Musings
Choice, the problem is choice
Choices come back to haunt us. Always.
It is difficult to predict the future. But almost no one seems to be able to resist trying it.
At the moment, I cannot decide between concentrating continuing with PG, or on new applications for colleges abroad, or on giving CAT my best shot. The choices, I guess, ultimately boil down to two fundamental questions:how passionately I want PG to succeed, and whether I am ok with risking not getting into an MBA program this year. (more…)
The Stories We Never Hear
I just finished viewing this documentary, about a bunch of elite British Commandos who executed an amazingly brave (stupid?) and strategically incredibly important raid on a dock controlled by the Germans. The raid was so successful because it was “impossible”, and so brave, it has been called “the greatest raid of all time”.
The documentary did increase my awareness of the people who we barely hear about – the people on the front-lines, the ones protecting our borders and our shores.
But even more than that, what struck me was the absolutely unbelievably simple and common lives that these incredibly brave men went on to live. And how easily these men, who are now either dead or in their eighties and nineties, spoke about that night at St. Nazaire, about an extraordinary night that probably definitely changed the future of the world. (more…)
Relation Chips
An understanding of human relationships continues to elude me.
I guess like my friend says, I should stop being surprised astounded at how humans are. They just are the way they are. There is no right or wrong to them, just like there is no right or wrong to a coin toss.
I am having a difficult time accepting this.
I thought I was immune to fluctuations in people’s behaviour, but apparently and obviously, I am not.
As I look back at the relationships I have seen in my life, I seem to have arrived at just a single constant – nobody behaves the way you feel is the ideal way they should. (more…)
The life of a soldier
How much (or how little) do we know about the people fighting for our safety? Do you know what kind of life they lead? Their dreams? Their aspirations? Their personal battles? What are their lives like? What do they dream about? Do they find girlfriends easily? Do they like chocolate? What do their non-military friends and family think about? Why don’t they just follow in everyone else’s footsteps and do an MBA and go for a 9 to 6 job? Do they invest in mutual funds? Who does their taxes? Do they like fast bikes? Do their wives support them? What do they teach their kids?
Pritish Nandy laments the misuse of the word “Hero”, and the dearth of real heroes. But I think we are surrounded by them.
Its not just the soldiers. Even the neighbourhood policemen. The honest ones and the dishonest ones. The rich ones (ha!) and the poor ones. The fat ones and the fit ones. (more…)
What is marriage?
Marriage (noun)
- The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.
- The state of being married; wedlock.
- A common-law marriage.
Love marriages around the world are simple:
Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy.They get married.
In India, there are a few more steps:
Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy.
Girl’s family has to love boy. Boy’s family has to love girl.
Girl’s Family has to love Boy’s Family. Boy’s family has to love girl’s family.
Girl and Boy still love each other (hopefully). They get married.
- Chetan Bhagat. (except for the part in the brackets. That’s me.)
It seems like I cannot escape it anymore. Half the world is getting married (the rest already are). People are talking about it everywhere I go. People are inviting me to marriages everywhere I go. People are asking me the inevitable question everywhere I go. I of course feel my contemporaries’ kids will be in college by the time I am anywhere near producing a few of my own.
Humans as Corporations
In today’s “Corporate Dossier” supplement, I found this small piece dealing with “change”, tucked away on the 3rd page. It ends with “10 questions that leaders must ask of themselves and their organizations – questions that speak to the challenges of change at a moment when change is the name of the game. The leaders with the best answers win.”
The questions got me thinking. How similar (or different) are people and corporations?
My last day at my first job
The day before yesterday was my last day at my first job. Would have been pretty memorable anyways, given that it was my first job, and I have made some lovely friends there. But some other out-of-the-ordinary happenings definitely made it unforgettable.
For starters, I had some random people walk up to me and congratulate me. I don’t just mean people whose names I forgot. I mean people who I had never met in my life before. Why were they congratulating me? Well, they seemed to think I had a lot of balls for quitting without having any other job in my hand. Most didn’t believe me when I said i wanted to go for a biking trip. Maybe they just wanted to verify if I was as crazy as they had heard. I hope I didn’t disappoint them.
After spending about 11 minutes 26 seconds drafting my “Last day mail”, I spent another minute drafting another mail. An invitation to lunch. And sent it to Anshoo Gaur. Of course, I was not surprised when I did not receive a reply.
Pune Votes, Tomorrow
So tomorrow is the day I exercise my right to vote. The day i participate in the biggest democratic process in the world. The day I decide the fate of some 36 candidates in my constituency.
The day I count as much as the illiterate-beggar-drunkard-wife beater-thief-smuggler-rapist-murderer standing next to me in the line.
I have not yet decided who I will vote for. I do not think the candidates themselves matter much anyways. They will hardly do anything to significantly improve the Pune constituency. But the parties they belong to, and the strength they will be having, that will surely matter in the topics that are most likely to affect the country at large.
The 3 major parties in the fray, Congress, BJP and the BSP have fielded candidates who are what you expect them to be. Projected as clean, austere and the best thing to happen to Pune since mankind invented the wheel. I cannot even recall who is from which party. They all look and sound the same. All promise to improve Pune’s roads, water supply, transport system, etc etc etc.
Surprisingly, nobody mentioned anything about corruption. Hmm. I wonder why.
There will be time, there will be time
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
- T.S. Eliot ( The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock )
There will be a time, soon, when the Great Indian Tamasha will no longer be about vote banks and vote buying. Murders and rapes. Intimidators and the intimidated.
When it will be about people making informed choices about the way they want to be governed. Which to me, means less and less of governance, and more and more of self-reliance. Less of rules, more of rights AND responsibilities.
Less of clowns looking to ban anything they don’t understand, as a solution to problems they don’t understand, created because of following policies they don’t understand. And more of debates about these issues.
Huh? Who? Where? Whadda…?! Oh… i must have fallen asleep.
You Too Starting Ze Blogz?
Why am i starting a blog?
Well, for starters, this seems to be the final frontier when it comes to freedom of speech. All other media are apparently faced with some form of restriction or the other, whether self-imposed or not. Even governments / government institutions pretending to keep the “public’s best interest” at heart, put restrictions on our freedom of speech.
Besides, anything as entertaining as the upcoming elections in “the world’s biggest democracy” can hardly be ignored/not commented upon! Like the millions of educated brainwashed Indians, I too believe that my word truly has some worth. That I too shall make a difference. That my vote too counts. That there are honest politicians still alive in some corner somewhere. That India too will change. That we will script the changes.
(Cue “Hum honge kaamyaab… hum honge kaamyaab… hum honge kaamyaab… EK DINNN…”)