The Time Paradox

Memories...

You think of some and remark, "Oh my! I remember like it was yesterday!"

You think of some others and say, "Wow. Seems like ages ago."

The former maybe (chronologically) older than the ones in the latter category. 

Time can speed away, and crawl miserably. At the same time.

The Window Pane

You're driving a car.

Or simply sitting by the window looking out at the garden. 

You suddenly notice that the window pane is dirty - it has all these smudges.

And then you realize it. If you're too busy focusing on the smudge, then you really don't see where you're going; you cannot appreciate the beauty of the blooms. And if you're focusing on the road ahead, or the lovely sight of the flowers in that garden - you don't really notice those smudges on the pane; you don't quite "see" them.

You can focus only on one thing at a time. You always have that choice. 

So, what are you looking at - the smudge, or something beyond?

A Suitable Boy

I remember this one time we went shopping with Dad when we were kids (eight years old, I believe). As I passed by the books section, a particular one caught my fancy. It had this bright red cover (hardbound, I think) with golden lettering. And it was a FAT book.

"Buy me that", I insisted. He checked out the book (and the price, of course). No, he said firmly. He still does not understand why I would buy books - fiction, that is. His idea of book-buying is for 'general knowledge' (as he puts it). As kids the few books he did buy us were - an edition of the Encyclopedia, 'More Tell Me Why', Wren & Martin, Oxford English Dictionary and 'Who said What'. That probably explains a lot of things, including my love for quotes.

Anyway, I did not get that book, and had to settle for a couple of Archie comics.

It's funny that years later the one thing that eludes me is precisely that - a suitable boy.

(Of course, I don't mean the book. Also, I am yet to read it.)

Embers

That dull ache in a corner of the heart glows like embers.

Ashy, yet bright. Cold, and yet hot.

The fire that raged consumed a part of the mind.  But no one noticed. No one else felt the heat. All there is to see now are the ashes. And they tell no stories.

It still sears upon touch; and threatens to flare into flames, if stoked. Wanton winds there are.

Snuffed out, it shall never be. It gives warmth… still. Memories of a fire, and the scar.

And all there is now is silence. Dead silence.



Aam Sutra

It’s summer time and there really is nothing that makes me like it (dhoop, paseena, and what not!). I’d rather shiver than sweat. But then, there’s always an exception and it is…mangoes!

Passive Aggression

Yours Virtually…

Can you really know what farming is like by merely playing FarmVille on FB?

Or what it really feels like to be in involved in the ‘underworld’ – risking your lives, committing crimes day and night - by playing Mafia Wars?

Or building and managing a city playing CityVille?

To run a cafe with a little of Cafe World, perhaps?

An emphatic NO, is it not?

Then WHY, for the love of God, do we have THIS now?!! (More on that.)

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

So wrote William Henry Davies in his very famous poem Leisure.

It isn't about standing and staring any more, is it?

It's all about sitting and staring...

At our laptop or desktop screens (at home and at work), at our cellphones/BBs, at the TVs... isn't it?

Intonations - Part 2: Write right?

‘Sounding right’ may be easier when voice/speech is involved (of course, at its best along with the visible part - body language). But what of it in written communication? Not too hard to achieve now, is it not?

Gone are the days when only words were used to convey exactly what we wanted; when the choice of words, length of sentences, syntax, punctuations and the like were sufficient to capture and carry our emotions/feelings (“tone”) to the reader. With the advent of internet, instant messengers/chats, SMS, etc. we’ve conveniently added, modified, re-invented and continue to enrich our lexicon.

Intonations - Part 1: Sound Bytes

Human voice is hard to mimic or replace. No surprise then, that digitizing human speech (to near perfection) seems like a dream. Well, perhaps not? 

If you really think about it, it’s the modulation and intonations that are the hardest to grasp and reproduce. I mean - you, I and a million others could be saying the same sentence, but the way we say it (i.e. the tone) makes all the difference. I remember attending a lecture/talk few years ago, where the speaker demonstrated the same with a very simple example. I shall include it, for your benefit.

Bits-n-Pieces!

What do you generally do with these – bus tickets, movie tickets (any ticket, in fact), receipts, bills, ATM receipts? Those small pieces of paper that are ‘useless’. Chances are:

• Bus tickets – You won’t even wait for the conductor to hand it to you. And even if he did, you just toss them aside, or crumple them and throw them out the window, or what’s more often seen – just leave it in the bus and it’ll be floating/flying like confetti.
• Movie tickets - You save it till the end of the show. Once the movie is done, you throw them there for the sweepers to clean.
• Receipts/Bills – You absent-mindedly take them from the cashier and stuff it somewhere in the shopping bags or in your purse. If you do keep it carefully it’s because – you need it as proof for reimbursement; it’s a ‘group purchase’ and you need to settle the ‘accounts’; if you did a debit/credit card purchase you keep it for a while to ensure that the transaction was error-free.
• ATM Receipts – You look at the Balance, heave a sigh and toss it (after crumpling/tearing) in the basket provided. Some just don’t bother with the basket or the crumpling.

Now, what do I do? 

Simplicity!

I lost my debit card (something that happened a few days ago), and got it back too (!), all in a matter of… 60 seconds!

60 seconds because I realized that I had lost it, and then got it back, all at the same time. The funny thing is that I hadn’t realized it was missing until it was brought to my apartment. An Infoscion we know, who lives in the block next to ours, brought it to me. How? Her husband found it on the road!

You see, I’ve this purse that has a strap that can be slung around the wrist, and that’s how I usually carry it with me. There have been several times before where I’ve realized that I forget to zip it. So I’m assuming that’s what happened this time around too. I did some shopping near the other office and must’ve dropped it on the way back. But thankfully for me the card went into the right hands!

But then, I realized another thing. There is another MAJOR factor that ensured that I got that card back. My SIGNATURE!! Yes, that’s right. Go ahead, check your debit card if you don’t believe me. Barring that signature at the back, what can possibly (immediately) indicate who it belongs to??? I have always been advised by my dad to keep a “complicated” signature so that it cannot be forged (yes yes, he has a complex one!). I’ve been mocked by a few friends, because I literally “write my name” for a sign. Yea, my signature is a very-obvious Vijitha V. (in cursive writing!). I have not been successful at creating a signature that resembled a kid's doodle or scribble. Primarily because I can never, ever, reproduce the gibberishes I’ve tried the second time around (and there’s every possibility that I will be ‘caught’ for forgery if I’m unable to replicate my own signature)! So, sadly, I had resigned to the fact that my signature ain’t gonna be ‘fancy’ way back in 1999 (while renewing my passport, and subsequently for the Board Exams). But…THANK GOD for that! Simple is indeed beautiful!

So in short, these two things worked for me… Amen!

Relaxation...

What do you do when you feel you need some time by yourself?

When you feel you need to ‘relax’ or ‘unwind’?

When you feel you need to ‘sort things out’ in your head?

Read? Listen to music? Watch TV? Go on a drive? Talk to someone you’re close to?

I clean.

Do I Know You?

Yea, I often ask this question to myself (not aloud) - when I open a social networking site (Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn…).

The other day I happened to be checking Orkut after a while. And I felt like I was back in 2004 (the year I joined Orkut). There were close to 10 friend requests. Barring one (who happened to be an old friend from school) the others were all strangers. You might ask me - What’s the big deal? Click on ‘no’ and forget it. Yea, I have been doing that all this while. (It has been like a ritual for me ever since I joined Orkut, you know). But there are these things, which if it occurs often/constantly, begins to get on your nerves!

I cannot fathom how people go about this “friendship gathering”. I mean, how do they narrow down on their ‘targets’? How do they go about searching for one, in the first place? Do they stumble on them by accident or do they search for them by certain criteria (interests, location,…)? What makes them think that some form of compliment; or trying to sound desperate; or even resorting to obscenity will win them “friends”? Someone please tell me, I’m completely lost!! (And it would also be interesting to get views from the other side.) I wish I had saved some of the hilarious, corny, mushy, and plain idiotic messages I have had the (mis)fortune of seeing (along with the requests I got). Ah, if only I’d known that I would be blogging about it some day! :-P I’ve been complimented on my smile, my beauty (??), my snaps (two albums containing nature pics are public) and my (“interesting”) profile as such. Thank you very much, but all that ain’t gonna get you nowhere!! And what bugs me THE most is that one sentence that seems to be passed around like it’s gonna make all the difference – “I want friendship with you.”… Uggghhhhhh!!!!! There was probably a time when I would’ve talked to total strangers online, if I thought they might be interesting; maybe returned a scrap or two…but I am over it now. Doesn’t make sense, you know.

Coming to the next category of ‘Do I know you?’. These are people who you are slightly (or a little more) familiar with. Could be your batchmates (other classes or branches); juniors or seniors at school/college; friends of friends (of friends…); friends of your sibling(s); cousins or relatives (who you probably don’t come across often); neighbours (or ex-neighbours); children of your parents’ colleagues; tuition-mates; etc. etc. (This list is quite endless, isn’t it!). Now, this is the category I’m undecided about. When I get friend requests from this category, I wonder - to add or to not add… that is the confusion! It’s not like I’ve talked much to them when I had a chance to (works both ways, by the way). But they send you a request nevertheless. And some also remind you how you know them. Isn’t it rude to reject them? Or is it ok? S/he didn’t really make an effort to connect in any way when there were opportunities, so why now? Networking, some may say. But I’m a skeptic about these things. I find it a little odd, to be frank. But, having said that, I have connected well with a few people this way. So I guess it goes both ways. But you’ll find that a majority tend to be people who add you and then forget all about it. Sometimes it’s their updates that may remind you that they’re on your friends list! (And maybe even the excess of that, which may start bothering you).

The third kind of ‘Do I know you?’ are relatives. I know I did mention them above. But the thing is, you know them by a certain name, or rather pet name. You don’t know their official name. They send you a request and you wonder who it is. Recently I got such a request from my cousin. He is all of 13 years of age and (thankfully) had mentioned his pet name (the name we all know him at home by) in brackets. Otherwise… there was nothing in his profile that suggested that I know him! He had this ‘muscle man’ pic in his profile and all. I would’ve rejected that request with no second thought, deciding it was the usual bit of ‘wanting friendship’ requests (had it not been for that name in the bracket!). But yea, there is the ‘mutual friends’ you can check out in the profile too (but you’ll soon give all that up and just click yes/no right at your homepage. I mean, who has the time or inclination to check out every requestor’s profile??). And then that got me thinking on another tangent. It’s true that all this 'social networking euphoria' has worn away for me. I’m no longer excited by friend requests and scraps and all that. But still, each generation is slowly getting acquainted to this online media (at even younger ages!). Very impressionable minds those...things may go wrong (and they do). That’s why we still have accidents and deaths due to online alluring. Hmmmmmmm…

Anyway, now I have some 400+ odd friends on Orkut and some 290+ odd on Facebook. (Not bragging about numbers here. I KNOW there are people who’ve got way waay more!). And I think it’s time I ‘weeded’ them (or atleast set different levels of privacy). I plan to, when I get a net connection. No offense to anyone, but I really don’t see why they should be in my list. I know it’s a way of passing time, getting to know about all the ‘action’ in other people’s lives and all that. But one thing we must all realize is that we’re, in turn, unwittingly letting them in, into our lives as well (and maybe you’re not comfortable with it). You really don’t think twice before posting stuff on your profile (pictures, taglines/status messages, etc.), do you? Most people are harmless and probably won’t mess around with any information they happen to come across. But… can you be sure? From now on, I know that I will think twice (or more) before adding people. No point adding people for the heck of it, right?

How about you?

The Truth

No. I am not referring to the Mammootty starrer. Far from it. I am talking about THE truth.

Something I saw on TV a couple of nights back got me thinking. It was this show called ‘The Moment of Truth’, of which Season 2 is currently being aired on Star World. Whatever I saw of the promos got me really intrigued and I wanted to check it out. It definitely promised to be scandalous, what with the participants being asked “increasingly personal and embarrassing questions to receive cash prizes”. The episode I saw happened to be that of an engaged couple (a first on the show), where questions would be asked alternatively to each of them.

Prior to the show, the participants would be asked 50 (personal) questions, while they were hooked onto a polygraph and they would answer these. The polygraph, obviously, is to verify the verity of the answers, but the particpants are never told how they fared. On the show they’d choose 21 questions of these 50, and the participants get to answer them on national television. For each level (with multiple questions) they clear successfully they get a cash prize, with upto $ 500,000 at stake. A wrong answer (where what you said and what the polygraph detects does not tally) means that game’s over. The show would also have family and/or friends of the participants when the drama would play out.

“That’s it? All I have to do to get that much money is to tell the truth?”, you may think. Not so easy. That’s why you’ve got to watch the show! The episode I saw was indeed interesting. Since it involved an engaged couple, that meant their very relationship was at risk. Each level was more difficult that the preceeding one. It started with questions related to money, then moved on to those related to family and friends, and finally got into specifics about the two of them. They won $100,000 and (very wisely) decided to quit the show there (and not get into any more mess than they already had!). In any case, I thought they had enough going for a fight that could last quite a while!. The End? Not quite. The game show host had another (enticing) ‘offer’ for them. Answer another question on the polygraph (backstage) and for the right answer win $ 5,000 each. They were told the question right there, and they could decide whether to give it a shot or not. The question was simple (??) enough – Do you still want to get married? (!!!!) To my surprise the woman agreed, leaving her fiance with not much of a choice. He did too. What happened? She said a ‘yes’ and it turned out to be true. And him? He said a ‘no’ (and yea, that answer turned out to be true too). They might have won some money, but then…

Anyway, there was this line the host kept repeating throughout the show that was very relevant. "You can play further rounds… but at what cost?” Sure, you can win more money. All you need to do is say the truth (the absolute truth and nothing but the truth). But is it worth it? Yea, sure… the “truly truthful” out there may sit and scorn, and pass judgement on the others – Why should someone be so fearful of telling the truth, unless they’ve done or said things that are shameful?

But the truth is... no one can be completely truthful (how ironical!). You need not have to deliberately tell a lie. Not telling a truth is akin to lying, albeit it maybe called ‘hiding’. There are things you wouldn’t tell others because it may hurt them. There are things that, if made known, will ruin your peace of mind. There are some things you are better off not knowing as certain (you’d rather not know something and have some hope, than know for certain and feel miserable). Sometimes you “know” things are a certain way and you may not like it. Even though you “know” it, it feels a lot worse if someone gives those thoughts words, and thereby confirmation. Also, things change, people change, situations change. What was true once, may not hold good now. Some things are private - your innermost thoughts (or feelings). You probably wouldn’t trust telling it to anyone. We may also choose not to be completely truthful in our self-interest. And what is 'truth' anyway? Aren't all these perceptions? When it comes to facts and figures there is an absolute truth. But what about feelings? Those are subjective enough. Hell, even we're not sure of it sometimes, so how can you judge whether it's a truth or a lie?

Come to think of it, every day we decide about these things... even in the smallest of things we do. To say or not to say; to do or not to do... that is the question. Even when our conscience prods us "to do the right thing", we ask ourselves - at what cost? Some people are willing to get some money for the fact that they'd like to tell the truth (for a change!). Others don't want the money, nor the truth. Few will tell the truth, lead honest lives (atleast as honestly as humanly possible) and don't need money to motivate them.

But eventually when we look at it... We all lie. We all hide. No one can live peacefully by baring all. That is an absolute fact. And if anybody out there claims otherwise… what more proof!

Think about it.

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please - you can never have both. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no Truth. There is only the truth within each moment. ~ Ramana Maharshi (attributed)

[P. S. An Indian version of the show already aired last year, Sach ka Saamna. There were plans of a simliar show to be hosted by SRK, but guess that didn't take off.]

Glee!

The dictionary definition for ‘glee’ (the emotion) is:

• Open delight or pleasure; exultant joy; exultation
• Jubilant delight; joy

                                      

But somehow I associate this word with children or childhood. It’s probably because the kind of joy and delight implied by the word is experienced mostly when we’re really young – carefree and with reckless abandon. And it really doesn't matter how old we are, the “child within us” will emerge from time to time.

Recently, here at Infy, we had a small Road Show organized by the Toastmasters Club during lunch hours. They had small word games where those interested could participate and win chocolates as prizes. Some of the games included Spelling Bee, Word Building and Hangman. Now, you’d wonder whether these kind of games and prizes (after all, chocolates) would really prompt 20+ year old working professionals into trying their hand at it. I had this doubt myself. Nevertheless I watched as the crowd there kept growing bigger. What was initially a trickle of people began developing into queues. I had to wait for my turn to try my hand at these games! And I was thrilled! Out of the four games that I tried, I won three and walked away happily with a Dairy Milk, Five Star and Cadbury Shots as prizes.

I quote this incident not to say that I ‘won’. But just think about it. Think of all the exhibitions, melas, fairs, shopping festivals and the like you’ve visited. Invariably you’d have seen atleast a few stalls there that were meant for games. You pay some money, play the game and try to win goodies. These are probably targeted at children, but are they the only folks you see around? You’d definitely find some grown-ups too! They’d hesitate at first, but will wait and watch the children attempting it for a while. Slowly you’ll see them take their wallets out and join in. It’s universal. Parents are often the ones who’re induced into it first because their children insist on playing. But soon you’d find others joining in too - groups of guys and/or gals. And I feel that it has a lot to do with the ‘glee’ factor… the sense of mirth or elation that you feel. The games are pretty much standard and not really exotic – throw a ball and tumble the stacked set of objects (usually tumblers), throw a loop and win the object on which it falls, shoot a target, Tambola/Bingo/Housie, show your might by using a hammer, etc. Can't really say that these are most ‘challenging’. And as far as the prizes go, they’re not the expensive kind. So what pulls the crowd? The glee factor…you feel victorious and happy, with a tinge of pride!

No matter how old we grow, some things don't change!