Thinking about what to do next year?

• Sing in your Own words,
• Don't worry about finding inspiration: It comes eventually,
• Being Poor Sucks
• Everybody has their own private mount everest they were put on this earth to climb
• The choice of media is irrelevant
• The best way to get approval is to not need it
• Savour obscurity while it lasts
• Don't try to stand out from the crowd, avoid crowds altogether
• You are responsible for your own experience
• Power is never given, power is taken
• Beyond a point, nobody cares
• Whatever choice you make the devil gets his due eventually
• Beware of turning hobbies into jobs
• Worrying about 'commercial' v/s 'artistic' is a complete waste of time
• Merit can be bought, passion can't
• When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams
• Allow your work to age with you
• Keep your day job
• Ignore everybody
• Dying young is overrated
• If your biz plan depends on you being suddenly being 'discovered' by some big shot, your plan will probably fail
• Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside
• The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do and what you are not
• Everyone is born creative, everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten
• The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it
• Selling out is harder than it looks

Tattoo

I finally got the design for my next tattoo nailed down. here is a first cut look.

The tattoo is a combination of two cultures, Buddhist and Hindu. I am not a religious person but these symbols and text appealed to me from a philosophical point of consideration.

The symbol in the center is the tibetan eternal knot. I have explained the meaning of this knot in a post before. Reproducing it here for referral purposes.

The endless knot has been described as "an ancient symbol representing the interweaving of the Spiritual Path, the flowing of Time and Movement within That Which is Eternal. All existence, it says, is bound by time and change, yet ultimately rests serenely within the Divine and the Eternal.

The Tibetan knot can stand for karmic consequences: pull here, something happens over there. It is an apt symbol for the Vajrayana methods: Often when we tug at one part of a knot while trying to loosen it, another part gets tighter. You have to work with the knot to get it to come undone.

The translation of the sanskrit text is below:

Contentment is the highest gain;

Good Company is the highest course;

Enquiry is the highest wisdom;

and Peace the highest enjoyment.

Some of the things that I aspire to.

Preemption...

Have you ever wondered why certain occasions leave you thoroughly confused and looking around like deer caught in front of headlights, while much of the animal kingdom has been pre-programmed to handle potentially difficult situations.

for e.g. here is how some animals deal with impending bad weather.

• Frogs croak louder and longer than usual.
• Roosters crow later in the day.
• Birds fly lower to the ground and gather on tree branches and telephone wires.
• Pigs squeal more and gather sticks to make a nest.
• Cows lay down in the fields to feed, and lay down to ensure they have a dry spot to lay. Cows also run around the field with their tails raised high swatting flies before a storm.
• Bees and butterflies seem to disappear from the flower beds they usually visit.
• Red and black ants build up their mounds around the holes, and may actually cover the hole.
• Fish jump out of the water and nip at low flying insects.
• Dolphins come into sheltered bays to avoid storms.
• Spiders leave their webs when it rains.
• Bees won't leave their hives.
• Seagulls come inland

All over the globe animals have behaviors they exhibit before the weather changes for the worse.
Makes you feel less privileged to be human now doesn't it? Here is another wierd story.

When South Asia had the devastating Tsunami which caused a large death toll and a large path of destruction, it was surprising how low the count was for loss of wildlife. Sri Lankan wildlife officials reported that they found no dead wild animals, including elephants. A photographer also reported seeing no animal corpses as he flew over the wildlife reserve - only active wildlife. An amazing fact when you consider the flood waters traveled up to two miles inland into the wildlife reserve. Potential theories suggest that a sixth sense alerted them to the Tsunami in plenty of time to reach higher and safer land. It could be from something as easy as their keen hearing, maybe hearing the wave approaching while it was still far enough away to escape. The animals may even be able to feel the vibrations of the ground, alerting them of the approaching dangerous situation.

Clearly there's a lot more evolution you and me have to go through. I feel the need for it now more than most times...

Dilemmas and Conundrums

There's an intrinsic problem with the world. It is too interdependent.

In an ideal world, the domino stack that starts tumbling due to a catastrophic event stops at a certain disconnected point; thus limiting the damage and sparing the rest of the setup from annihilation.

However life doesn't follow the same pattern.

I have earlier mentioned how everything we do has repercussions in places so far away that we never can imagine. While some of them are clearly visible, most of them require immense insight and thought to perceive. Due to the interconnected beings that we are, we are just as susceptible to being at the receiving end of those repercussions as we are of causing them. 

That brings us to today’s problem or conundrum as you might call it.

If you were aware of someone else's actions, and the repercussions it might have on them and yourself, just how much intervention is warranted?

Assuming that the repercussions aren't of a desired nature, the logical answer would be to take all the steps necessary to stop the cause or action that will be responsible for it. 

There are two ways that can be done. The first one is to give the right advice and hope that it will help avert an undesired result. Although the second way is more direct, it is also more intrusive; and it involves use of the words 'I Want...'

Sadly the manual of life has no directions specifying which option should be chosen at each specific moment. Let me illustrate the difference between the two. 

Giving Advice:

This is more impersonal, insensitive (most good advice is very insensitive) and less direct. It involves putting your point across in a way that seems philosophical and altruistic. However there is a problem with this way. The final outcome of the situation is dependent on the understanding and judgement of the person performing the action. This is best put in the following words. 

"Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it."

The problem with endeavoring to give the right advice is that one has to be very careful. In that the given advice may not be the right one but merely given to have the desired effect for yourself. This is akin to perjury and must be avoided at any cost.

In brief: Give the right counsel, hope it has the desired effect, and let the chips fall where they may.

I Want…:

The second and infinitely more direct method is to express the desired result.

e.g. I want you to do this.

I do not want this to happen.

I want you to take this decision.

While most people use this method to get their way, I feel that it amounts to coaxing someone to do something that you want. The power of persuasion is something that is blatantly used by many and more often than not, has the desired effect. But it also has the risk of never being able to understand someone’s actions and the underlying reasons for taking that action. By using the words ‘I Want…’ you rob yourself the chance to know what the other person might have done had you not influenced their thoughts in such a strong manner. I think that understanding that component of someone’s character is almost as important as influencing the outcome of the situation….if not more.

So when I am faced by this conundrum, I usually choose the first method. It does mean that I come across as insensitive and overly philosophical (the result of using clichés to explain certain stuff). It gives the impression of not caring enough when the truth is sometimes I care about it more than words can express.

It also means that I carry the risk of being hurt or disappointed more often than others. But I also possess the comfort of knowing that someone did something because they really wanted to and not because I told them to.

That leaves another conundrum… A clean conscience and a lot of sleepless nights. Sigh. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

Wierd Google Search Results

Searching for 'Rajkot Garlic Chutney' on google returned Mallika Sherawat!

Parachute - All that I am

The lights go down in Brooklyn,
As she's walking out the door
Oh and they're lining up like soldiers,
Going off to fight the war
And all the colors look like fireworks,
In skies she knew before

And nights can't hide the day
Then the tears roll down her face
And the lights so high, that's she's dying to say
"Just take me away"

But the fog just sits like blankets
And it's drowning out the glow
You can hear voices loud and singing out,
A song nobody knows
But to her it sounds like home

Oh cause nights can't hide the day
Then the tears roll down her face
And the lights so high, that's she's dying to say
"Just take me away, from all that I am
Just take me away, from all that I am"

Cause the fog just sits like blankets
And it smothers the glow

Oh and nights can't hide the day
Oh then the tears roll down her face
And the lights so high, that's she's dying to say
"Just take me away, from all that I am.
Just take me away, from all that I am.
Just take me away, from all that I am.
Just take me away, from all that I am.

introspection

One of those days where the world seems to whiz around you while you decide to slow down and observe it.... not because you are at leisure, but because you just realize you were going 100 miles an hour in a lane with a 10 mile speed limit.

• How your car appears magically clean every morning you step out
• How you don't give a thought to where the newspaper you pick up as you go about your daily business, came from
• The way your towel is clean, dry and hung up in the bathroom the night before you decide to jump in for a hot shower
• How you open your wardrobe every time and you find all your clothes washed, neatly pressed and sorted... smelling wonderful
• How your daily cups of coffee magically appear before you while you take a break from work
• How your credit card bills get paid with cheques that get picked up from your desk without any effort on your part

No... I'm not in some beautiful countryside stopping and smelling the roses on a warm sunny day that is flushed in scenic beauty...

Still I can't help but notice the magic in everyday life... at least I wish it was magic... 

One of the downsides to growing up is that you know that its not... that's why I am taking a moment to slowdown and appreciate it.

Difficult Questions

Today was a day that we decided to ask some difficult questions off ourselves. Although this was in the realm of the professional world, It did spur some interesting thoughts.

1. Success always takes more than its fair share of sacrifice
2. There are always more things to do than there are people to do them
3. It is easy to get frustrated and stop looking for next steps if nothing is moving forward... the people who resist this inertia are the ones who become successful
4. Losing view of the big picture is a luxury only some of us have; and the term 'some of us' almost never includes you.
5. Who you are as a person defines what you do with difficult situations and not the other way around
6. Smiling through rough patches is harder than you think, but it is well worth the effort.
7. The cost of doing business includes the money that you put in it as well as the money you would have made in case you were doing something else. It also includes the time you spend away from family, friends and fun.
8. The opportunity of doing business is that you learn more in a year than you will in a lifetime working for someone else. The opportunity almost always out weighs the cost.
9. Character and sound reasoning are the end result of a critical thought process. do not lose that ability. It is what will make you different from everyone else.

It is easy to get distracted with what other people think you need to do or be. its easier to buy into someone else's dream... rather than having your own.

India - A land of Paradoxes

Today a chinese contact asked me how I would compare india and china. I said I wouldn't. This piece written by Shashi Tharoor came to mind. I had copied and filed it years ago thinking that when I would take it out and read it again, things would be slightly different. This is what I would put in the time capsule if there was one today....

It has become a cliché to speak of India as a land of paradoxes. The old joke about our country is that anything you say about India, the opposite is also true. We like to think of ourselves as an ancient civilisation but we are also a young republic; our IT experts stride confidently into the 21st century but much of our population seems to live in each of the other 20 centuries. Quite often the opposites co-exist quite cheerfully.

One of my favourite images of India is from the last Kumbha mela, of a naked sadhu, with matted hair, ash-smeared forehead and scraggly beard, for all the world a picture of timeless other-worldliness, chatting away on a cellphone. I even suggested it to the publishers of my newest book of essays on India as a perfect cover image, but they assured me it was so well-known that it had become a cliché in itself.

And yet, clichés are clichés because they are true, and the paradoxes of India say something painfully real about our society.

How does one come to terms with a country whose population is still nearly 40% illiterate but which has educated the world’s second-largest pool of trained scientists and engineers, many of whom are making a flourishing living in Silicon Valley? How does one explain a land where peasant organisations and suspicious officials once attempted to close down Kentucky Fried Chicken as a threat to the nation, where a former prime minister bitterly criticised the sale of Pepsi-Cola since 250 million of our countrymen and women don’t have access to clean drinking water, and which yet invents more sophisticated software for the world’s computer manufacturers than any other country on the planet? A place where bullock carts are still an indispensable mode of transportation for millions, but whose rocket and satellite programmes are amongst the most advanced on earth?

The paradoxes go well beyond the nature of our entry into the 21st century. Our teeming cities overflow while two out of three Indians still scratch a living from the soil. We have been recognised, for all practical purposes, as a leading nuclear power, but 600 million Indians still have no access to electricity and there are daily power cuts even in the nation’s capital.

Ours is a culture which elevated non-violence to an effective moral principle, but whose freedom was born in blood and whose independence still soaks in it. We are the world’s leading manufacturers of generic medication for illnesses such as AIDS, but we have three million of our own citizens without access to AIDS medication, another two million with TB, and tens of millions with no health centre or clinic within 10 kilometres of their places of residence.

Bollywood makes four times as many movies as Hollywood, but 150 million Indians cannot see them, because they are blind. India holds the world record for the number of cellphones sold (8.5 million last month), but also for the number of farmer suicides (4000 in the Vidarbha district of Maharashtra alone last year).

This month, in mid-November, the prestigious Forbes magazine list of the world’s top billionaires made room for 10 new Indian names. The four richest Indians in the world are collectively worth a staggering $180 billion, greater than the GDP of a majority of member states of the United Nations. Indian papers have reported with undisguised glee that these four (Lakshmi Mittal, the two Ambani brothers, and DLF chief K P Singh) are worth more than the 40 richest Chinese combined.

We seem to find less space in our papers to note that though we have more dollar billionaires than in any country in Asia - even more than Japan, which has been richer longer - we also have 260 million people living below the poverty line. And it’s not the World Bank’s poverty line of $1 a day, but the Indian poverty line of Rs 360 a month, or 30 cents a day - in other words, a line that’s been drawn just this side of the funeral pyre.

Last month, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex crossed 20,000, just 20 months after it had first hit 10,000; but on the same day, some 25,000 landless people marched to Parliament, clamouring for land reform and justice. We have trained world-class scientists and engineers, but 400 million of our compatriots are illiterate, and we also have more children who have not seen the inside of a school than any other country in the world does.

We have a great demographic advantage in 540 million young people under 25 (which means we should have a dynamic, youthful and productive workforce for the next 40 years when the rest of the world, including China, is ageing) but we also have 60 million child labourers, and 72% of the children in our government schools drop out by the eighth standard. We celebrate India’s IT triumphs, but information technology has employed a grand total of 1 million people in the last five years, while 10 million are entering the workforce each year and we don’t have jobs for them.

Many of our urban youth rightly say with confidence that their future will be better than their parents’ past, but there are Maoist insurgencies violently disturbing the peace in 165 of India’s 602 districts, and these are largely made up of unemployed young men.

So yes, we are a land of paradoxes, and amongst those paradoxes is that so many of us speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ our people. And yet, India is more than the sum of its contradictions. It may be a country rife with despair and disrepair, but it nonetheless moved a Mughal Emperor to declaim, ‘‘if on earth there be paradise of bliss, it is this, it is this, it is this...’’ We just have a lot more to do before it can be anything like paradise for the vast majority of our fellow citizens.

Happy Diwali!

Fast Car - Tracy Chapman

Parallel Universes

I was watching this movie last night... Have you ever watched a movie and thought that it was a really good movie and then recommend that someone else watch it with you? Didn't feel that good watching it the second time around did it?? The movie seemed to drag on forever and the funny innuendoes were too few and far in between.

Aright, Coming back to the intended topic of discussion today... Parallel universes. No, no reason to curl up and die expecting to hear complex mathematical and physical equations and definitions of string theory (I never could wrap my head around that actually).

So now that I have successfully confused you, I will come back to the point...

"The point."

That is exactly what I want to talk about... 'The point'

The Point where it all started - The Big Bang

The big bang theory states that since the entire universe is continuously expanding at a rapid rate, the universe, by natural regression would have originated with a very very miniscule and infinitely dense - Point. That was where space and time converged... and almost didn't exist.

Expanding universe and the speed of light

Now that you are familiar with the concept of the expanding universe, the next concept that you should already be familiar with is the concept of speed of light and its travel through space. I think most of us look at the night sky in awe at the millions and billions of celestial objects out there and tell people how insignificant it makes us feel in the whole scheme of things. This has been personally communicated to me in these exact words at least 10 times by 10 different people.

So there.

The place where the past meets the present

What I think of, when I look at the night sky is the unquestionable fact that I am glancing at the significant past. The scene that you see up there isn't a new 2009 blockbuster movie but more like an old old 1940s silent film. The light that reaches your eyes has travelled for such a long time that by the time you 'see' it, the thing that caused the light may not even exist anymore. The part that really trips my senses is that every time time you look up, you see the past replaying itself in front of your very eyes, in the present.

The Significant Past

In the journey from that single 'point' to here, I think there are more reasons than the most powerful supercomputer can figure out for us not to be here. One asteroid or comet gone awry might have resulted in the solar system not being created at all. What we are is the culmination of 14 billion years' worth of a series of events that played out in a random yet specific order so that you and I could sit in front of our laptops and read my blog.

The Point of it all

Each departure at every point along the way between the starting point and now, would have resulted in a different outcome than the one we have right this instant. so my theory of parallel universes is nothing but a series of possibilities that can or could have happened if one of the factors in the series of never ending events plays out differently.

Do I have the power to change that one factor and influence my present and future? maybe I do.

In the scheme of the last 14 billion years, Does it matter significantly what I do with the next 30 minutes? Probably not.

Why do I still worry about it sometimes?

I shouldn't. So I am going to play dice...
Bring on the Parallel Universes with their endless possibilities, I'm ready to jump.

Knots

I thought we were living in a wirefree world. Then I left my Ipod earphones unattended for a day.

If there are any deeply religious people reading my blog, this is your best chance at convincing me of the existence of a god. There seems to be an invisible superpower that has decreed that Ipod earphones can never be left unknotted.

In Christian mythology (and isn't it all mythology?), it is said that the best way to keep the devil occupied and not have him chase you to the underworld is a series of knots laid in front of him! why now?...thats the exact opposite of GOD isnt it? How convenient!

God knots and the devil has to undo them :D. this is all very nice, but when it happens to my earphones, I lose patience. which is the same thing that happens when I talk to deeply religious people who try to instill the fear of god in me. He knots for gods sake! I may need to recruit the devil if god keeps on doing this with my earphones though.

On the subject of knots, there are a few knots that are considered sacred...like the Tibetan knot. 

The endless knot has been described as "an ancient symbol representing the interweaving of the Spiritual Path, the flowing of Time and Movement within That Which is Eternal. All existence, it says, is bound by time and change, yet ultimately rests serenely within the Divine and the Eternal.

The real intention of the knot is to Understand the natural rule of cause and effect tied to your actions. 

If you pull one side it will pull another part

The Tibetan knot can stand for karmic consequences: pull here, something happens over there. It is an apt symbol for the Vajrayana methods: Often when we tug at one part of a knot while trying to loosen it, another part gets tighter. You have to work with the knot to get it to come undone.

I always thought the Buddha was one of the wisest philosophers to ever walk the planet. Although the problem with philosophy is that it offers tangible arguments to both sides of the story. But that is another blog post, another day.

But I can't help thinking that it somewhat mirrors life very closely. There are knots, and if you try to pull one side hard, the other side comes undone...the best way to deal with them is to have patience and be curious enough to unravel them one step at a time... 

The good news is, I think I have what it takes. I also think everyone else does too.

Objects in the Mirror

Woke up this morning.......
And stumbled out of bed.
with a headache and a little shiver.

I glanced at the Mirror,
You were there...staring back at me.
Those lovely eyes exploring the depths of my soul.

You were beautiful...an angel standing by my side
Your sweet magic expanding my life,
Into timeless moments.

Those arms wrapped around my torso,
Your short bursts of breath tease my hair,
Your lips so close to mine...

The blanket slipped away,
Like an ice cube slowly down your spine.
And with it I saw a tremble sway, like its snowfall in the end of may.

The wind rushed in, Blowing apart the windows in its way,
Letting the summer sun through,
I turn to face you....but somehow you've faded away.

Puzzled expression, I turn back to the mirror,
But theres no sign of the one I held so dear.
Except an Inscription that read...

" Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear ".

Living Another Life.

I just had to come back and post this before I went out.

Today I found the best possible way of looking at the past. Well to be honest, I didn't exactly stumble on it today... I have been experiencing it for a while now. I just realized it today.

Today my father turned 73(it just seems a million times better referring to him as 'father' rather than good ol 'dad' today). I stayed at home, and listened to my father figure (literally) recount his life. He explained the reason why we have different perspectives on life and also explained why they differ so much at times.

What I am saying now seems like common knowledge generation gap stuff. But it is so much more.

The best way of looking at the past is through someone's eyes. I know that objectivity is the holy grail of all reporting. But I would rather look at the past from the different perspectives of the various people who have experienced it. I like a little personal touch in my stories.

Of Course it doesn't mean I want my stories peppered with meaningless opinions and voice overs, but it fascinates me more when I can understand the past from someone's honest perspective and look at the impact it has made on them.

I think of events in the past as blots of ink, that are created when a fountain pen touches a piece of tissue. It starts from a single point of occurrence or the epicenter, and spreads out unevenly leaving a mark on the fabric of the tissue(the fabric of time is the intended metaphor here).

And events of the past mean so much more coming from your parent. Hearing your father speak can sometimes reveal fascinating insights about yourself that you never thought existed.

For example:

• I know now why I sometimes act over my age.
• I know how I inherited my sense about the value of money
• I know now why I have more patience than most people
• I know why I really listen to people and also discovered why people actually listen to me when I speak.
• I know why I forgive people more
• I know why I sometimes get angry without having enough reasons
• I know why I go to stores to buy something specific and end up not buying anything
• I know why I spend large chunks of time with people and focus all my energy on them
• I also know now why I am the way I am with kids and elderly people.

I have never had more insightful conversations with anyone else.

So thank you father: you are my fountain pen. And I am honoured to be the tissue on which you leave your mark.

Life in bullet points...

Okay call me stuck up, but I seem to think that most things in life can be expressed in 3 simple bullet points. Anything more than that, has to be an attempt at humour; else it is so not worth it.

for example

• you are born
• you live
• you die

and the spaces in between; well they better be filled with humour...

Lets get to the point now...
I have a cosmic birthright that I refuse to give up.
I do not suffer fools gladly
And most things in life are simple; if you don't realize it, you are a fool

This brings us to our topic about having conversations:
Don't get me wrong, I love conversations: when they have a point.

The world is suffering from a conversational overdose. It seems that we all have collectively decided to speak out at the same time... and not every conversation is particularly aimed at someone; neither does every conversation have a point attached to it. Here are a few mundane facts:

Emails:

• Statistics, extrapolations and counting by Radicati Group from August 2008 estimate the number of emails sent per day (in 2008) to be around 210 billion. 183 billion messages per day means more than 2 million emails are sent every second. About 70% to 72% of them might be spam and viruses. The genuine emails are sent by around 1.3 billion email users.
• taking spam emails out, it still leaves 54.9 billion emails sent every day
• So on an average, each one out of 1.3 billion net savy people send out 42 emails a day

Facebook:
here are a few facts published by facebook
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

• More than 300 million active users; 50% of which log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• More than 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide). This means each of 150 million users spends an average of 400 minutes on facebook daily...thats roughly 7 hours! a population equivalent to half the size of USA spends 7 hours daily on facebook...its GDP (if it were productive) would rank amongst the highest in the world!

This is just facebook... for the sake of conciseness, I am not going to mention the other social networks like orkut and myspace. Use your overactive imagination.

Twitter:
Some interesting facts were discovered by a sysomos study that can be found here: http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/

I shall make my conclusions after highlighting the stark contrast between social networks like facebook and social media sites like twitter.

• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
• 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people and 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity

Now here is an intriguing question.

Looking at facebook statistics, one would think that every one has an amazing social experience online. but when you look at twitter statistics, the figures are pretty dismal. What could be the reason for this?
I will not try to qualify this rudimentary study as an exact science... so lets leave out the facts about the different types of business models they follow and the features they offer.

Here is the fundamental difference between the two: Twitter lets you know how many people are actually listening to (or reading) what you put out there. And thats where the reality sinks in...the answer is 'not a lot!'

So in conclusion:

• Sites like facebook thrive on the human misconception that their lives actually matter to a lot of people. In reality, they don't
• We are prone to thinking that social networking makes us great communicators. It doesn't: its just the equivalent of a group of langoor monkeys cackling to be heard
• And the last bullet point: Tweet less, live more!

Gimme a cup of hot coffee and stimulating conversation above facebook and twitter anyday!

Last in a series of three

Okay so its another morning, exactly 24 hours after my last post. I have been running on a total of 4 hours of sleep for the last 2 days. So this might be the most extreme vagueness that I will display for a long long time to come. Heres a few more things that came to mind.

Hypocrisy is a purely human trait. No other animal exhibits it. For all other species, behaviour is a predefined response where they display behaviour that they have been programmed to display. Either this behaviour is hardwired through generations of evolution (as in the case of migratory birds), or something learned through current life experience (like a mouse in a maze looking for cheese). However all the other species save the human are incapable of conveying feelings or emotions that are contrary to their behaviour. they react with almost planned precision and do not break stereotypes.

Humans however are a different story. We say things that we do not mean, we say something and do the exact opposite and when questioned about it, we forcefully defend the expression of an opinion contrary to our behaviour by blaming the circumstances.
There is a fundamental difference between the literal and the incidental. Humans have a tendency to stretch the difference very very thin. I have been guilty of this in the recent past. This I admit. I am learning. I am....
Things said at 6 am when staring at the computer screen, sitting next to a naked girl who's asleep are sacred

Attraction...

Okay so this post may start sounding very vague in about exactly 5 sentences from now.

Thats because this next installment comes at exactly 5:44 am...after a crazy afterparty (well there was a party before but we shall not mention it here for posterity's sake). While I did get molested a little bit, I reinforced a few old beliefs and created a few new ones. Lets talk about attraction.

Lets take an example: Scene 1: A packed nightclub (could be either in North America or even India) What goes on in these places? The answer is obvious if you are around 5 years elder than the average age of the people in the nightclub. Which basically means 5 years ago, I wouldn't have noticed what I do now.
There are usually about 50 girls, some of them on the dance floor...and surrounding them will be roughly 300 guys, all waiting for a chance to align themselves to a girl's posterior. Once they successfully do that (and not all guys achieve this superhuman feat), a few minutes of ass grinding / dry humping follows. what happens then? the girl in question turns around, and depending on whether she likes what she sees, either a prolonged dry humping session or a disgusting look with a blow off follows. Another possible outcome is also that the girl's friends realize what's happening and pull her away.

What you realize in this sea of 20 somethings, is the fact that so few of the guys actually have a clue about how to interact with women (in most cases its the same cluelessness in interacting with other men as well). And not to mention, most women seem to suffer the same fate.

Now I am not an authority on communication or attraction and neither do I pretend to be one, but you somehow start getting the feeling that there is something wrong with this picture. A lot of guys, and some girls will continue doing this throughout their glory years and not realize that most times they will end up with the same result....failure!

Here's what I think is the key to interpersonal interaction... Social Status.

Before you start jumping to weird conclusions, let me tell you first off that when I say Social Status, I do not mean money, power, fame and the usual things that people perceive as social status. These things have translated to social status because of the simple fact that they are easily measurable. You can easily tell if a person is rich, successful, powerful or famous. These things will help you attract women, but not the kinds you want to have long lasting relationships with.

Social status actually is a far more complex determinant. It involves a lot of stuff that directly relates to your personality and your approach to life in general. It is the actual value that you as a person hold in any interaction.

Now if you were to quantify social status in an interaction, it would be in terms of the confidence you bring to it.

Let me try and be less vague and break it down in terms of actions: this should be the best way to explain my concept of social status.

1. Try this experiment. All men notice the women around them on a subconscious level. For a day, try and keep track of the women you notice (not in a way that would creep them out). The way men mostly perceive women as attractive is through their looks and then through their personality when they start interacting with them or watch them interact with someone else. So on an average you should probably notice about 4-5 (I'm being conservative)women that would catch your attention.
2. Now lets look at this from a woman's perspective. Women have a very different way of getting stimulated. This is not just based on looks, but as a complete package that the man is able to present to her. The other qualities are professional success (not phenomenal success, but just enough to let her know of the mans capability as a provider), attitude, confidence, behavior towards other women, capacity for fun and humour, comfort, intelligence, communication skills etc. A clarification here needs to be made that the term 'women' is not used in the generalized sense of the word. When I say women, I mean the women who have their life together and the kind of women you want to get involved with. If you are able to attract a woman who does not give importance to any or all of these qualities, you are headed for disaster (or a one night stand)
3. Okay the tough part is over. Now for the revelation... put your self in the girl's shoes and using the criteria mentioned above, estimate the number of guys she would meet who would have these qualities. She'll be lucky if she meets one in years, let alone 4-5 guys a day!

And within this lies the key to social status. You may or may not get the girl you like by buying her drinks (sometimes they say yes, just because they want a free drink!) or by showering her with gifts, but you are surely communicating your lack of social status! Its like telegraphing "please accept this drink/gift as a token of my desire for you, because I have no other way of getting you to like me"

So if you want to attract the girl / girls that you want to have fulfilling relationships with (psychological, emotional, physical, metaphysical or what ever 'al' of relationship there is), you need to get the qualities sorted out.
Get your life in order... get a life first, have things to do, places to be, people to meet.
Get a career
Be busy sometimes, get hobbies, learn how to dance and listen to good music
Appreciate good humour and learn how to use it.
Accept that having an attitude and not putting up with bullshit is a good thing.
Get creative with words, learn how to speak without having to refer to the dictionary and Stop using txt speech!
And most of all be different from the sea of people out there!

Get these things sorted out in life and everything else will fall into place...relationships are just a by product of a good life.

And the holy grail... You can understand the true value of a man by the way he treats people who are of absolutely no consequence to him.

Okay the sermon is done. And I hope the girl who hit on me last night does not read this. Go live your life, I'm going to sleep.

Relationships and Thoughts

I guess this must come as a bit of a surprise, but then again most things in life are that way. Yes it’s me here; again...

For years now, ever since I became of a marriageable age, I have had this question posed to me at every possible social occasion. Yes I am Indian, and yes most Indians find this a perfectly justified question to ask just about anyone they've known for longer than 20 seconds.

"So when are you getting married?"

For a rebel like me, that’s a particularly tough one to answer without offending the blatant in-sensibilities of the person asking such a stupid question. If I had an answer to that, wouldn't you already know? Or better yet, wouldn't I already be married?
Well most times I answer with an "I don't know", but this open ended answer only leaves space for the next logical question...

"So what kind of a girl do you want?"

As if I just got back from the supermarket and didn't find anything I liked.
But while thinking up ways to elude this natural progression of questions, I did actually get to wondering about the kind of girl I wanted. To prime my knowledge about the kind of girls there are in the world, I promptly went to one of the matrimony sites. Yes whiteys, this is one of the places Indians go to get married... it’s called an arranged marriage, now go laugh yourselves to sleep.

Coming back to the point, I looked at the profiles that parents had put up for their daughters and in some cases the daughters themselves did it. Here are a few sample self-descriptions used freely by most:
• Down to earth (the rest of us are apparently on Jupiter),
• Homely (compared to what? homeless?),
• Fair (yes we are the most racist people on the planet and we might as well admit it)
• Decent (I thank them for specifying this most important criteria, leaves less space for doubt now that you specifically mention it)
• Convent Educated (Apparently that makes them purer?)
• And the one that takes the cake “Simple living, High thinking”. I always wonder if this means that you want the world but are also ready to live in a 2x2 hut.

Here are my thoughts on the kind of girl I want: none of the above!

I believe that with 6 billion of us on this planet uniqueness was the first to go out the window. So although I do believe in soulmates, I also believe that there is possibly more than one person that exactly fits the bill.

I want someone that’s human. I want the words ‘I goofed up!’ to be part of her vocabulary.
That brings us to the next point; I’d like her to have a vocabulary, both verbal and non verbal. I want to know the quirks that are uniquely hers, the sounds she makes when she likes my ideas

I want her to get uncomfortable when people ask her if she can cook. But I also want awesome food fights in the kitchen.

And I want her to laugh uncontrollably at times, with such ferocity that her whole body shudders with orgasmic relief.

I want her to not keep me grounded. I want her to fly with me to the highs and dive with me into the lows. I’m like that professional diver who goes for a walk on the seafloor with a very very loose rope tied to his hips. The rope doesn’t pull him back but it’s there to remind him of home with a little tug in case he ventures too far from the mothership. Also think spacewalks!

But more than the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with, I continually keep coming to the kind of relationship I want to have with her. Because I seem to think that’s the essence of life and yes you can call me corny for thinking that.

Now before we start talking relationships, we need to set right a few facts about me. These are probably the reasons I am writing about relationships and not the kind of women I want in my life.
• I do not get particularly attracted to girls for their looks. I know this sounds clichéd but the connection I make with women very rarely has anything to do with physical appearance. Now I confess that in my previous life, I have tried to behave like a jerk and thought I could get the hottest girls around; but there was a little problem with that theory. I realized there wasn’t much I wanted to do with those girls once I did get them. You can’t have a quiet cup of coffee or stimulating conversation with them once you do what you set out to do in the first place (yes you know what I mean)

• I know how to create attraction. I am familiar with all the tricks of the trade and can give mystery and style a run for their money. But unlike them, I realized early that manipulating girls into bed isn’t a particularly great achievement. I play the game now, but it’s only to create the spark. The rest is my personality. Few girls ever believe it, but it’s true. Many people call this being dishonest and devious. Well if you really want something, is preparing to get it called being dishonest? How about your graduation exam then? Did you prepare for it?

Okay so here’s how I think my ideal relationship would be:
1. I don’t believe that a relationship merges two people into one entity. I think it’s very important to have individualistic traits in the relationship. This keeps balance. Yin-yang etc. So I would appreciate it if my partner retained all the trademark stuff that makes her, her.

2. All my life I have heard people saying that there always has to be some sort of a compromise in every relationship. I refuse to accept a compromise. I value myself highly and so should my partner. Every difficult situation has a work around and not every work around culminates in someone having to compromise. There are win-win solutions; we just need to find them.

3. Every individual in a relationship needs his own space to grow. People think that this makes the relationship weak. But on the contrary, this is the only reason relationships endure. It’s only when you know what to do with yourself when you are alone, can you invest value into a relationship. How many relationships have been wrecked because of a needy or an insecure partner? I would love to learn that my partner decided to spend a night out on the town with her friends. This isn’t a very Indian trait but I promise to fight the system for her right to do this.

4. Time does not have to adversely affect a relationship. Relationships, like everything else in life, need work. Just because you have achieved a relationship with someone doesn’t mean the job is done. With a little care and attention, I believe that a relationship can stay fresh and exciting enough to endure the banalities of life.

5. And lastly the relationship has to be built on strong foundations of all four pillars equally: love, lust, trust and respect. Even if a relationship is casual and you don’t know where it is leading, the very fact that you are in a relationship is enough to merit these four things. Without these, there is very little basis for a relationship to exist.