A reason to write

Call it inspiration,
Call it an immediate reaction,
Call it just showing off,
Call it anything..

I just found a reason to write..Why? Read on

Have any of you read The Funda of Mix-ology. If you haven't i would suggest you do. Its a book about finding the right balance in life and though not very fancy and I am sure not a critics favorites it does to seem to strike a chord somewhere atleast with me.

My posts (if you have read them before that is) must have told you that I have never failed to criticize any thing that happens in my life. I cribbed about college when I was there and I cribbed about my work and even now I crib about life at one of the best management institutes in the country but quiet frankly i have done nothing to actually make myself happy anywhere.

I missed the best parties in Manipal though I was invited to them, I worked in a good organization that gave me time to do my thing and still be recognized at work and now I am at a place that puts no barriers on what you intend to pursue and yet I complain.

I don't know how long this phase would last, I don't know if I will end up doing anything about it but what I do know is anytime that I read this post I would remember I can do something about thing about it.

What I shall try to do?

After a long long hiatus I am back.

Well a lot of water has flown under the bridge since I last posted.

I am no longer a face in the crowd in crowded Bangalore (though I miss being that sometimes), I am the face of Team Manfest, IIM Lucknow. Yes people I finally belled the CAT. (How?? Don't ask me that).

Ok this is what I intend to do now that I am a blogger again

1. Be more proactive.

2. Streamline my thoughts to give you some meaningful stuff to read.

3. Keep you in the loop about all the happenings in my life.

So as you see my first one n half months in IIM Hel(L) as we lovingly call it have taught me one thing. Big Words are good.

Don't worry I will keep boring you with the same old stuff again just that it will be from a brand new Lappy[:)] and from a brand new place.

This one is for all the music lovers out there

(Mis)Informed

I have been planning to write about this for along time. But somehow didn’t find the right words for it.

Today I was going through one of the forums on Orkut and I came across this

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=31192

My thoughts in this regard were more focused on India’s unceremonious exit from the World cup and how the media has been able to make an issue out of something that doesn’t really effect our daily lives. And I don’t really blame them for it. I think we are as much to blame as them. We make such a hoopla about these things that media just cashes on them.

But what I blame them for is their attitude while dealing with the issue. Media was supposed to be a tool of forming public opinion. But lately the barrage of news channels and print media has certainly changed this. Not once during the entire fiasco did I see any news channel take a stand and stick to it. Everyday they found a new scapegoat. And the previous day scapegoat became a Hero. Their attitude while covering the entire thing was that of just keeping people interested and glued to their channel no matter if they contradicted anything they had said as soon as an hour ago.

Earlier it was Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappel who made India lose, then it was the senior players in Sachin and Saurav and when Sachin came out with a statement it was Greg again. And when Greg quit it was the seniors again. And it was not as though they were reporting these things. No they weren’t. Rather they were openly blaming anyone and everyone whom they found guilty.

It was really sad to see that a medium that’s supposed to form a public opinion couldn’t form an opinion of their own. What drove these guys wasn’t News and keeping people informed. Rather it was the sponsors and the money. And it is as true for the Indian Media as it is for the British Media in the article above.

And it doesn’t end at sports. Movie stars, politicians, and even the common man isn’t spared by them. But sadly enough “we the people” like to get informed by news sources that would make the news interesting and spicy rather than let it be informative. It’s a vicious circle that we find ourselves in. and one of us has to find an exit out of this or we’ll be running around forever.

Globally Incomprehensible

It’s been a while since I last posted something. What can I say? I have been living quiet a normally exciting life of late. Normal because I have had nothing special going on and Exciting because I have finally got work that keeps me busy and makes me forget how normal things are.

Well now that I cribbed all the time through my posts that I had no work this time I thought I would crib about how much work I got on my hands and how people I don’t even know are trying to jeopardize my job.

Well most part of a project that I am part of is spent reading (I know I never did that when I had to in College and now I have to put up with it. Things you got to do to sponsor your weekend at Haze!!!). But it’s just no ordinary reading. We don’t get a nice little textbook to sit and read rather we have to put up with STANDARDS ( I never understood why they are called so?).

Anyhow people who have a degree in Engineering would have definitely heard of IEEE. Yes it’s that highly overpriced club in your college that you always thought was a waste of time money. I thought that too. But it seems the high honchos at this place somehow had read my mind and planned revenge even before I started going to college.

IEEE as you must know is a standardization institution. It takes up the best of all worlds for a given problem and standardizes the work so that the technology in use all over is the same. (I can’t believe I actually had to put that down. Feels like I am promoting my tormentors).

Anyhow, this standardized works are converted to standards in a standardized format (talk of double standards) and then forwarded to poor designers like us so that we can use them to make a design which meets the specifications listed in the standardized standard (Phew!!!). And that’s where these people not even remotely associated with me make my life a living hell.

Every time I sit with a new set of standards I wonder that how could so much work go into making a thing uniform and absolutely no work goes into making it understandable. It’s as if these people not even paying our salaries have decided that they want to try and prevent us from making a living. Not our employer, but these people who don’t even know who I am have decided that they want me to earn each penny. These people are supposed to make a global standard that everyone could understand. But I think they spend more time figuring out ways on how a person can be made to misinterpret what they are saying. It’s as if they are trying to make things “globally incomprehensible”.

Anyhow got to go now. Need to decipher what these guys have in store for me now. Adios People. Hope to be more regular in next time around.

Normal is Boring

9- The answer to the ultimate question, the answer to life, universe and everything. Douglas Adams made it so simple. Who would have imagined that the answer to the most complex question in the world could be simple? Or did we just not want to take a simplistic view of life. Have we really got used to complicating everything that comes in front of us? Have we forgotten that things just might be as simple as they look?

Now that we have established that we always take the non simplistic view of life, the question arises that are we doing it voluntarily or involuntarily?

I have got this feeling that’s been nagging me for quiet some time now. I have started feeling I am leading a really boring life. I have nothing exciting to look forward to. I have been stuck in a schedule. I wake up, go to office, come back, watch TV – this peppered with weekends spent in the bed day dreaming (in my sleep though), occasional visits to pubs to let off the steam. My life seems to have been restricted to these few activities and nothing else. In simple words my life is as normal as a techies life in Bangalore can be.

But when did I decide to barter my wishes for such a normally boring life. In college I used to have so much on my hands that I felt that God played a cruel joke on us by giving us just 24 hours in a day. My feeling hasn’t changed much; I still think God has played a cruel joke on us by giving us 24 hours in day – what does one do with so much time?

And still I hear people complaining that I never find time to call them or meet up. I have never found it difficult to have a conversation even with strangers. I had so much going on in my life at a time that I could go on and on when some one asked “WHATS UP”? But today, I really have nothing to say to a question like that. My life has become so predictable that even the shopkeeper beside my house knows what I would be doing at a given hour of the day. A year ago, I would have difficulty knowing what I would be doing 2 hours from the given time.

And when some one asks me today “HOWZ LIFE”? My answer is “NORMAL” and everyone thinks everything is fine. But what I actually want to say is life is NORMALLY BORING.

And that brings me back to the number 9. It’s not that the answer to the most complex question in the world can’t be this simple. It’s just that we don’t want it to be that simple cause that makes our life NORMAL. And that is the one thing I guess we are trying to run away from.

Life is good as long as it is complex, when your mind is filled with a thousand things, and you find 24 hours to be too less. An hour spent with loved ones at such a gives one more satisfaction and happiness than a month when you have your entire time dedicated to them because it simply steals the thrill of trying to do something for the people you love.

But that doesn’t change the fact that we really want to do something for or loved ones and I guess this is just another attempt to do that little something for al the people I care about.

I DO.. DO I?

It’s official. The marriage season is on. I have no other explanation for why almost everybody around me seems to be getting married or looking for prospective matches.

Weren’t these the people I played cricket with in the back alley of my house a few years back? Man we sure grow up fast. I am still having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that it’s going to be 6 months since I started working and all of a sudden I have to come to terms with the fact that quiet a few close friends and relatives are getting married.

But this post isn’t about me and how I have to come to terms with everything in my life (I am always complaining about that).

This post isn’t about marriage either but is about what we call “cheating” after marriage.

Once a person gets married, everyone expects a happily ever after. But the reality is a far cry from the fairy tales. Isn’t it?

Anyways, I have always wondered, why do people label having physical relations with someone after marriage as cheating. Why isn’t not being able to express your true feelings, your fears, and your insecurities to your spouse not considered as cheating. If you share such stuff with someone else it is considered to be healthy. Isn’t this cheating in a way too?

Or is it that marriage is just a certificate that allows two people to share a bed with each other only and with no one else. Where as their personal thoughts are for the world to know and comment on. Some how I have never been able to figure this out.

This does not make sleeping with someone else after you have vowed your faith to someone else any less punishable in my eyes. It is and will be cheating. But at the same time no being able to open up to your spouse where as being able to do so with someone else is also cheating. And I guess you not only cheat your spouse in this case you are cheating yourself too.