Running away

I feel an incessant need for talking when I don't want to hear my mind. Not liking the thoughts of one's own mind is quite depressing innit? More depressing is this kind of a "need" arises at late in the night when one half of the world is sleeping and the other is hard at work. If there are people who aren't sleeping or who are jobless, then they generally not in the mood to talk. No, I don't blame them. Its just that I seem to have a rotten luck with the timing.

And that's how the world has turned and left me here.
Four years ago, I read in a friend's blog that he blogged frequently because it felt easier to write than to make a person understand the complexity of the mind's mentations or the paradox of feeling of lacking something integral with in self and not be able to communicate that to another human being. I wrote a comment asking him to take a hike. It had not bothered him one bit that I was the only person perhaps, who read his blog as frequently as he blogged, which was everyday. He said that he will take that hike the day when I feel the same.
I called him thirty minutes ago but unfortunately he was busy in a meeting.
I am simply being whimsical, I suppose.
A few horror movies, studying for certification, black coffee, industrial rock music, Criminal Minds and few days of migraine will make all better.
Tomorrow is going to be extremely entertaining!

Labels: Nostalgia, personal

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Tired. Frustrated. Annoyed. Exhausted. Cold. Fever. Migraine. Lack Of Sleep.
What more is there to say?
Explains a lot doesn't it? One more day till I get out of this purgatory.
Tomorrow, hopefully does not start with a painful headache.

Labels: frustration, personal

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My parents and I are fans of Dr. S. L. Bhyrappa. He is one of the foremost Indian novelists writing in Kannada, eagerly read by the people and fiercely fought over by critics. "Parva" is acknowledged to be his greatest work. It has been translated to many Indian languages and also English. Its considered to be a masterpiece (in Marathi and Hindi, especially) in Indian literature. My father used to own a copy of this novel and over the period of time it was lost in the abyss of commuting in train and life in general. So for my parents' wedding anniversary last month, I presented them this book among other things. My father finished reading it and its my mom's turn. (They flip a coin to see who gets to read first). She reads about a hundred pages a day and she would google some stuff for more clarification. When I perform my daily rituals of applying lotions, foot cream, hand cream et al, my mom summarizes the portion she read for the day. I told her that I will be reading it after she finishes it, but it looks like she is enjoying all the reading and associated additional reading that she is doing over the net. I kept quiet and allow her to explain me the details of the book.
Its actually kind of nice. I think I understand, to an extent, why mothers want their daughters to learn cooking at a very young age. Its quite possible that the girls would get married quite soon and they would not get much time to spend with their mother in future. So, helping mom in kitchen was a kind of boding and they could share more things inside the kitchens rather than outside.
It might not be kitchen, but still, its a very pleasant experience.

Labels: book, daily life, mom

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Three things -

I was catching up with my reading and I ended up reading abstract of a now defunct journal which talks about three different versions on Unified theory.
Last week I was watching X-Files out of sheer boredom and there was a statement made by Mudler - "Each universe can produce only one outcome.
In Solitaire (or Sudoku) for that matter, the game has only one solution.

I felt that the three items are kind of related. Irrespective of the number of choices that one is presented with, the end can be achieved by choosing the right one. I wont be debating on if the end is "correct" or "moral" or "right" or any of those quasi-philosophical metaphors. Solitaire as I understand has one solution. During the course of the game, if one flip is missed or wrong card is dropped to newly vacated space, then in all probabilities, the game is gone. In the journal which I stumbled upon, presented with three versions of unified theory. One by relativist, one by theorist and the third - its never clear in the article. Read the article here. The author calls this phenomenon as "convergence of the minds". I heard something similar in "Fringe" but passed it out as a myth. In theory, greatest minds at times converge on one single idea or one single point of view. The interpretations and/or derivation which follows this idea could be different but the basis of their beliefs always remains constant. This argument leads to the second bullet point. The first time I heard this dialogue, I had missed "Each" in the sentence. This one word brings about a complete change in the meaning of the sentence. Mulder understands the possibility of multi-verses and that is the reason why he concludes that per universe, the solution or the outcome is always constant thus subtly hinting that time travel would not marr the essence of time in a given reality. This theory is interesting since the basic concept is derived from space-time paradox that Einstein documented post-relativity era.
In "Fringe" Dr. Walter Bishop explains the basic concept of multi-verse in a simple sentence.
"The road not taken."

Labels: General, retrospect

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I liked my old template. A lot. But its been a while since I had it so I decided today to change it to something new. What I have now is sober enough for my taste and does not consume too much of space in useless pictures. I am still searching for a decent skin.
What say about this template?

Labels: Blogs, Fun

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I was chatting with an old colleague of mine who was cribbing endlessly that he spends more time in replying/checking/follow-up emails rather than getting some work done. Today I decided to see how much time I spend in office doing same activity. Unfortunately today I was not able to perform this experiment as the number of emails that I received was marginally less. (The day is not over yet, but I am not checking my emails anymore.) But nonetheless, I found few catch phrases which annoy me endless and certain conversations which bring some sanity back into my job.

Annoyance:
"Please correct me if I am wrong" : I hate this phrase with a vengeance. The guy who wrote this email, was explaining a feature which he is supposed to know. Technically. But here is the kicker. If there is one tiny mistake in the explanatory email, then the concerned audience in the "To" list will rip him apart and the repercussions of the actions are slightly disturbing. So people write this statement and mark a copy to people (read:morons) who are aware of what they are talking. So the whole statement is now translated to: "There is a high probability that whatever I am writing is incorrect. If you don't get an addendum email from the person in "cc", then most probably I am right. If I am wrong and you still don't get corrected email, then blame the person who is copied in the email."
I called up the guy and asked him - "What am I? Your mommy?"
The idiot simply laughed. I doubt he understood my sarcasm.

Happy:
I got this call in the afternoon. "M, there is a drop in finance projection for next quarter by approximately 9K. Tell me why."
See this statement? There is no dilly-dallying and the question is right on target. Of course background is lacking but when it comes to questions on finance, there is always something or the other lacking. In next two minutes I was in Net Meeting and sharing screen and checking for any mistakes. The guy who called me gave me few minutes to think over. And then the answer clicked and I gave him my response. The entire conversation took about five minutes and he had got the answer that he needed and my migraine didn't complain.

Impressed:
I like the way the quality guy writes his emails. "M, I received your project plan. Thank you for submitting on committed date. Please expect a feedback from me (reject/accept) by 15:00 tomorrow. " I love the certainty that oozes out of his email. I was kind of relaxed this afternoon so I buzzed him on IM. "Hey, what do I do if I don't get a response from you? " He didn't respond me for a minute or two. This lag time is expected. "You will not encounter that scenario. " I just replied a hurried "OK. Thanks." I like people who give an absolute answer rather than an ambiguous one. I, for one, would have replied "If everything goes as per my plan tomorrow and for the rest of the day, there is a high probability that your plan might be accepted by end of business unless a higher proiority/critical task gets assigned to me."
Seriously, I should stop being so diplomatic/politically correct and start answering in Boolean.

Confused:
"M, you will like it here. SFO is so beautiful and for a person like you, who dislikes driving car and prefers walking or taking subway, this city is ideal." OK. The statement seemed very innocent. But my hands stilled on the keyboard. What did he mean by "...you will like it here..". Was it something that a person says - "I was in this restaurant today and I think you will like it there"? Like referring something? Or was it along the lines of - "Its a good town and its something you need to visit in future". Its odd as he knows that I am working with a Swiss account so travelling to US is close to nil.
I am kind of avoiding the alternate explanation.
For now.

Labels: daily life, Time Pass

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There is something really haunting about June sky. I took this picture this morning. I have been meaning to take a picture but somehow keep forgetting it. The sky was simply beautiful. The momentary calmness and serenity that I felt made me forget the migraine that I woke up with. Migraines are intolerable when there is a annoyance and frustration resides. So today by 10 AM office was pure purgatory. I took up my friend's offer and went out to pick up coffee.
I am a little partial to monsoon compared to other seasons especially here in my hometown as the weather gets very pleasant and there is a breeze which hums in the background. I really cannot explain the contentment that I get when I am sitting in the cafeteria staring at blue and white sky and sipping on a mug of cappuccino. Its hard to explain the contentment one gets by appreciating natural beauty. Its not goal oriented, its not because of financial gain and the best part is that it has nothing to do with the person who is looking at it. Its the disjointedness, I think which makes the experience all the more agonizingly wonderful. I wonder if this is what people keep searching for. A state of mind in which there are no conditions to be covered, no hurdles to be crossed and no goals to be attained. It just is. Its as simple as that.
Its already end of the month I think I will be missing this blue-white June sky. Monsoon is set and the same blue sky will be covered with darker colored clouds and that ain't fun.
Oh well, at least I finally remembered to take this picture; something to hold on to for next eleven months till the same nostalgic contentment feeling will hit me.

Labels: Fun, personal

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My productivity is only seven hours a day (out of 9.15 hours which I spend in office. The additional few hours that I spend at home working, is uncredited and unaccounted for). Its a fact that it has been proved. I think there was some sort of fancy report bound in a glossy plastic file was handed out in of the sessions that I attended on productivity. This week, I have been working a lot. By lunch, I find that I have finished most of the stuff that I have planned for the day and by Wednesday, it started freaking me out a little. I found myself taking first break for the day at 3 PM or so, eating lunch at desk while reviewing design document or some code. By Wednesday evening I was fully exhausted.
I called Aki to check if everything was fine with her and mostly because I was feeling kind of bored.
After few minutes of talking she asked me about office and I told her that I was getting more work done since I had no distractions. I ranted for five minutes as to how bored I was in office since I did not get many phone calls or emails. So this made me clear all my backlog of work which had been pending for couple of weeks now. I finished my rant by telling her that even though I have been working my ass off and being extremely productive, something was amiss. I stopped to take a swig of pineapple juice and she was silent for couple of moments. ANd then she asked me.
"M, is this your weird and round about way of telling me that you miss me?" I was surprised. There was no point lying to her.
"Yeah, I guess so." She laughed and then continued conversation without making a bid deal out of it for which I am thankful. We chatted for few more minutes and hung up feeling a little better.
Before I think myself as a character from a lame teen drama, I think I will stop this now.

BTW, am currently watching FF10 walkthrough. The story line is pretty lame. I have seen bloggers talking about FF12 being much better however Advent Children: FF7 being the best of all. Hmm..should give FF12 a try. Soon.

Labels: Fun, personal, Time Pass

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Four years ago, in 2005, I shared a flat with two cartoons in Detroit suburbia. For the next two years, I had a blast there with a huge group of friends and extremely stressful work. I don't know why but I feel that I can perform better when there is stress or pressure from client/management is involved. One of my flatmate, cartoon-1 (C1, for future references) had a boyfriend back home. One night we were watching a show on Zee TV ("Rabba Ishq na Hove" or something like that. The three of us hating watching anything of this sort back home but in US, all we watched was daily soaps.!!) and then I asked her.
"Hey, when you are with Kevin, how do you know that you have butterflies in your stomach and its not nausea?" C1 stared at me.
"You know on any average normal day you are a little weird but there are certain days when your weirdness actually makes me think." She retorted. We could hear C2 grumbling about something about the show. I really don't know why C2 and I watched that show. It was ultimately cliched. It was Friday and as per Friday tradition, we had a thirty minute drive to watch a Hindi movie (any Hindi movie. No preference, did not care for reviews.) and we generally ate a decent dinner before we left for the cinema (around 9 PM). And this show was from 7 to 8. How convenient was that! Anyway, my question had sprung after watching a scene from "Dawson's Creek". C1 looked as if she was still contemplating on answering or she had really screwed up spicy Kerala curry (her specialty).
"MB, you just know", she answered. OK. This kind of an answer really freaks me out. Its hard to know something without actually knowing it, isn't it? What I mean is, if I need to make a coherent reply to a certain question posed, then I should have all the facts with me which I have gained/learned/heard/read/seen over a period of time to give a proper answer. How can anyone just know? Sounds very X-Files-ish. She must have guessed my idiocy in not understanding her answer, so she tried to answer in detail. Keyword here: tried.
"When you are with the person whom you like a lot, its best to give into the intuition and what your gut says rather than over analyzing everything you feel or trying to rationalize whatever you go through." She "rationalize" like a foul word. I had to smile at that.
"Oh no no. I am not like that."
"So you do know a person whom you like a lot." She said this in teenage girlish sing-song voice which made C2 laugh. C2 decided that our conversation was more interesting than the TV show so she settled herself next to microwave, her legs swinging and eating ice-cream. She had two spoons with her just in case C1 and I decided to attack ice-cream. She was (still is!) sweet that way.
"Come on, I simply meant that I don't over analyze everything."
"MB, when X1 (a guy, her friend's friend or whatever. Just 'guy' thing is important in this context and according to lot of people, he had a crush on me apparently. What was he 15?) asked you if you would like to meet him at Stanly's (Its a nice pub that played good alternative rock), you asked him if he was asking you to be his DD - designated driver." She sighed exasperatedly. C1 an C2 exchanged a look that I define as - We know something you don't and we are being smug about it. Its annoying.
"Wasn't he?" I asked them surprised. Well, I am a little dumb when it comes to these kinds of subtlety but I am not that dumb and besides I read people fairly well.
"You are kidding, right MB?" Oh well, being honest is better than weaving a story, any day. Besides, I was really hungry and I was having a new confusion: Was I hungry or was I feeling nausea.
"Yeah, I am. Its better that way you know?"
"In what way?" Seriously why was I getting third degree?
"I just know." I felt like patting my back. C1 and I started at each other for a few minutes and then I did a victory dance. She looked at C2 for support and they were about to begin their interrogation when the bell rang. Saved by the bell. As I walked towards the door to let our friends in, C1 shouted from kitchen.
"This is not over yet." C2 was nodding, standing next to her.
I simply stuck my tongue out.

Labels: Fun, Nostalgia, Time Pass

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I bought this today. Well, its not exactly the same, but quite similar to what I got. What I purchased is made of leather and is super soft. Its Bata and its good. It was love at first sight.
I had not even planned to buy (yet) another pair of footwear. A friend wanted to buy one for herself and she is extremely particular about what she buys. Unfortunately she has little luck with size since Bata does not stock much of size 7! (I am size 5 and that is 7 and 1/2 in US) I find that very very weird. If she liked the style, it was not available in her size. What she found in her size was something that a young woman definitely doesn't like wearing to office.
After about one hour, she found something that looked pretty and in her size too. We decided to eat pani puri at roadside and while walking towards our latest destination, she mutterd, "We never get anything that we want. Either size is wrong or the style is old or if both are right, then product has some defects or it will not suit me. I think thats why we start compromising so easily sincing losing opportunity would mean paying a heavy price later. "
She was right in lots of ways. But oh well, I have new shoes! No time for subtle fancy moral of the story :-)

Labels: Fun, personal, Shoes

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I want this song out of my head. Really. I have been listening to this song non-stop for last two weeks. I can remember every chord of the guitar and every stroke of violin. I had always avoided "The Verve" as they give mostly indie or psychedelic music; neither being my favorite or something that I would like to listen to. So, I had never heard of this song till last Wednesday. And then I saw "Cruel Intentions". I watched this movie for one scene by Joshua Jackson (thanks to "Fringe" he is my latest obsession. As I write this post, I am watching a movie called "Shutter" which is again by Josh Jackson but horror genre) where in he plays "Blane" a fag. His role is hilarious and I watched the entire movie again as I had nothing else to do. And in the end, they play this song during Sebastian's funeral.
I have watched this movie before but I never paid much attention to music. For many years, thats how I watched movie. Only for the last five or so years, I have paid attention to background score, OST and stuff like that. Its been eight years since I had seen this movie and it was a refreshing change to see it again after all these years.
And when the song played. the first thing that came to my mind is, I riding my bike during windy and rainy afternoon, my tears mixing with rain and I am skillfully maneuvering my bike around the pot holes on an empty street.
Of course only yesterday I remembered that the above mentioned sequence was not my imagination and it did happen one July afternoon.

Labels: Muisc, Nostalgia

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Couple of weeks ago I decided auto to office as I had to go there really early, around 6:30-ish. Normal rates from my house to my office in an auto is around 120-130 rupees without running the meter. And no one is ready to take the auto with the meter on for long distances. OK, its not that far, hardly 14 kms or so, but the size of town in which I live in, its really, really far!
Anyway, I hailed an auto and asked him for the price. Its kind of formality that one has here. In these kinds of conversation the driver asks for a price which is almost twice the amount of normal fare. If the customer is a local, then he/she will argue, crib and bitch and finally the auto wallahs give up and agree up on a decent fare. The answer I got from the auto guy is the first time I have ever heard in my life.

Auto wallah: Madam, if I run meter, the fare will come to 90 rupees. But looking at you, going to "that" company, carrying a laptop, I think its fair on my part to ask you to give me 120 rupees.
Me: Why additional 30 rupees? You know I work as hard as you to earn money.
Auto wallah: Its not that madam. See your company is so far. Its high risk for me to go there at this hour when I know for sure that I don't get any return customers. So to get at least people who can afford to take an auto, I have to travel back five to six kilometers without any customers. So this additional money is like back up for me.

After listening to this I got in to that auto. I have always loved traveling in auto and I think its the best vehicle around. OK, I know 99% of the population thinks otherwise but I find it very fascinating to travel in auto.

Me: Do you give this reasoning to everyone who takes your auto?
Auto wallah: No madam. I tell this to people who will listen and to whom I think might understand my point of view.
Me: How did you know that I will get into your auto even after you told me that you are going to charge me extra?
Auto wallah: Its in your face. And besides you smiled when I said I am charging you extra.
Me: What do you see in my face?
Auto wallah: You like honest thieves. At this, he grinned at me. I smiled back.
Auto wallah: You know madam, once I rigged this auto meter and made more money than I am making now. But somehow I always felt that money made that way somehow seemed to get spent on unnecessary things. In the end, even after driving around the city for hours and making good money, end of the day accounts did not reflect that. So I decided to get clean and started living a honest life.
Me: Do you make good money now?
Auto wallah: Of course not. But I seem to manage whatever I earn very well. I am not leading a lavish life but a contended one.
Me: Are you happy then?
Auto wallah: We can be happy whenever we want madam. But we put so many rules and predetermined expectations that we validate those things before accepting our state of mind being "happy" or "sad". Now I am telling you that I am charging you extra fare. After this every customer has a choice. If they agree to my fare, then its a very fair and square deal. Isn't it?
Me: Perhaps. I don't know. Even you had a choice for not asking me for extra money.

We were hardly couple of kilometers from my office campus and on the way there are many small scale industries. There were many young women walking briskly.

Auto wallah: You see these ladies madam? If they were to ask me to drop them, I will mostly do it for free or charge them very less, depending on the distance. But for people like you, I don't feel a twinge of guilt in asking more.

He said this quite frankly. I didn't know what to make of it.

Me: Isn't that biased?
Auto wallah: Of course it is. Bias is there everywhere in every aspect of life. You can afford 30 rupees and perhaps forget about the entire conversation as soon as you enter your campus gate. Or you might crib about over priced auto fares in AC rooms amidst your friends. But these ladies who are briskly walking, they remember me, my face and they will ask my name and thank me heartily.

We had reached my office by then.

Me: Thank you.
Auto wallah: For what?
Me: For your words, of course.
Auto wallah: Oh. But I can bet my auto on this: you are going to forget my face in next one hour. Maybe not this conversation, not right away at least.
Me: Maybe
Auto wallah: Good Luck Madam?
Me: For what?
Auto wallah: For everything!

He laughed and drove away.

I think he is right. One day, I am going to forget this tiny conversation I had with a man whom I don't think I will ever meet again. And if I do meet him, I might not recognize him.
Somehow, that thought makes me sad.

Labels: Auto, Slice of life

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I did something like this before. I deleted my account from every social networking site in an impulsive decision and I have not bothered to venture into that again. I find it extremely boring now. And today, I deleted all my fiction writing accounts. Reason? I am not liking what I write. Being at home for a week gave me a lot of time to retrospect. (Retrospect = find faults and mistakes and realize how idiotic one is being :-) Basically its being honest with oneself) So now I am not going to post in any website anymore. I am a little partial to my fanfiction.net account so I am going to keep that for a while I guess.
In last four days, I have visited five different specialists for various reasons: Migraine, skin, dental, eyes, ENT :-) I have started to mess up with my medication because of the quantity that I have to ingest.
I remember a quote from Criminal Minds, Season 1: "Everyone is medicated".
Ah, well, my migraine tablets have reduced my headaches but has made my insomnia return back with a vengeance. The best part is, I am not tired nor my eyes are puffy for the lack of sleep. I am actually quite active (hyper, even) and feel refreshed after only two hours of sleep. Its good in a way, actually. I am catching up with my reading and my office work too and I rarely have anything pending for the coming weeks.
I am waiting till the other shoe drops. :-)

Labels: Fan fiction, General, Impulsive

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