We have some idea, but none of us really know what the future is really going to be like.

Why did I suddenly start talking about future? Have patience. You will figure that out for yourself. Let me talk about the past now.

What about the past? Do we know how it was? Yes we do, a lot of it. We know what happened in the world yesterday, the day beofore, the year before, the century before. What do we see? Do the historical records that we have, tell us something? Anything? Some trend? I am talking about the general trend of the overall human life on earth. Where is it headed? Anywhere?

Look at all the people around you, the human beings. They didn't even exist some time back (okay call that 'a long time back' if that really matters). The point is that the human species did not exist at one point of time! Some say that we have evolved from the monkeys. Quite agreeable. We, the humans and monkeys have a lot in common. The level of thinking, the so called intelligence is what differentiates us from the monkeys, besides the look and the tail of course. So, if past tells us anything, it is that the net direction of all that is happening on earth is to lead to a more and more complex species, which can think better than the one that existed earlier. And this gives a hint at an aspect of the future also. This 'intelligence' should keep on getting refined; should keep on getting upgraded. A lot of new things happen with this 'upgraded'intelligence. The quest for the answer to the purpose of life is one of them!

Do monkeys think about the purpose of life? This is not a joke! Answer me. Do I hear a big NO? So you agree that these things originate only in our brains, the human brains, right? Good. And I also guess that you are already sure that this has to do with the higher intelligence level that we possess. As human beings, we have the ability to think of things beyond just those necessary for survival. As human beings, we have the intelligence to question the need for survival iteself! But then, we have got only enough intelligence, so as to raise this question. We still do not know the answer. We do not know, where to look for answers. Is the answer within us? Somewhere else? No answer at all?

We think, think, and keep on thinking. And this is good. This way, we are actually contributing to the progressive growth of the overall evolution. It might be a small contribution, but it is helping the overall life evolve and get more intelligent. If we stop thinking about this purpose, and only concenterate on our own survival, of ways to be ahead of others, we are wasting the power that we have aquired as human beings.

Today we might not have enough intelligence to find out the purpose, but we can make guesses. We can keep attempting. We need to push our minds into this. But to keep thinking, we need to survive first of all. If we are dead, we can no more think! Looks like I am out of the loop now. I am not here on this earth, living, just to wait for the 'inevitable' death. I am living, so that I can think, and in the process keep refining the power that I have; the power that makes me and fellow human beings superior to any other living species.

Is thinking enough?

No. At least I do not think so. If all I do is just keep speculating on the real purpose, and do nothing else in this direction, my contribution to the growth of life as a whole, is very mild. I want to contribute, and do it the best way that I can. And this isn't possible by merely thinking. I need to think to make guesses, but I also need to work on my guesses.

Guesses?

Till now I never talked about a single purpose! I did mention that a purpose exists, and I did mention that we are not yet smart enough to tell what it exactly is. Ok, not exactly may be, but how about a guess work? Intuition? If that's the only thing that we can do, we should do it.

So let me make few attempts at guessing what the real purpose of my life can be. And before doing that, I will keep few things in my mind.

1. Earning any more money than what I will need to survive, and keep living, and keep working on whatever I guess my purpose to be, is stupid. Makes no sense.

2. I do need to survive and keep living. I need to use all the time that I have in this life. Life is not just a time pass, and I am not here, merely waiting to die. I need to keep living till my time comes, so that I can keep attempting to figure out the purpose. I might fail to do so in my life time, but I would still be contributing positively to the growth of the overall life.

3. I should not restrain my thinkings to myself. I need to reach out to people and spread the message of active thinking, so that the whole process continues with speed.

Well, it looks like I have already started talking like Swami Vivekananda, is it? :) No, I haven't read any of his books as such, but somehow, the third point above made me feel so!

So having kept these three points in my mind, I am ready to make guesses. But that should be the content of another post. I cannot write everything all here. What I would like you to do, is share your opinions, thinkings, guesses with me. It's important for me. And may be for you too. I believe that it's important for each one of us to make an effort at figuring out a purpose, however futile that effort might appear to be. It's time we realize, we are no more monkeys, and so we have other things to do than just looking for ourselves and our families; quarrelling amongst ourselves; and jumping from one tree to another till we finally die. There's much more, and the monkeys can't do it. ;)

Think, think, think some more, and keep doing that. And let me know if you would like to, what you think.

Read these lines:

I have not experienced any organized belief system that is not disempowering in some way. The problem is that they all have a fixed perspective. If you look at reality from any single perspective, you are only perceiving the projection of reality onto your belief system, not reality itself. The more rigid your perspective, the more detail you miss (detail which doesn't fall upon your projection but does fall upon others), and the less of your true potential you're able to tap.

So true!

These are Steve's words, and this guy looks like a real high-funda man to me. I recommend this post to all of you who are curious to know, what the hell are we doing here on earth. A really really good post. It's a long post by the way, but let me assure you that it's worth a read. I am still half way through it and I am already so much impressed.

Warning: The video below might appear just too boring and just too crap to all those who are already too sure what life is! :)

I am not too sure how well I can speak on topics like these, but then what I speak here are feelings that come from deep within!

The IIMs are creating Big News these days. Headlines like these are catching everyone's attention: IIM-B creates record in campus recruitment.

They are the news like these that add to the glamour of the IIMs. And therefore it is so obvious that most of them who desire to get into IIMs, want to do so, for Big Money. When you come to know that 34% of the entire batch in an IIM gets placed on day zero itself, and gets placed not just anywhere but in the sexiest of companies, you have to be attracted.

Money is important in life because it let's you buy things that you had always dreamt of. But then, the fact is that money is not everything.

Why do we need money? Money in itself is nothing. It is merely a means to acquire real physical things. The real physical things are those that matter to us. I am talking about the big luxurious houses, posh four-wheelers, fancy designer attires, toothsome food, and things like these. These are the things that money lets us possess. And this is the only reason money is important. But then, this is also the reason, why money is not everything.

Life is not all about possessing few or even many physical stuffs. Life is much more than that. Life is about doing those things that you like doing, talking with friends, helping those who need your help, and caring for things around you. Yes, these things sound so far-fetched and bookish, but without them the journey of life is incomplete.

I pity those who get into IIMs, just because they got inspired by news like the one that I mentioned in the beginning. Sometimes they are not the student themselves who get inspired, but their parents. They are the parents, often from the middle class Indian Family. They know the value of money just too well. And in the process they simply exagerrate things. Money rises from its stature and blurrs one's vision to see the bigger picture that life has to offer. Where there is money, prestige takes birth. So, when a child of a middle class parent is able to get into an IIM, the parents feel so proud of him. It never matters, what the real interests of the child are. No one cares. A rat race begins, all because of money. Soon everyone becomes a rat, and a hollow meaning of success is defined.

The problem with rat race is that, even if you win, you are still a rat. And this is just too sad. I wish, some of us are able to define our own definitions of success which isn't based only upon money. I wish some of us are able to live the REAL life, like lions and not like rats.

Love at first sight is not love. But yes, it is indeed a feeling that can grow into love. And if it does so, only then is the phrase “love at first sight” justified.

I told it’s a feeling that can grow into love but not love itself. Is there a name for this feeling? Sure. It’s called infatuation. At first sight all you get is attracted. If you are a believer in love at first site, you would take infatuation for love so unknowingly. If you are a non believer you would know it’s not love. Immaterial of who you are, the fact is that this infatuation can grow into love in some time. In how much time? I cannot answer that. Can anyone?

When I say this infatuation CAN grow into love I mean to say that it doesn’t always grow into love. Following all kinds of path, this feeling which erupts at first sight may either die or transform into something else or the best of all turn into true love. The path this feeling follows is dependent on so many things. To start with, it depends on whether you are a believer in the philosophy of love at first sight or not. How? Read on.

There are two possibilities that exist if you are a believer in the philosophy of love at first sight.

If you are a believer, it will take relatively more time for you to realize that your feeling is not at all love. This happens only when things don’t go fine with your belief. When you happen to interact with the object of your affection and ‘something’ tells you things are not going to work out. You start getting closer to reality. But you do that slowly, at a brisk pace. This ‘something’ is a weak feeling and the well disguised strong attraction still appears to be nothing else but love. Finally there comes a time, it sure comes, when you have no doubt that it’s not love. Love was never there. And the instant this feeling comes, you have transformed into a non believer. It’s good and it’s bad too. It’s good because you realized that love at first sight never existed. It’s bad because your attraction failed to grow into love.

The second possibility is that, if you are a believer it might so happen that you never realize the fact that you are not actually in love. You might always hold this view that it was indeed love at first sight. You might never realize the transformation of the feeling of attraction into that of pure love. But then how does that matter? If at the end of the day you are in true love, whatever you assumed in the beginning will look alright to you.

There is no meter that can confirm whether you are in love or not at any point of time. So if you think that you are in love, it’s impossible for anyone to convince you otherwise. But irrespective of your understanding of your feelings, the fact remains that at first sight it is attraction and nothing else. A believer realizes this only when at some point of time, the attraction goes. The same believer never realizes this if that attraction never goes and indeed it transforms into true love after interacting with the subject and after some time.

Now let me talk about the non believers. They can be talked about in three sets. Let the first set consist of those whose feelings die in some time. They reassure themselves that they were correct in rejecting the idea of love at first sight. For these people they do not get the chance to deviate from truth. This will become clear when you consider the other two sets of non believers.

The second and third set deals with those whose feelings grow into love. One set of persons would conclude that they were fools when they didn’t believe in the philosophy of love at first sight. They would think they were wrong earlier when the truth is that they think the wrong way now. The third set would realize that though it was not love at first sight, it grew into love with time and interaction. These men/women are capable of seeing the transformation. They saw their attraction grow into love. Earlier I had stated that the first set never got a chance to deviate from truth. I guess that’s clear now. This last set has the option to believe like the second set, but they do not deviate from truth like them. They have the option to think like the second set; think things which are not actually true. These people are the ones who understand the world the best way. They see the truth. They can never be blinded to think that love at first sight exists.