21 grams

They say we all lose 21 grams
at the exact moment of our death
everyone...

The weight of a stack of nickels,
The weight of a chocolate bar,
The weight of a hummingbird.

The weight of our soul perhaps?
How much we meant to others?

“We will sit back and laugh about it someday”

There are various things which happen, some nice and fun, some not so happy. And as the event is happening, or soon after, we tell ourselves “We will sit back and laugh about it someday”.

Like once in hostel, we made a guy fake an appendicitis attack, so that we could go out at 11 in the night to eat at the Dhaba. We were part ravenously hungry, part the urge to do something outrageous and rebellious. So we faked an appendicitis attack, to gorge on roti, channa and paneer.

While we stuffed our faces with the food, there had been guffaws of laughter and back slapping in good measure, “We will sit back and laugh about it someday!!”

Yes, today when I do look back and remember that particular night, it does bring a smile. Memories of the bonhomie, the friends who I have not met since the day we left college.

But there have been stuff, which has elicited a similar comment, “We will sit back and laugh about it someday!!” But somehow, I haven’t been able to smile about them yet. Maybe its one of those things which will never quite bring a smile or induce laughter, alternatively maybe the elusive “someday” is yet to happen.

Hope the smile and the laughter does actually happen ‘someday’. Not in a cynical, fucked with life way, but in a warm, fuzzy and nice way. Cheers to that!

I never had a teacher like Morrie Schwartz. But I had someone else, very quotidian and no where as flamboyant. But in his own way, he told me a lot many good things.

It was DKB, our ‘Head of plus two’, a post created solely for the man. Because he wasn’t Christian, so he could never become principal or vice principal. So they placated him by making him Head of Plus two.

DKB, taught Physics. And frankly sucked at it…he was big time ineffective.

But the man told me a couple of things, once he asked me, what was it I wanted to do in life?

Me: “I want to be an engineer, a Computer Engineer”.
DKB: “Where do you want to do it? Abroad?”
Me: “No in India. I know I cannot make it to IIT, but anything a rung below, will do”.

Btw, I did make it to IIT, technically speaking atleast. I did a project on Steganography in association with a Professor who taught Digital Signal Processing, in IIT Madras. Worked in there labs and offices for six whole months.

Anyways,

DKB: “You will face a big culture shock; you will have to live with people who wear gamchas! And eat rice like there is no tomorrow! It will be an anti-thesis of all that you have been exposed to at La-Martiniere”

I had found it ludicrous then, but yes all that he had warned me about, “the culture shock” did happen.

Another time, I had gone to complain to DKB about the selection of some team. Some worthy guys had been left out, and some daft pricks had been included.

I complained, how ‘not good’ the whole thing was, and how worthy people were being wrongfully left out. I raved and ranted for their cause. But DKB didn’t budge, his official line was, the selection has been made and it won’t be changed!
I had exclaimed ‘But Sir, it’s not FAIR!”.

DKB had prophetically said, “Who ever told you that life was supposed to be fair?”.

Frankly, I had wanted to wring his neck then, and somehow ensure that justice was done.

But with time, I have come to realize that this probably was the most practical advice anyone ever has given me.

While driving back from work last night, I realized it fully and forever. A lot of our problems are because we expect life to be fair.

There was a lot more sapient advice DKB had given me, but for the love of my life I can’t remember what they were. It’s good in a way, I guess this way i'll discover my own truths.

Whether being a Romantic makes me metrosexual, frankly I don’t know. Like many other things in fact.

I have kind of held on to two Romantic Notions, silly to be admitting it, but it does only matter to me. So nothing much to lose is there?
If I ever meet the girl, with whom I want to go the “whole 9 yards”, and she feels the same way. I would do two things,

1. Go and see the Taj Mahal with her. No, I haven’t seen the Taj Mahal yet.
I have had dinner at the Eiffel Town, stood all evening on Trafalgar Square. But No, I haven’t seen the Taj. I plan to do it with her.

2. Watch Casablanca with her. It’s my all time favorite Romantic movie. I have always watched the movie alone.

I watched it again last night, and yes again alone. Metaphorically speaking of course, ‘cause there is always - Lisa and Rick.
“In all the gin joints, in all the towns in the world, she had to walk into mine”.

Maybe I will own a gin joint someday. Maybe she will walk into my gin joint, in my town. Till then I have a post on blogspot.

Play Time 3 minutes 56 seconds...can often span a lifetime.

“Yeh Jeevan Hai, Is Jeevan Ka
Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai Rangroop
Thode Ghum Hain, Thodi Khushiyan
Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai Chaon Dhoop
Yeh Jeevan Hai...
Yeh Na Socho Isme Apni Haar Hai Ke Jeet Hai
Ise Apna Lo Jo Bhi Jeevan Ki Reet Hai
Yeh Zid Chodo, Bandhan Yuh Na Todo
Har Pal Ek Darpan Hai
Yeh Jeevan Hai...
Dhan Se Na Duniya Se, Ghar Se Na Dwar Se
Saason Ki Dor Bandhi Hai, Preetam Ke Pyar Se
Duniya Choote, Par Na Toote, Yeh Aisa Bandhan Hai
Yeh Jeevan Hai...
Yeh Jeevan Hai, Is Jeevan Ka
Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai Rangroop
Thode Ghum Hain, Thodi Khushiyan
Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai - Yahi Hai Chaon Dhoop
Yeh Jeevan Hai... “

Movie: Piya ka Ghar
Lyrics: Anand Bakshi
Vocals: Kishore da

A kilometer down from my college was this 24x7 teashop, catering to Truckers mostly. It overlooked a bus-stand, a STD booth, a building with a music store on the ground floor and a cyber café on the first floor.

This guy called Kareem bhai, a Hydrabadi, ran the shop. His station a raised platform, on which stood this large copper thing, most close to a boiler, reduced manifold in size. It was always on the boil, and had two spouts one for water and the other for milk. Its Indian-ness was unmistakable.

It had a wooden bench stretched out in front of it. I used to often go there in the evenings. It was a lovely perch from which to watch the din and bustle of a busy crossing. Buses with loud blaring horns tumbled in like beaten up jalopies. People were everywhere, women with shopping bags, men with attaches, and students with a textbook. And there I was with my Coffee on the bench, under Kareem bhai’s nose.

There was an odd sense of involvement and abstraction, all at once. I was part of the whole system, the bellowing automobile exhaust, the cries of a vendor selling an evening daily, the oppressive heat, and the warmth of my coffee rising out of the Styrofoam cup. Yet in a sense, there was abstraction, like watching sport from the stands. I was insulated, the discussions around where in a language I didn’t know, and the headlines in the newspaper I couldn’t read.

I looked across the buses and the people, the noise and the smoke, towards the sky stretched beyond it. A telecommunication tower rose into the sky, and behind all of that was the sun. A citrine disc now an oblate spheroid, drops of yellow citrus weakly squeezed from it dissipated into the murkiness, each drop coalescing with the sky to announce the curtain fall of a stage show.

Rabindranath Tagore (affectionately Robbie T) didn’t receive the Nobel Prize in person. He sent a Telegram, by way of an acceptance speech.
Which was read by a Mr. Clive, the British Chargé d'Affaires, at the Nobel Banquet at the Grand Hôtel, Stockholm (December 10, 1913).

I beg to convey to the Swedish Academy my grateful appreciation of the breadth of understanding, which has brought the distant near, and has made a stranger a brother.

Les Prix Nobel (1994)
John.F.Nash Jr

"...rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos. For example, a non-Zoroastrian could think of Zarathustra as simply a madman who led millions of naive followers to adopt a cult of ritual fire worship. But without his "madness" Zarathustra would necessarily have been only another of the millions or billions of human individuals who have lived and then been forgotten"

Haven’t done much of blogging…off late. A combination of many things really,
1. Lack of Time (Had to put that in!)
2. Am doing some other writing related work, so as I am Creatively rather limited, it’s difficult to supply creative musings to both my ‘writing related work and ‘my blog’.
3. I don’t think, anyone really does read it…so it doesn’t really matter does it?
4. Ok…how about the writing just for yourself?
My musings/opinions are all in ‘my mind’ right? To paraphrase Huxley…’my mind is my own private literature’.
So that’s that!

A very close friend from college Vivek, we used to have a ball in college!
At the end of every semester we used to go to Pondicherry, lovely little place. His cousins who were settled there, ran liquor shops, so well the booze was often more easily available than aqua pura.

There was this little thing about the man Vivek, when he was rather “high”, the man had this propensity of asking “Fundamental Questions”. Which I must admit, most of us were too inebriated, to answer suitably. A sample would be as follows,

Vivi: Boss, Why does man love a woman?
Me: Hmm…
Vivi: I mean why can’t he love a Chair…for example?
Me: Bud, people do love chairs…Kissa Kursi Kaa and all of that. Politicians they love the chair.
Vivi: No..I don’t mean it that way…I mean why is Man attracted to a woman, why does he love a woman? I mean why not a Cow, Furniture…a Place. Why does it have to be a woman!

- Long Silence and Steady Drinking –

The day after, the hangover not withstanding, there used to be guffaws about Vivi’s 'Fundamental Questions'.
“Don’t get the Fuck Drunk again, he will wanna do a Chair or a Cow or something!”
More guffaws.

Last Weekend, outside Café Coffee Day, sipping on “Ice Eskimo” or some other such Cold-Coffee variant, this whole episode came back to me. Why indeed do we have this urge consciously/subconsciously, to seek a significant other? A girlfriend, a lover, a wife? Isn’t it like the ions from High School Chemistry, positive ions continually seeking negative ions, to attain stability and vice-versa.

Are we like that too? I mean for all our evolution, all our Buddha, Plato, Russell, Sartre, Jung, Mozart, …we are like an atom, with an electron more or an electron less.

Conversely, the whole ability or realization, to truly get rid off the “seeking/need a significant other” phenomenon. Is that a sign of evolution?

Funny what John Nash said though,

I've always believed in numbers and the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, "What truly is logic? Who decides reason?"
My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional -- and back.
And I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found.

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride
If turnips were swords, i'd wear one by my side
If ifs and ands were pots and pans,
there'd be no need for tinkers' hands"

The Devil's Advocate
(Taylor Hackford 1997)

John Milton: A woman's ... neck, if she's alive, has all the mystery of a border town.
A no-man's land in a battle between the mind and the body.

When Harry Met Sally
(Rob Reiner 1989)

Harry Burns: Had my dream again where I'm making love, and the Olympic judges are watching. I'd nailed the compulsaries, so this is it, the finals. I got a 9.8 from the Canadians, a perfect 10 from the Americans, and my mother, disguised as an East German judge, gave me a 5.6. Must have been the dismount.

From Last night, Monaco came from behind to overcome a two-goal deficit to settle scores at 2-2 with Chelsea. Monaco move to the finals, imagine that.
The Champions League Final line up… Monaco v. Porto. Who would have wagered that?

That aside, coming to today’s blog. Was out with some friends, a mid week get together, a friend leaving town for a better job, all rolled into one.
Kunal, who by the way works for a bank was cheesed off with work. At a training session at work, the trainer was apparently rather comatose, and no one could make any sense of the instructions she was attempting to impart.

Buddy Kunal, stood up and spoke his mind, saying something to the effect of “None of us ten trainees have understood a word after two hours, now it isn’t possible that ALL of us are daft, which raises the question whether you are a good enough trainer”. An extended verbal duel ensued, and at the end of all of it, Kunal was threatened with disciplinary action.

Conversation soon veered towards “success”, its definition – whether at all there exists a universal definition at all, or is it everyone for themselves. When we ask someone whether he is successful? How/Why do we assume he is not already?

We then tried to look at the whole Kunal Shenanigan in the light of “what-is-success? “ debate.

The fact that Kunal works with a leading bank and is fairly successful, indicative of success?

The fact that he had the conviction to stand up for what he thought was right, while the rest of the trainees spent their time “clipping finger nails and/or staring at shoestrings”, indicative of success?

The fact that in the evening he has friends in a huddle around him, talking to him about the issue, and will be there for him even if his bank fires him tomorrow, indicative of success?

Its an amalgamation of all the above, and much more, isn’t it? So there isn’t a formula right? 2 parts Money, 1 Part Fame, 2 Parts Assets…

Just to imagine that a word(s) we use so often..success, succeed, successful …we don’t know a rats ass what it means. That’s maybe because we are so woefully unsuccessful!

Strangely and not very much in congruence with the thread, a line from Philadelphia Story just kind of sticks…

Maggie: We both might face the facts that neither of us has proved to be a very great success as a wife…
Tracy: We just picked the wrong first husband