Everyday Musings > Practice

Practice = repetition = familiarity = routine = boredom = being thorough = perfectionism = Godliness. A simple act of practice if followed through could lead to Nirvana?

So a woodcutter who diligently cuts wood in the same precise manner, every hour, every day, every week, every year, for all his life is closer to Nirvana than the random me who doesn’t stick to anything but flits and is constantly at the starting point over and over again?

I mentioned this to V who promptly handed me Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and said that he spoke of it too. And even quantified it. 10,000 Hours. That’s how much practice masters put into their craft. Bill Gates, Michael Schumacher, Michael Jordan, Beatles, anybody who has made it to the top of their fields did so with practice.

Perhaps that is why they say Jack of all, master of none. Because for one to be a master, one has to choose and do that one thing over and over again. I go back to ‘The Cooking Gene’ and what I wrote about cooking. Of course, there is the element of love and talent, but perhaps the reason why our grandmothers and mothers are so much better at it than we are was because they practiced more than us. They cooked morning, afternoon and night, every day for all their lives, most of them starting to help their mothers in the kitchen from when they were very young. How do we, the microwave-meal generation, expect to match that amount of rigorous practice?

The better writers write more. The better singers sing more. The better cooks cook more. So the sooner you start, the better your chances at more practice time. My friend ‘I’ always said to me, The best time to start is when you are furthest from where you want to be.’ Reading Outliers and the many factors that he states for the rise of winners, it seems like the advantage is clearly with those who began early and had all the advantages of that time - Luck, opportunity, the right guidance and timing. And of course, practice.

The book talks of other things too – of how winners are not self-made - that their environment, the opportunity they got, the guidance they received and how even being born in the right month changed their destiny. Not astrological at all, just a view of how the modern natural selection system works. He also talks of IQ and how in a class of clever students, it doesn’t matter who cleverer. All have great levels of analytical intelligence; what then matters is who has more Practical Intelligence. He makes a case for how wealthy children are brought up to own the world whereas poor children are taught to be deferential and constrained. And that he says makes a huge difference in getting ahead. The reviewers called the book ‘humane’ perhaps because it breaks the myth of the X Gene being solely responsible for why the greats are great. It tells you that there is a system and that perhaps there is a way to beat the system. I’m still reading it and there’s much more to go before I feel the humane bit kick in.

If a thing has been repeated enough number of times, it becomes the truth. I read that a long time ago and wondered about the nature of the universe. 10,000 Hours. There is something in the practice argument. I see it working with my cooking and my writing, when I do write. My parents have said it enough times to me too - practice makes perfect. Thankfully, they also said, it's never too late to learn. Whew.

Everyday Musings > The Essential Life

Essential home by Judith Wilson and Jan Baldwin is a home decor book that concentrates on the essentials of a home. Judith and Jan talk of building a foundation with good linen, truly comfortable cushions, rugs that feel great to touch, few pieces of classic furniture, well made glassware and cutlery. It could then be dressed up or down after the basics are in place. ‘Easy Living’ by Terrance Conran talks of similar things; of the element of quality in a home that makes it easy to live in. Of being aware of fabrics, textures, even button fastenings, all of which can affect the sense of real comfort.

The home that my parents grew up in had furniture made of solid teak that’s in the family even today. The utensils were iron, wood, brass; always polished and clean. The thin absorbing cotton towels were just right for the Kerala weather. The flooring was red oxide and kept the home cool. There was an invisible aura of quality, of solidity, of being true.

The homes a lot of us live in today aren’t built or decorated based on those principles. The stores we buy from showcase ply polished to imitate mahogany or teak, Oriental rugs in cheap synthetic with chemical dyes that are not ideal to live with. The towels are velvet finished terry that absorb little water and fade and turn limp in five washes. There was a generation that could tell real lace from machine made, good cotton from bad, preferred silk to synthetic, and it wasn’t royalty. It was everyday people, in everyday lives, buying everyday things, in local markets; quality of the kind that we today consider luxury.

What changed? We are definitely more brand conscious, but are we as quality conscious? If we looked around our homes and kept aside everything that was not true quality, how much would we be left with? How much of what we bring into our lives and interact with on a daily basis are really aware of?

What Essential Home got me thinking about was not just about the home, but about us. What goes into making the Essential Human Being? The Essential Mind. The Essential Body. What do we feed ourselves with? What do we fill in our minds? What is the quality of our life? Our thoughts? Our conversations? And how aware are we of our lives?

The Essentials of life are about having real wealth – good health, clean comfortable home, fresh food, good conversations, a clear sharp mind. A surge of quality in our choices, our acts, places us in a higher plane of life. The people who are stalwarts are examples of that. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, Schumacher. Before after shows, the ones that work, like Mary, Queen of Shops, are based on that too. They raise the plane that we live on. And life is all about finding the higher plane - of thought, of being, of life.

Quality in life, of life, is the same as breathing. It isn’t a luxury, but an absolute essential.

Everyday Musings > The cooking gene

I love food. But I’m not so keen on cooking it myself. For the past month, I find myself cooking most meals at home, a feat for someone who once in sheer nervousness forgot how to make coffee. I could’ve copped out, said ‘I don’t have the cooking gene’ and probably got away because V is a fantastic cook, a kind human being and is partial to anything scientific.

The first day when we cooked in V’s apartment, I watched in horror as he took a pinch of this, a dollop of that, added a dash of something else, all from instinct. Like my mom and all talented chef-like people I know.

At home in Mumbai, cooking was a ritual. I used to stand in front of the gas and pray before I turned it on. V’s kitchen is electric, so it felt silly to chant over flicking a switch. No excuses left, I got down to it. I started reading about cooking to awaken my cooking gene.

Julia and Julia – I have been reading it for a while and then the cow’s hoof jelly bits got overwhelming and I stopped reading. It’s about an American girl Julia, who stumbles upon a book by Julia Child, a famous chef from the 1900s. Julia Child, an American, was a copywriter before she joined the secret service and then married Paul Child who introduced her to French Cooking and at the age of 34, she joined Cordon Bleu to learn how to cook and even made it to the cover of Time magazine as the Lady of the Ladle. What an amazing woman. I could see similarities. Ex copywriter, married, husband introduced her to cooking. Now, when is the Time magazine cover going to happen!

Nora ‘Harry met Sally’ Ephron recently directed a movie based on this book. Girl Julia sets upon a promise to cook all of Chef Julia’s recipes for a year. And it’s a pretty fat recipe book. Well, Chef Julia inspires Girl Julia to take up this madness. And transforms Girl Julia’s evenings of leisure into one of chaotic smelly cooking fests. And somewhere in chopping, boiling, cleaving, steaming, sniffing, Girl Julia finds herself.

V is pure veg, as is his kitchen, not even eggs, which I love and miss very much. I started with corn, the simplest thing in the world to cook. And made corn every day, in every form, till V pointed out to other vegetables. Sticky arbi, bhindi, lauki etc. Time to get help.

I found my Cordon Bleu in Vidhu Mittal’s ‘Pure and simple vegetarian cooking’. I love the way the dishes are photographed, the quality of the paper, the simplicity of her instructions. So every day is spent flicking pages and figuring what to dazzle V with. Stuffed mirchi, dahi baigan, masala bhindi. I was amazed at how easy it started to become. I could even make nice fluffy phulkas and say things like ‘it’ll just take two minutes’. Vidhu was my spidey web, my batmobile, my lantern, my knight in shining hardbound.

I don’t know if I have a cooking gene. I can’t cook as well as my mother or his mother, not even close to as good as my dear friends Ku, Pat or M who have oodles of it. But V inspires me to make a fool of myself and smiles and nods and says ‘wonderful’ as he eats anything I make. I may hold Vidhu close to my heart, but I think the cooking gene has nothing to do with instinct or books or recipes. It probably just has to do with love.

Everyday Musings > Welcome home

V and I watch a channel four show - Grand Designs. It’s a show on people who set out to make their Dream Home. It’s fascinating to see how far they go to make it come true. Some build in the middle of nowhere with volunteers and local materials, some ship a entire framework across the sea, some rebuild an old barn or church and almost all stretch their funds with mortgages. And when it’s all done, it would seem that they would have found the final resting place that you and I make retirement plans for – they would have come Home. Yet some of them find, it wasn’t the ‘home’ they thought it would be.

So what is this elusive thing called Home?

As a civilisation we might have ceased being nomads long ago, but we are still urban wanderers. Sitting by our computers, shopping, eating, flicking channels, our minds are wandering to wishes and hopes and desires. We might have settled but our hearts haven’t. Our lives are too heavy for us to move them around, and we wait for and plan and dream of a tomorrow where we will reach just where we want to get, lighter, unburdened of today.

My friend M dreams of owning her own apartment, my friend J dreams of going back to Bangalore and living there. I dream of a house in the hills facing a lake. V, of a bed and breakfast somewhere in rural India.

Home, for a lot of us, is a sense of peace, of rest, of finally belonging perhaps, of being one with the self. But sometimes, even when we find that apartment or that house by the hills, it doesn’t seem like we’ve come home.

Perhaps the answer lies in what we call Home. Perhaps Home isn’t a place at all. Maybe it is more a feeling. Something that takes away the emptiness of being human.

So then what is home? Is it one thing? Is it lots of things? If it’s a feeling, what kind is it? Could a couch be home, a moment of glory or a cup of tea? A faded letter perhaps. An oft visited memory. A person. A song. A smell. What if any one of these could be Home, or even better, all of this could be Home?

My friend T’s daughter would stop crying if you played a Bollywood song for her and my friend R would carry his blanket everywhere. That was probably Home to them.

There’s a film of Susan Sarandon’s - ‘Anywhere but here’. It’s a great title and captures the essence of search - constantly restless, rushing about in a waiting room, watching life outside it with keen eyes. Perhaps all of us have a Home hidden someplace that we haven’t yet found because we are expecting something else.

For those of us still searching, the world is as alien inside, as it is out. For those of us who have found their Home, every place now seems, welcome.

Everyday Musings > What defines you?

Merriam-Webster defines Definition as ‘the art of determining, as a statement that expresses the essential nature of something’.

What came first, the definition or the word? Most likely the definition. Diplomacy is not really about word play as it is a play of definitions. Border, Third World, Middle East, Anti-Semitism, Fair Trade, Global Warming, Freedom. It is definition that builds our world - outside of us, and inside too.

Our minds create definitions by experience, knowledge, instinct and interaction. For some, Rain might be defined as ‘drowning’, to others ‘nostalgia’ and for someone ‘romance’. Definitions are said to be the key to unlock meaning. So then, what defines a human?

MW defines a Human as ‘having human form or attributes, susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature.’

What a boring inaccurate definition! I am sure none of us would like to be defined so. We’d call ourselves adventurous, elegant, tall, pretty, educated, ex Harvard, crazy, intelligent, gay, straight, well-endowed, rich, Indian, Greek, but we’d never define ourselves like that!

I watched ‘Confessions of a shopaholic.’ A fun film, especially if you can’t stop owning things. A girl is convinced that a green scarf defines her, till she had to give it away. When left without possessions, she realises that the green scarf was gone, and she was still who she was.

We define ourselves by what we do, what we did, where we studied, what we own, who we are friends with, what we think, what we hate, what we love, what we will be. We define ourselves to be the most interesting that we can be. Mostly, it makes us rise. And at times, fall prey to our own definition.

Dictionaries evolve over the ages. Our minds sometimes don’t. Definition then becomes a crutch. ‘If not this, then I’m nothing’. A student who commits suicide when he can’t get through medical college or a girl who runs up credit card bills to keep buying designer clothes.

Those around us also define us with statements or words. If they’re positive, it creates an aura, and if repeated by others, it defines us in public. A celebrity known for a certain gesture could end up repeating it consciously because it defines him/her. Or a person known to be always controversial could find it difficult to gain attention by being plain about an issue. Most of us might not even be aware of the things we’ve defined for ourselves or what we have been defined by.

PR managers recognise the power of definition and work at creating positive or controversial definitions for their clients. Most life coaches recommend role play or imaginary definitions to boost confidence.

At one stage 500 words was my defining point - ‘the girl who writes 500 words’. And it gave meaning to my life. When I took a break, it probably moved to ‘the girl who used to write 500’, and today it’s probably ‘the girl who started writing 500 again’. But as long as I remember that these are all definitions and will keep changing as I do, I think I’ll be fine.

Just because we can define something doesn’t always mean we can understand it. And though the world will live by its definitions, the important things - love, faith, life, death – ironically remain indefinable.

Everyday Musings > The Result of Life

In the beginning there was light. Or the Big Bang. Or the churning of the ocean. And then life as we know it began. There were no rules yet, except for the ones Nature had. There were no obligations. No concept of time other than night and day.

Then Human Beings came along. And decided to complicate life. Because they had a superior brain. And needed to do more than what animals did – eat, drink, sleep. They invented fire, started to farm, built communities, picked the strong and beautiful to lead them and divided them from the weak and maimed, created work hours and rest time, work days and holidays and most of all, gave rise to the importance of Result.

Result, as Merriam Webster states, is “to proceed or arise as a consequence, effect, or conclusion b: to have an issue or result .”

We live a life of consequence. Nothing comes from nothing any more. Everything arises out of a cause and effect that is pre-planned. No wonder there is so much stress.

If a flower doesn’t produce an x number of buds, it doesn’t wither in shame. If a tiger hunts a boar instead of a deer, it doesn’t hide from its kin. The results in Nature don’t matter. If one thing doesn’t result, they evolve into something else. They live, day to day, their ambition being only to enjoy the sun, air and water that’s available to them, and within it, to bloom or live.

V was reading something yesterday, and mentioned this line from it. The author said ‘There is no result in Zen practice. That is not the point. It is the effort that you make to prove yourself that is measured.”

Perhaps that is why the Zen Masters are so peaceful. If they meditated only to get Enlightenment as the Result of their meditation, they would indeed be miserable. They meditate. That is it. As the Hindu scriptures say ‘Karm kar, phal ki chinta mat kar’. (Do, don’t worry about the fruits of what you do.)

Not making your life about Results, but about action or karma is a productive thought. An action oriented one. It’s like a mountaineer who wants to climb Mount Everest. If he focuses on the Mountain, he will not be able to take a single step because he is not at the starting point. To make it to the peak, he needs to be aware of every step that takes him there, and when he does that, his mind is not on the Result but on the journey. And step by step, he will reach where he wants to.

Today, most of us are constantly exhausted or tired, awaiting that weekend or a break from life. A Zen Master needs no break from life. That concept is alien to a lot of my friends who enjoy the journey as much as the destination, the grind as much as the award ceremony. For them, life is. Not will be.

The Result of our Life is Death. But if we lived by that thought, we would not progress. The same applies to everything we do. I wonder if we all put the ghost of Result out of our minds, and worked in the ‘is’ rather than the ‘will be’ would it lead to fewer depressions, less suicides, less running away for breaks from our life. That if we did our thing for now, for the moment, without constantly tabulating Results in our mind, we would perhaps be more rested, more peaceful, and ironically more productive.

Everyday Musings > Gazing into the abyss

The kid dropped by the other day. He’d just watched the film ‘Watchmen’ and was describing how Alan Moore had redefined superheroes when he created the 12-part series in the late 80s.

I quote Wikipedia - 'Watchmen is set in an alternate reality which closely mirrors the contemporary world of the 1980s. The primary point of divergence is the presence of superheroes. Their existence in this iteration of America is shown to have dramatically affected and altered the outcomes of real-world events such as the Vietnam War and the presidency of Richard Nixon. In keeping with the realism of the series, although the costumed crime fighters of Watchmen are commonly called "superheroes", the only character who possesses obvious superhuman powers is Doctor Manhattan. The existence of Doctor Manhattan has given the U.S. a strategic advantage over the Soviet Union, which has increased tensions between the two nations. Additionally, superheroes have become unpopular among the public, which has led to the passage of legislation in 1977 to outlaw them. While many of the heroes retired, Doctor Manhattan and The Comedian operate as government-sanctioned agents, and the superhero Rorschach continues to operate outside the law.'

The story was interesting. And I felt compelled to read it and then watch the film. But what turned out more interesting was what The Kid said next. He mentioned an interaction between Rorschach (a superhero whose face changes like his namesake’s ink blot tests) and a psychiatrist, where Rorschach ends up tricking the psychiatrist into seeing the dark side of everything. Moore had ended that section with a quote from Nietzsche “Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

I took a moment to digest those words. Stunning statement. ‘If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.’ I saw it drive straight down into our everyday lives and make so much sense.

We create abysses every day, with our desires, wants and fears. And as we gaze into the abysses of our making, it gazes back at us and make us do its bidding. Unconsciously we become slaves of our own creations, our own decisions, our own powers, our own deeds.

In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo carries the ring of power to destroy it, but towards the end is mesmerised by it and fights to possess it. Midas was so carried away by his desire for Gold that he turned his daughter into a mass of it. Icarus was so possessed with his wings of wax that he didn’t see his doom in the sun. Abyss, every time.

Our ambition that once fed us, rules us. Our conviction that once gave us self-respect starts making us rigid and hateful. Our desires that made us admire something turn us into envious eyes. Our attachments that stemmed out of love make us hate. We see good intentioned, bright, smart, dynamic people losing their way, and wonder how it happened. The abysses we created gaze back into our soul and lay us bare.

Equanimity, stressed the Buddha - Neither too much, nor too little - The middle path. The abyss is a journey of extremes. When we keep to the middle of the road, we have a clear view of both sides. When we gravitate to either end, we risk a fall. And sometimes the abyss is too deep for a helping hand to reach.

If you’re gazing into the abyss, don’t stare too long.

Everyday Musings > Living with imposters

I open the papers, chat with friends, talk to colleagues and everyone’s talking the big R - Recession. Those wanting to buy a home are waiting, those wanting to change jobs are holding on, this year’s b-school grads are not confident of making it anywhere, those in newer jobs are finding themselves with three month notices to leave...it’s a strange foreboding feeling that seems to have unsettled everyone, especially Indians because it’s never really been like this since India took off with liberalisation.

But what worries me is that we’ve always been in recession. Ever since Independence at least. We’ve been in a recession of ideology, of identity, of faith, of unity, of political stability, of creativity, of peace. Most of all, we have been in a recession of awareness.

Trees are being cut to make way for broader roads, but our minds and thoughts are growing narrow and less inclusive. Our minds and hearts carry less love and peace and there’s more room to pump diseases and dissatisfaction. Malls, not healthcare, have become the signs of modernisation and development, foreign brands retailing from swank stores on our streets, rather than the wisdom of our heritage, is the sign that we too have arrived.

The world we are creating around us is stifling our being and we are not aware. The few, who sense the downfall move away to the fringes, decide to farm, work remotely, be eco-friendly, escape to meditation centres, and keep themselves far from this maddening monstrous metropolis. But as the three musketeers said, all for one, one for all. What will be the fate of one will be the fate of all, and the fate of all will be the fate of one, even if he is the enlightened Buddha. Thus each person’s progress matters, each person’s greed hinders. A recession that we must face even with a healthy balance sheet. The current economic downturn is a superficial big R to hit us, an external mechanism that calculates the money motors and has little to do with emotional content.

Rudyard Kipling, in his very poem If, said; “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same... Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.”

Can’t think of a time when it makes more sense than now. Triumph and Disaster are both fakes. Both illusions. Neither is permanent and neither can rule over the other. Recession is both; a boon for some who will realise that there are more important things in life than a stock index, and a curse for those who continue to live the mirage of the world and pray for the markets to alleviate their problems.

The fashion week, the Mecca of the splurgers, is walking the ramp for Recession, Tata’s new Nano is heralded as the R car. Everyone’s finding a business opportunity in these times, and marketing is twisting itself into cosy corners to find refuge till the R monster passes. Obama and Singh and the other world leaders are meeting to discuss the world and its issues. Maybe there’ll be more bailouts; maybe there will be some big decisions.

While they ruminate on the created societies and their created issues, it’s perhaps time we sat by ourselves, in silence, and became aware of the natural society we live in – our body, that wonderful mechanism that is happy with simple things like air and water. Perhaps a simple shedding of the two imposters will elevate us out of the economic quicksand.

The big R is within us, and it’s time we bailed our souls out.

Everyday Musings > Stuck on you

I bought myself a copy of Rujuta Diwekar’s ‘Don’t lose your mind, Lose your weight’. It’s a delightful read and one of the most sensible words on diets I’ve read so far. She doesn’t mince any words, has plenty of examples to state and brings in references from everyday life to make you smile, laugh and nod your head vigorously at various pages. The core of what she says is that don’t pick up something that you don’t see yourself maintain for the rest of your life. That something like a 3-day diet is not a lifestyle, just an experiment. And we make countless such taxing experiments on our bodies and minds in search of that perfect diet that will make us who we want to be.

It made me think about sticking to something forever. Does the idea still have relevance in today’s times? We are bored easily and in constant need of stimulation, thanks to television or the constant churning or so many new, exciting gadgets and products. By the time you start getting used to one, there’s new, improved you-just-have-to-get-this version 1.2. Where does it end?

My parents have had the same furniture for many years now. The upholstery changes every time it needs to and not because mother is bored with the print or wants to change her decor. The furniture they get made is made from ‘good wood’ that they believe should last for a long time. And they’ve been having the same staple diet since they were born. They stick to things, and like being stuck to them. It’s not imprisonment or a factor for boredom, but satisfaction and familiarity that makes them content and happy. For them, change does not equal to happiness.

Today’s world offers constant change. Moving cities is not such a big decision now; there is ease in having multiple relationships, experimenting with varied cuisines, changing furniture and decor according to one’s moods. Life has become full of choices and we ironically, change works because we are perhaps not prepared to or we do not want to make a choice. And always live with alternatives up our sleeve. Lest the one choice we make sticks and we can’t unstick it.

I wonder, if today, we walk around with alarms that go off in our heads if we’ve been doing the same thing for years. There’s a word for it, rut. And it’s applied even where it possibly doesn’t apply. If being in the same place for years a rut, then perhaps moving around but living your life in circles and not finding contentment is also a rut. And we need to pay heed to that too. So no matter how much I might find my parents need to be hold on to a life they know as being familiar being ‘stuck’, just because I move cities and change my habits and taste and wardrobe every few months, doesn’t mean I’m not ‘stuck’ too.

On March 15th, it’s eight years since I joined Ogilvy. New comers ask me how, what, really?? Old timers smile because they understand how it feels. Some jumpers and hoppers smirk and say, so what next? I honestly don’t know. It’s like living inside a jelly pod. You’re held in by all the gooey stuff, but there’s enough room to unstick from it all. Right now, I choose to stick.

Everyday Musings > Packed

I went to a mall recently to pick up a bottle of perfume. Saw many, some with delightful packaging that turned me dizzy except that the perfume had me nauseous and rushing for coffee beans. I wished then that I could opt to buy just the packaging and not the perfume, like collecting wrapping paper without the intention of ever having it ripped off a gift.

Design. The future of the world seems increasingly hinged on it. As societies grew larger and drifted to other settlements, Packaging was created to keep products fresh for longer, for it to be easily transportable, and in a growing market, to establish a brand. With time, products, however, are turning homogenous. And the role of packaging is now giving people the reason to pick this over that. In a row of a hundred packs of chips, we’d reach for the one most appetising, or most familiar. When products start having shorter life cycles and there are less and less ‘good old familiar’ varieties to pick from, or products travel across nations and no one is sure of how good or bad an alien brand is, design takes centre stage and makes our choices for us. We base earnestness, ‘traditionalness’, fun, taste, authenticity on the proportions and colours and typeface on the pack. This most times subconsciously, and increasingly consciously, dictates what makes it to the shopping cart.

This movement towards conscious recognition of packaging versus it being a subconscious stimulus is one that possibly affects our social character as well. The outer form is becoming more and more important as people find less and less time to invest in getting to know people the old fashioned way. Relationships are shorter and quicker. As are loyalties. Thus what you wear and how you look is the best way to pick this over that. Be it in friendship, love or jobs. I once heard my friend say that his boss decides to hire someone in the first five seconds of seeing that person, the rest of the interview is just a formality. And everyone’s in a rush to package themselves as best as they can.

This charm for window dressing, though, is stoked by talent and opportunity. The rising amount of people employed and enrolled by design is mind boggling. The internet and the real world have unending possibilities for the designer and its muse. And like agriculture, industrialisation, genetics and information technology, this revolution is spreading faster and deeper into everyone’s psyche.

Each one of us are walking design statements, each speaking our own visual language. We walk around the world, our shopping carts in mind, picking this one and that one based on what we see, touch, smell, feel. Sometimes, the packaging is the right pick, sometimes it’s not to expectations and sometimes way past expiry date. And like the ones who walk the malls and thumb the glossies, we're experiencing shopper's anxiety too.

The who-what-which is our pick, our choice, based on our design preferences, but as design gets sharper, slicker and more individualistic, our choices get that much finer. Leaving no room for something to grow on us and surprise us. The price seems too high to pay for a trial and throw. Or is it?

Everyday Musings > Life's checklist

As I sit on my many cubby-holed wooden writing table, two books stare out at me, ’98 things a woman should do in her lifetime’ and ‘101 things to do before you die’.

The first is a gift from Krish and the second was something Sue and I bought together promising to fill it up soon. The lists in it are interesting and things that one would love to do, some bizarre but adventurous, some simple and emotional. I've ticked on many and will probably do much more, but this morning, looking at the books, I wondered. Why do we make bucket lists?

What are our bucket lists all about? Unfulfilled wishes, desires, wants, goals, and expectations. Things that we wish to achieve, that we believe will make us the person we want to be, that we think will be the purpose of our lives. Our collected credits before we leave Earth.

Human Beings are mortal, and the clock starts ticking from the time we’re born. It’s a reverse countdown and the only thing sure in our destiny is the fact that we will die. There is no set way to life, no rules, no guidelines, nothing. We just plop out, cry, blink and start breathing.

To make it easier for to live this journey from birth to death, Human Beings created structures of living, and earned credits for each level - playschool, school, college, work, dating, marriage, children, retirement etc. As life went by, we exchanged our credits for wants, desires and goals. The must do, should do, have to do, really want to do bucket lists.

In the Landmark Forum, they said ‘Life is empty and meaningless and it is empty and meaningless that it is empty and meaningless.’ Like walking into an empty room for no reason at all apart from the reasons that your mind will find or create to explain why you are there. The room by itself is real but inert. It doesn’t goad you to do anything; it’s just a container for you to breed your thoughts and actions in.

But what does this mean for us? Do we stop making bucket lists? Are last wishes or dreams futile? Are achievements unnecessary? I thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that the fact that life was empty and meaningless was such a liberating, happy thought. It meant I needed to earn no credits. It meant that the bucket list I made had no purpose other than beng a list. ‘I want to travel the world’ meant ‘I want to travel the world’ and nothing else. And that freed me from searching for my destiny, or what plans God had for my life. It meant my bucket list would not matter in the big scheme of things. That there was no big scheme of things. That life just is.

I used to collect bottle caps when I was a kid. If you collected enough of them, you could exchange them for goodies. Maybe some of us make bucket lists to cash them in for a space in the memories of those who live on after us. And thus remain immortal. And maybe some of us make lists so that we can give meaning to life and thus triumph over it's meaninglessness.

Everyday Musings > How random is that

I love random things. The kind that plop into your life when you least expect and fill it with something new and interesting. Much of my life has been built on random decisions and it’s been a delightful pick.

Merriam Webster says being random is taking a haphazard course, without definite aim, direction, rule, or method. Wikipedia adds that randomness is a lack of order, purpose, cause or predictability. Aristotle is said to have defined it as a situation where a choice is to be made which has no logical component by which to determine or make the choice. The term is also often used by statisticians to mean lack of bias or correlation.

Random selection forms the basis of Tarot card readers, teen-patti players, lottery buyers and so on. Things that to us seem mystical and magical and out of our control. And thus provide much excitement of stepping into the unknown by trying them out. Websites like randomwebsite.com and stumbleupon.com makes it interesting to experiment on randomness on the internet, where exploration can lead you to places/people/thoughts you didn’t know existed.

Allthetests.com had a random test on randomness. Questions were something like this. Have you ever worn a ballerina outfit to the mall? Have you stolen an aged piece of garbage? Have you gotten mad at a tree? Do you lick the table on Wednesday? Do you own a planner? Have you annoyed a butterfly? Have you befriended a mailbox? Do you enjoy staring at the wall? Am I scaring you? Do you speak Italian? Can I have your t-shirt? Does Riley own a cow with band aids attached? Have you ever done a dare? Do you have an unnatural fear of staplers? Have you told a stranger that you loved them? Have you skipped dinner? Have you ever been to a gas station to drink an ice tea? Do you hate cockroaches? Do you hate cockroaches? Have you ever travelled to a country just to take a picture? Are you mad at your eyes? According to the test I am sort of random. Hmm ballerina outfit eh.

Sometimes we meet people that things just seem to happen to. And they lead the wonderful lives we’d love to lead. Probably because they are living random. Loving the idea of random I’ve realised means being open to life and everything in it. It means letting oneself be curious, experimental, hopeful, non-judgmental and welcoming. No matter what one encounters, one embraces it and makes it part of one’s life, no matter how strange, icky, weird it might seem. All the explorers and experimenters are definitely lovers of the random.

Living random scares many of us. It’s the phobia of the unknown, of not knowing what to expect. So many of us lead lives which lead to expected results and rue that the unexpected never happens to us. No surprises, no magical events, no wonderful things that just happened out of the blue.

I wonder if we could experiment with random, even if for just a day in the week. Say Wednesday is random day, and we do random things, make random decisions. What would it be like? Uninhibited, mad, crazy, constantly surprised...it would be like being a child again.But then again, guess the idea is to open yourself up to the randomness of life. It wouldn't be random if you planned random, would it?

Everyday Musings > Food Glorious Food

I've been attempting to cook for the last few months. Recently I bought a book - ‘Pure and Simple Vegetarian Cooking’ by Vidhu Mittal. It has beautiful pictures, easy instructions and some lovely recipes. It’s been three days since I’ve been trying a dish a day from the book – brown rice with besan zucchini, carrot and peas pulao and today, phulka with minty aloo. My salt is consistently less and the phulka today fluffed beautifully but wasn’t as soft as it ought to be. It is truly fun to cook and eat fresh, hot food. And I’m sure it is a hell of a lot more fulfilling to cook and feed it to someone too. Once or twice I’ve carried my experiments to work, so my dear friends (who I call my three mothers) can taste it and tell me where I’ve gone right or wrong.

Lunch in the canteen is a depressing affair. The food is insipid and far from nutritious. A platter of diced fruits is all that’s palatable at times. The days when someone gets food from home, our eyes light up. Everyone heaps spoonfuls and relishes it, conversations are more animated, the laughter heartier than usual. A good lunch gives everyone enough reason to smile till the afternoon tea.

The other day, on the way to a meeting, a colleague J and I were discussing that if not for our taste buds, we could pop little green food pills and life would go on without a hitch. There’d be no restaurants, no canteens, no wastage and no hunger problem. I shudder at the thought though. The smell of fresh bread being baked, the taste of apple pie, the last bit of chocolate sauce that waits to be licked off the lip, the appeal of a hot roti giving into a slab of white butter...I cannot imagine food not being food.

India has so many varieties of food; they differ from state to state, region to region, home to home, hand to hand. World over, food is a major reason some people know that a few countries exist. Lebanese Falafal being one instance. Or Caribbean beans. Japanese Sushi. Or Indian curry. Food seems to be a great way to understand culture and initiate hospitality. The first thing anyone does to make a guest feel welcome is to take them out to dinner. The simplest way to show your appreciation for an alien culture is to eat the local food.

Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver, Kylie Kwong, Yan, Sanjiv Kapoor, Tarla Dalal have all earned much praise and fan following for entertaining people with their culinary talents. A cookery show is so relaxing to watch, the neat precise manner in which the ingredients are measured and set aside in plain bowls, the different woks and kadhais, the cooking process and finally the garnishing and serving. Cooking is therapeutic and it is amazing that in a planet with so many creatures, human beings are the only ones able to cook food and relish it.

I learnt to cook a few months ago, and realised that I’ve been missing out a wonderful experience. I wonder why food is not taught as a science to students and why there are no kitchen labs and culinary studies in school? How is it that such an essential skill escaped their attention and is relegated to a Home Science or Catering elective in college?

The way my grandmother cooked and the way my mother cooks and the way I cook are so different. Like copying the same film onto different CDs, there is much generation loss, but as long as there is the willingness to cook, and enough love in the preparation of it, I’m sure food will never turn into a little green pill.

Everyday Musings > On the sidewalk

I grew up in Andhra, Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai, Bangalore, and have travelled across the country. But when I had to decide where in India I would like to live, as a single woman, of the 29 states and 6 union territories, Mumbai was the only place that felt relatively safe. It was the only city I could see myself being on my own, having the freedom to live and travel and use the public transport, all alone, after 8 pm.

It unsettles me. This lack of choice. And makes me wonder why it is so.

At the Kalaghoda Fair, there was an installation, a maze created by walls of saris stretched across a frame that you had to walk into. It was called the Labyrinth. It was narrow and one didn’t know where it would lead to. And had signs hanging from above...of incidents and places where women’s freedom had been violated. It was a claustrophobic experience, one that I wished I could run out of. I felt the fear I feel on a semi-deserted bridge or subway, in a nearly empty bus or in a crowded market.

I pick up the papers and read about women being raped, physically assaulted, paraded naked or threatened with acid. TV reports recently showed a bunch of college girls being manhandled and beaten in full view of cameras by hooligans and paid hands. And if these seem random, one only has to step onto the streets to feel the stares, the gropes, the lecherous looks that strip you from head to toe, faces that leer, voices that come close and whisper obscenities or 'hello baby' in your ear. I have waited to cross the road and have seen decent looking guys from ‘good families’, on bikes, with their sisters or girlfriends sitting pillion, air-kiss or letch openly at women on the sidewalk.

My friend M recently posted on her blog about a new taxi service for women in Mumbai city. She said “It’s not only safety concerns that have prompted the move of such a concept in Bombay, it’s a need, when women sit in a taxi, they don't feel comfortable - it’s everything from hygiene to the driver gawking at you in the mirror to the attitude and behaviour of rudeness and belligerence one has to put up with especially given that you don't seek a free ride in the black and yellow! In fact I know of some colleagues who arrive by the last flight into the city late night, and hire a cab from the airport, often pretend to be on mobile phones when alone with male drivers to create a feeling of safety.”

What is this India we live in today? It clashes with every value that my brother and I have been taught as children, every value that I am sure every Indian child has learnt. We pray to so many goddesses, revere and respect our mothers and sisters and yet see our women facing so many unmentionable atrocities. Why do some men treat women like this? What is it that they are trying to prove? Who are they trying to be? What makes them step out of home and do this and go right back and touch their mother's feet?

A fan of Phantom comics, I remember the picture of a beautiful woman dressed in Gold and a blurb that said “Old jungle saying - A beautiful woman clad in the finest jewels may walk in the jungle safely at midnight."

Societies, old and new, would to date count themselves safe if they could make a claim like this. We probably had this kind of peace and freedom from fear a long time ago, during the rule of some benevolent kings, when we were called ‘Sone ki Chidiya’(the golden bird) perhaps. But the India of today has traveled far from Phantom’s just world. I pray it doesn't lose its way completely.

Everyday Musings > By Chance

I watch a bit of a film called 'Just my Luck' which was about this really lucky girl who always gets the best of everything in life, till one day she loses it when she kisses someone who has terrible luck, and they switch destinies. What a helpless situation that would be. If you always wished to be lucky, you'd then wish and pray that you never lost what you asked for. That's the thing with something external I guess, that you could always lose it. I read somewhere that SRK wakes up every morning dreading that he's not famous anymore. But does luck happen by chance?

Fairy godmothers, guardian angels, magic lamps, lucky charms; all are shortcuts, or surecuts to get us the life we want. And what stops us from just going out there and getting what we want? Maybe we don't believe that we can. Maybe we want a quick fix. Maybe we want to be absolutely assured of our happiness. That makes sense – we want to be sure, certain, 100% in the know of tomorrow. Of a happy, joyful, healthy, wealthy tomorrow. The kinds that magic wands seem to promise. And if ever, we get that, even for a minute, we call it luck, fate, destiny, chance, magic, signs, coincidence or the work of a guardian angel.

I'm convinced I have a guardian angel. From the time I was a child till today, I've been taken care of, protected, and loved; every step of the way. If I lost something, I always found it or something else made up for it. If I ran out of money, I'd find some tucked away in my jeans, old wallets, any place I least expected to find some. I see signs everywhere that save me, help me make a decision, bring me out a spot and make me smile. I have had my share of tears and fears, but in hindsight everything that happened to me, happened for a reason. And it's made my life what it is.

Perhaps each one of us has a guardian angel, reaching out, helping like a silent elf. But maybe we're too busy worrying and wanting to notice. Or perhaps, just perhaps, each one of us is our own guardian angel, magic wand, lucky charm, destiny keeper. And the coincidences that we smile at, or the signs that we see, are all the work of our own mind. We make our lives what they are, and all those incredible things we thank luck and chance for, maybe is our own doing. Our minds have supreme power and our bodies are masses of energy and together they attract more than we see. If we call on good, we see good. If we call on bad, we see bad. Like in the Alchemist, 'if we really want something, the whole universe conspires to get it for us'.

So by wishing, praying, hoping, wanting, we're making our energy work for us, to get us what we want. Ironically, if we get it, we celebrate the role of coincidence, chance, luck, fate, but not our own minds. Only the celebration comes with a rider; if I don't know how it came about, how can I make it stay or keep coming back? So we are indebted to an external benefactor, Luck, Fate etc; and we remain chained to that thought, always nervous of losing what we think we got by grace.

I went to K's wedding on Sunday. It was the first catholic wedding I'd ever attended, and thanks to SD, I waltzed, did the wedding march, jived and did the birdie dance too. And when all the single women were called to catch the bouquet, I went and joined them, standing there, remembering all the movies I'd seen this part in. I watched as the bride turned around, raised her arms, flung the bouquet over her head, and the bouquet sailed into the air and to my utter surprise, landed in my hands. What a stroke of luck and fortune said everyone. You will soon marry lucky girl. And they grinned at me.

Yes, it was luck, a thing of chance I said to myself and smiled. A sign from my guardian angel who knows my silly romantic mind. Now I wonder, was it just me, making it happen for myself.

Has luck always been ours for the asking?

Everyday Musings > Absence and Presence

I watched 'He's not that into you' day before. An average film about women who are unable to read the signs men give out, and wonder and worry about love, having it and not having it. I was perplexed by the end of the film about what their conclusions were. Through the film they had a character called Alex who cut through the confusion and gave a girl tips on how to figure when a guy gives you a brush off and by the end of her several dates, men who fall in love seemed an aberration. But then Alex goes and falls in loves with her and all the theories bookmarked turned to nought. It turns out no one knows what makes love work after all.

My friends and I constantly chat about love. Perhaps because someone in the group is either falling out of it, into it, or wanting to. So it's a perennial topic. On my way back home, I remembered something that seemed to connect and could, maybe, shed some light on the issue.

I love white. It's a beautiful soothing colour that stands for calm, peace, serenity and purity. But White, I believe, is not a colour. It is the absence of colour that defines the colour white. White has all the colours of the rainbow and they fuse together to create the impression of white, but white is not a component in it.

I wondered if that could be true for love as well.

The heady feeling, the jelly legs, the not being able to speak or think with clarity, the feeling you can't explain...we look for definite signs when we fall in love. We've read about them in books, seen them in movies, but that need not be the only signs of love. What if it was the absence of all things we are sure of as being love also defines love? Is that perhaps a better judge? Could we start interpreting signs of love differently?

So, say you meet a guy or girl, and you like the person, spend time, talk, smile, call, meet up for coffee etc. But when you start to think if its love, you say nah, no, I don't feel the usual symptoms. Or take the case of an arranged marriage. A couple met, got married, took up responsibility together, brought up children, have a deep understanding of each other, accept each other's faults, but when asked if it was love that keeps them together, say oh we had an arranged marriage, and just grew to accept the other. I wonder if, in our daily life, we're missing the negative spaces, the things that are not love that may also define love.

A thing can be defined by its negative space, by what it does not seem to be. If we look around us, we'll find negative space in everything, the absence which marks a presence. Like night is the absence of day, death is the absence of life. Michelangelo said of his sculpting 'I saw the angel trapped in stone and I set him free.' He sculpted the negative space. He chipped away all the stone that was not the angel, and the angel appeared.

So what if we chipped away all that is not love and then found love by doing that. Like the friends in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na who one day realise they're in love. So if one doesn't feel negative towards a person, doesn't hate them, doesn't not care, doesn't not understand, doesn't not feel something nice when one is with that person, then it could logically mean that there is a possibility of love. And probably, if the mind explores, ta da, love happens.

For those of us looking for love, perhaps it's always been around. But maybe we've been just been too distracted by the traditional signs of love to see the presence of it.

Everyday Musings > Delhi Belly

I'm up every morning to the sounds of 'Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar' from the soundtrack of Dilli6. It brings back memories from Delhi where I spent five years of my life. In the times when life wasn't so rushed, the streets not so filled with molestation attempts and Gurgaon and Noida debates.

When I moved from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh to Delhi, it was a culture shock. I didn't know a word of Hindi and was lost. I was in KG I think. We moved into a place in Old Rajinder Nagar, a first floor apartment in a G+1 house, with a balcony that ran around the house, where the landlords, the D's, lived below. The D's were a joint family; there was M aunty, A uncle, their lovely 5 year old daughter S and the very interesting dadima. Having a South Indian family staying upstairs meant chawal for S who used to run up for lunch and dinner to have her fill of it. And of course, the dosas and the vadas.

My school was first St Josephs I think and then I moved to Bapu Adarsh Vidyalaya, which had classes till the 6th. They taught everything from singing, dancing, painting, even Sanskrit. The school had a jungle behind the premises where we'd see peacocks during lunch. And I remember making a solar electricity generator for a science exhibition. I walked from home to school, a nice happy walk with friends, through a residential area full of gardens. I remember stopping to wonder if I could pluck any roses from this one lady's garden that was just so inviting.

It's easy to make friends in Delhi. I had plenty. K and P and I were a gang. K's favourite pastime was looking up girl's skirts and P and I used to make fun of him. P was a sweet girl and her mom made the yummiest food. We'd roam about and spend hours doing nothing, but it was fun.

My brother and I had a huge collection of dinky cars that we were so protective about. He and I were best friends and often hung out together. Our haunts were Pappu ki dukaan for Peppy and Thums Up and a tiny shop where we'd buy masala Imli and these yummy fried hollowed out pipe shaped puffed corn thingy.

I once bought a puppy home. My neighbour's dog had had several so I took one. It was winter time, and the puppy would nuzzle its wet nose and get into my parents bed. It once even peed in my mom's closet. My mother was so furious, she ordered it right back. I was very sad to give it away, but would go see it from time to time.

Our home was always filled with guests. P uncle was our favourite. He'd come and take us out to Taj Palace and we'd rush up and down the escalators. And dad would take us to Appu Ghar, Pragati Maidaan and India Gate when the weather was nice, to have ice creams and buy balloons and feel the grass on our bare soles. We'd eat ice creams a Nirulas and kababs on Shankar Road dhabas and when we got the first colour tv around, everyone would sit to watch cricket matches and chitrahaar and movies.

The locality we stayed in was a fun place. The garbage woman S was a loud Haryanvi and such a strong lady. I was a bit scared of her. The opposite house aunty would wash and dry her Sardar husband and son's hair every Sunday and it was mesmerising to watch. D aunty would call me on Kanchke and do puja and give me aate ka halwa, puri and black chana with a crisp new 2 rupee note on it. Come summer and the women would make achaar, the pheri waalas would bring fresh cut muli and kakdi, smear it with salt and chaat masala and we'd crunch it while playing. Winters and the school dress would have blazers and high woollen socks and I'd rub my hands and blow smoke rings.

Festivals were so much fun in Delhi. One didn't have to check dates to know what was when. The streets would be filled with preparations for it. On lohri, the whole street would gather and throw puffed rice into the fire and eat til. On Karvachauth, M aunty would henna her long beautiful hair and put mehndi on her hands, dress up like a bride and pass thaalis with the neighbourhood women. On Janmashtami, the neighbourhood houses would make installations of Krishna's birth and life on the narrow street and it was a treat.

Delhi is a lovely memory in my head, although when I visited it last, it was nothing like how I knew it. Like an innocent child that had become too worldly wise. Woh dilli thi mere yaar.

Everyday Musings > Happy 35th

Mother is chubby. And has twinkling eyes when you look through her glasses. She's soft, like a cotton cloud I could sink into. There's something about her saris. My brother used to sleep with one of them as his blanket for a while. He also had this habit of holding her earlobe as he slept. I just hug her, as much as I can. It's fun to watch her cook. She's like a bird. Her vegetables are cut neatly, her masalas are just right and food always served fresh and hot. She's an incredible cook and loves experimenting with new recipes. She makes a lot of things. Vegetarian for my dad who loves eating only mallu food, baked dishes and fish and prawns for me, something special for my brother who I always think she loves a wee bit more. Hmph. I love to take her shopping. And buy her loads of things. She loves to feed me with fruits and almonds and gooseberries and karele ka juice. Yikes. Mom taught me that the way you cut your vegetables affects their taste. She taught me to welcome people, to never take life too seriously, to laugh as much as I like and cry as much too. She taught me to serve with love, to always keep my home clean and to love plants. She taught me that one can be traditional and modern and it does not conflict. She taught me how to care for others, how to draw, how to love colours and how to be a child even after I grew up. She taught me the first prayer I ever heard. She taught me equality and selflessness. She taught me love. And everything I know about it.

Father challenges me. He treats me as an equal. He bought me my first big book, served me my first glass of beer, helped me with all my elocutions and debates and is the reason I know so many words. He tried teaching me to write and read Malayalam many times but I never learnt. He often took my brother and me to India Gate to have ice cream and always bought us balloons. He taught me how to play chess. We argue, constantly. Father loves collecting newspaper clippings. He says he'll read them when he retires. Only when he retired, he went right back to work. He's a workaholic and works all day. And night. He truly enjoys what he does. He was 55 I think when he worked on his first computer and taught himself so much that he's now an IT consultant. I'm very proud of him but I don't think I've ever told him that. He loves my new home, tells me its warm and nice and is finally convinced I can live alone. Father loves whiskey and beer and cricket matches and Malayalam movies. He loves Aamir Khan and calls SRK a monkey. Grin. He loves his brothers and sisters and always plans to bring them together every occasion he gets. He likes kitchen gardens and always plants lime and chilli and kadi patta in his ancestral home whenever he does back. He started an education fund for poor children in his village. He's very organized and has files for everything. He's saved every card or gift I've given him since I was a child. He saves and invests and wishes I would save too. He loves me and is proud of me and never stops telling me that.

Today my mother and father celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary, and I dedicate this musing to them.

Everyday Musings > MisEducation

My friend R and M once went to visit a famous architect. He was about 90 years old and they chatted with him about architecture and working in the old times. They noticed that in his living room there was a blackboard filled with scribbles and formulae. They asked him what that was, and he said, oh I've decided I want to a nuclear physicist.

I've been surfing to check education links and noticed that almost all graduate and post graduate courses in India have an age limit. I honestly fail to see what education has to do with age. Why can't one pursue education all of one's life. Take up architecture studies when one is forty or graphic design at 50. Why does age have to be such a huge factor, a cut off? What does age have to do with inclination and talent?

Came across a feature in The Guardian, on Bridgemary Community School in Hampshire. The school abandoned age-based classes and grouped its 1,000-plus pupils according to their ability. The teachers say it's been great so far. That all the pupils are at about the same level and the younger ones bring a lot of enthusiasm and energy into the classes and that really rubs off on the whole group. It's an energising process for everybody, teachers included.

The feature also said that the 'secondary school's radical shakeup has brought grumblings from within the education establishment. Teachers' leaders have questioned its effectiveness and some parents have raised fears of a bullying epidemic as younger pupils are taught alongside teenagers three or four years their senior.'

But what Cheryl Heron, the head teacher said, stayed with me. 'The main thing is to do the right thing for these students. That means if they are good enough they are old enough.'

It made me think of our education system. While its rigorous and there's plenty of good in it, but I wonder if it's based on the fears and conveniences of those who created it. Was the good of the children a socialist good or was it really concerned with each student getting his/her due?

I imagine an India where there is no age based education, where anyone could study anything, at any point in time. I see more creativity, more original thought, more renewing of one's talents, more discovery, more enthusiasm. And less regret over missed opportunity or time having flown by, less stress about growing old.

Also perhaps then, they will also look at why education is restrictive? Why can't an arts student take up architecture or study at NID? Why can't a science student elect to do philosophy, physics and biology? Why this demarcation of streams? Life is not like that.

Education strives to prepare you for life. But ours seems to slot us into holes we can't get out of later. My friend S wants to move away from the city, and send her child to a school where education is based on life and what we see around us. That's how they learn; by touching, feeling, talking, experimenting. She says the normal schools produce the same mould and she wants her child to have a chance at individuality. A Parathasarthy, in his book, The Fall of the Human Intellect, speaks of a generation stuffed with much knowledge and intelligence but bereft of reasoning skills, of judgement, of original thought.

Maybe there's a lesson in that for all of us.

Everyday Musings > If ever I am afraid again

I had a terrible attack of migraine yesterday, the worst in months. Got home, tried to lie down, but couldn't sleep. Finally took a Saridon and slept off. Only to wake at one. Anxious and terrified. Of god knows what. I lay, clutching my duvet, frozen with fear for some time. Then turned on the lights, ran to the kitchen and got a little brass Ganesha from my little temple and leapt back into bed and held it close, chanting everything I knew. But there was still so much fright. Messaged the friends likely to stay up that late. Thankfully R was up. Called him. He said, get up, make some tea. Drink it, you'll feel better. I chattered nervously, made tulsi tea and came back and sat in my bed, chattering some more till I sipped some tea and felt calmer and bid him goodnight. The manic fear gone, I was now wide awake and wondering what to do. I remembered buying a DVD of Breakfast at Tiffanys intending to watch it sometime and never having time. Now I did have time. Went and got it, slid it into my laptop, snuggled big fat headphones on and was lost in Audrey Hepburn's charms. The movie had one of my all time favourite songs, Moon River. I hummed along and watched my fears disappear.

As a child, whenever I was afraid, my mother would say a prayer she learnt as a child, and taught me to say it so I wouldn't be afraid. I said it for many years, till tonight, when I realised that prayer was a distraction, a way of calming my breath, and that it could be anything, even Moon River, if I believed it would make me happy.

Moon River goes something like this. Moon River, wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style some day. Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker, wherever you're going I'm going your way. Two drifters off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see. We're after the same rainbow's end-- waiting 'round the bend, my huckleberry friend, Moon River and me.

In the movie, Audrey Hepburn talks of having Mean Red Days, where she feels afraid for no reason at all, and what calms her down is a trip to Tiffany's. Like in the song from Sound of Music, where Julie Andrews sings 'I simply remember my favourite things and then I don't feel so bad.'

I thought of all the things to remember and do if ever I was afraid again. Turning on all the lights at home. Singing Moon River aloud to myself. Reading a romantic story. Watching a movie. Drinking Tulsi Tea. Eating a chocolate. Calling a friend who's likely to be awake. Cleaning my house. Organising my wardrobe. Scrubbing my feet. Doodling. Watering my plants. Having a midnight snack. Solving a crossword. Having another cup of tulsi tea. Sending smses my friends would read the moment they woke up. Writing 500 words.

Everyday Musings > Good Mutant

Designer Phillipe Starck in a chat on Ted.com spoke of evolution and the fact that the bacteria didn't know it was going to become us and we don't know what we're going to become. But we feel that perhaps evolution has stopped with us. And we're the final ones. He said we are all mutants and the game is to be a Good Mutant, rise from our narrow worlds and make our civilisations great. And if we don't deeply understand that we are mutants, we're completely missing the story.

To participate in the evolution cycle, he said, there are rules. The first duty he said, is vision. We use it for everyday existence, to see our personal area, avoid accidents. Then look up a bit more, and see people around us, have conversations. Sometimes look around more and see our environment, sometimes even see far and high to see national problems, then higher to see world problems, then higher to gain perspective of our life vis a vis the universe. The further and higher our vision, he says, the more important we are to the story of civilisation. And there are traps.

The trap of our civilisation, he insists, is God. He says God is the answer when you don't know the answer. And we tend to restrict our vision because we have him to fall back on. Starck said we all invent our stories and pass on. So our children can invent a new story, the only rule is that you work from a blank slate every time. That s why he says, he finds joy even in designing a toilet brush, because that's the story of his life.

It made sense to me. The idea of me being a mutant. An evolving being, in process, a tiny flutter in a sandstorm. Part of a bigger plan that me as a waft will never see unless I rise to become something that moves the winds. And that the story of my life is for me to invent. And live. And my vision invents that story. If I think of my job and my bills, my story will be written like that. If I think I want to do something for India, my story will perhaps go the way of the Mahatma. If I think I want to rule the world, my story might be Alexander's. If I think of the Universe, maybe Einstein.

It puts immense power in the hand of the mutant, to stay or rise, be the cause, or the effect. To live or to curse fate. I sat on my bed for a bit and said this is myself 'I am a mutant' and it felt strange, like a scene out of X Men. Where is my power, aren't Mutants blessed with power. We are, blessed by evolution with intelligence and immunity that's higher than the bacteria we mutated from. The next lot of mutants will probably be more developed than us.

We think of advances in science and technology and wonder what the inventions for the next millennium will be. What about the next human being? How will we be? I have no idea. Maybe we'll fly. Or live underwater once more. Or not need Oxygen to breathe. Once I opened my eyes to being a mutant, I can see the universe that I live in, and feel its machinations. I also realised that I am not content being a flutter in the evolutionary sandstorm. This means I need to do what Starck's Good Mutants do. Move the winds.

Everyday Musings > Kids Stuff

As a child, I remember my granny telling my cousins and me tales of princes and princesses and forests and magical lakes and little children who were so brave. I grew up on fairy tales and happy endings and graduated to romance and mystery and so did most of my friends. Our books went from, to just name a few, Hans Christian Anderson to Enid Blyton to St. Clares, Mallory Towers, Batman, Superman, Three Investigators, Five Find Outers, Secret Seven, Asterix, Tintin, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys to Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie and then giving into adulthood with Earl Stanley Gardner, Jeffrey Archer, Eric Lustbader, Robert Ludlum, Calvin & Hobbes, Stephen King, Douglas Adams and Woody Allen. It was a ritual, a coming of age rite that was defined by which book we were reading then. Kids stuff was clearly demarcated from what grown-ups read.

Maybe Harry Potter changed all of that. Suddenly my friend's six year old daughter and I were reading the same book, with the same enthusiasm, madness and interest. And we were twenty years apart. JK Rowling, that magician of imagination brought us at par with each other, standing in the same queues, jostling, even fighting for a book. Many friends of mine are die-hard fans of the Potter series. Many, alas, are not.

The Harry Potter series is very simply written but carries so much within it. The characters are extremely well etched out, each having a destiny they play out no matter how unpleasant. All the characters in the book are flawed, even Harry. And the world Rowling creates is remarkable, for it is full of analogies and lessons without being preachy or moralistic. Like the Mirror of Irised which shows you the thing you want most. Or the set of horses called Thestrals that pull the carriages at Hogwarts (the school of magic) and are visible to only those who've seen death. Or the boggart - a creature who takes the form of your worst fear and can only be dismissed by imagining your fear in a funny situation while shouting the spell 'ridikulus'. Oh there are so many, and the books are truly an enjoyable read.

Children seem to respond to the real now. And embrace a flawed Harry or a book such a A series of Unfortunate Events, as much as Prince Caspian or Snowhite. They get that Spidey can be bad too or that Batman can be hurt and The Joker can steal the show. Unlike the fairy tales of the past which demarcated good and evil clearly, today's books and movies seems to be more realistic and the audience, be it children or adults, are able to enjoy them for what they are, rather than by what is right or wrong. Probably why all ages enjoy them.

But as children open up to flaws and gore and reality in their choice of movies, games and books, I find that many of my adult friends have moved back to romance and comedy and fun. As far away from reality as possible. A choice between 'Ghajini' and 'The president is coming' was to head for what would make us laugh and go home with a smile on our face. An experience we'd reserve for kids otherwise.

Fairy tales and Santa Claus were fiction while I grew up. With reality television and sensationalist news broadcasts, ironically, reality seems like fiction now. Only it doesn't have the charm that made a fairytale something to look forward to.

Everyday Musings > What's your trailer?

The Kid and I met for coffee recently and among other things, we got talking movies. He spoke of Jumbo and why he thought it didn't do that well. The trailers. They were all about Akshay Kumar and when the audience went to the theatre, they saw a Bangkok borrowed-dubbed in Hindi-animated film, and no Akshay. Dissonance and thus the audiences left disproportionately dissatisfied, and the movie slipped into oblivion.

The Kid talked of how when movie makers are honest with their trailers and promos, the film stands a better chance of doing well, because audiences get a feel of the subject. But when trailers are slick and work to trick the audiences into believing there's more than there is actually in the story, it always backfires, and the film flops in the burden of expectations it's created for itself. The same applies for movies where the trailers don't do justice to the film, and people who walk in with low expectations are disproportionately satisfied when they see a half decent flick and heartily recommend it to everyone as being brilliant.

We're all walking trailers of ourselves. Showing thirty-second promos to all who meet us. Which is probably why they say first impressions count. People make judgments based on the trailers we shoot and edit of us. So the more connected our trailers are with our reality, the more likely we are of receiving aligned feedback. The more our trailers vary, the more unsure people get of who you are and what you stand for. And for those shy, inhibited ones among us who have 'don't pay attention to me' trailers sometimes bloom only when the really curious stumble upon them.

A friend and I recently had a conversation where she was sad about something and said that all her friends give her advice, but no one appreciates what she's achieved. But the reality was that all her friends, including me had only heard sad stories of what was wrong with her life, and that's the trailer that played for us. It was only when she started talking of what she accomplished that the appreciation angle to the story came in, and I was charmed by what she'd been up to.

Actress Rita Hayworth once said that 'Men go to bed with Gilda and wake up with me'. Gilda being a famous character she played. Public Figures usually adopt their image and that becomes their trailer. And that's probably why they're insecure, but sometimes that image is not them at all. And it's edited to suit the junta's choices. I marvel at how Rajnikant can be balding, dark skinned, unshaven, unkempt, regular Joe in real life, and then transform into his larger than life characters on screen. He plays out two distinct trailers and they both do justice to his story.

Brands and countries also have trailers. A great trailer for a sub-optimum brand makes it fail faster. Noodles that look better in the commercials than they taste, or service that's promised that doesn't deliver. As for Countries, they are so careful of the trailers they play that they have diplomatic experts editing and filming it to precision.

Maybe it is time we looked at the trailers we play of ourselves. Maybe we'd realize it's the wrong reel that's been playing all this time, or that the editing is not crisp enough, or a background score would add some fun, or it was time to turn a romantic trailer to an adventurous one or vice versa. Or maybe, just maybe, we'd sit back and realise that our life is actually a blockbuster.

Everyday Musings > Ram Ke Bhoot?

Early Saturday morning, an American Expresso in hand, I snuggled into the corner couch at this tiny little Barista in Oshiwara, when my friend Sha mentioned that she was teaching her son 'Ram Ke Bhooth?' (God or Devil). And Pat and Jen nodded their heads. I was quite lost. What is that? They said it was something they learnt when they were young. If you dropped some food on the floor and if you wanted to throw it away (since food is revered), you look at it, say Bhoot (Devil) and throw it away. If you want to eat it, say Ram (God), and eat it. Chocolates and sweets being the ones that these girls said Ram to all the time.

I found the concept intriguing. Not just as childhood trivia but because it was so much like how we live our daily lives, except that we don't have a juicy enough term for it. I found that Ram Ke Bhoot explained our relationship, as human beings, with desire, temptation and guilt. It was the birth of justification.

We thrive on justifications. They've grown old on the tip of our tongue and bare their fangs whenever we're faced with questions - But, I thought, Because, if not for etc etc. We are masters at it, and find a reason to or not to, be, do, experience or not experience things in our lives.

There's an unending list of what we can justify. We've justified how good we are, why we had to be bad, justified not taking care of our body, not making it to the gym, not making time for family or friends, not finding joy in small things, justified not having enough money or opportunity, not falling in love, falling in love, not voting, not standing up to injustice, killing people in the name of religion, poverty and hunger, not taking care of our planet, not being aware of every breath we take. Ram Ke Bhoot. God or Devil. We play it so well. Inventing justifications that make us win our tiny insignificant games again and again.

My mother called me this morning and said she wanted me to meet someone, a nice mallu boy. I froze at the thought of an arranged match. And gulped and said I'll think about it. I could invent as many Rams for arranged marriage as I could Bhoots. What I chose to say or do was entirely up to me. If I said Ram, I could smile and meet up and check this person out, if I said Bhoot, I could ditch the concept of arranged marriage and trash it.

There's no guilt in Ram Ke Bhoot – the justification makes us righteous, like we have the upper hand. Because being guilty and feeling guilty is not the same thing. But all it is, is a game. And the only ones we're fooling perhaps, are ourselves. We scramble for reasons to hold onto. Because if we didn't have them, it would mean we have to be responsible for the choices we make.

Eve probably knew this. She took responsibility for biting into the apple. And gracefully accepted the curse of shame and mortality. Maybe if she'd played Ram ke Bhoot, the world would still be the Garden of Eden and ironically, maybe there would be no righteous concept of sin.

Everyday Musings > A wish

A friend of mine has a strange New Year tradition. No matter where he is, he goes jogging on 1st morning. It's been the butt of many jokes, but that's his thing. I like cleaning up my cupboard, but that's almost every week, so don't know if it counts as a New Year tradition. I checked up on what people do around the world, and there were pretty funny things around.

Like in Spain, at midnight, Spainards eat 12 grapes, and try and finish the whole bunch by the time the clock stops chiming. In Philippines, they surround themselves with everything round – eat round fruits, wear polka dots – since round reminds them of coins and prosperity. In South America, residents of Sao Paulo and La Paz bring in the New Year wearing brightly coloured underpants – red is for those looking for love, yellow is for those wishing for money and so on. In Belarus, unmarried girls compete at games to determine who's going to get married that year. In USA, it's a tradition to drop a ball, some places a sausage, or a star, or a fish, essentially dropping things to celebrate New Year.

Along with traditions, there are superstitions too. That what they do on New Year's eve is what happens all year through. So many wear new clothes, or the colour red to signify prosperity, babies born on the 1st are considered lucky, crying is considered unlucky, many keep the doors of the house open so that the old year can escape, many kiss at midnight to renew their love, many dance in the open, around a tree to bring prosperity, drain the dregs of their bottle to bring good fortune, some even avoid washing dishes and laundry because they believe it will lead to a death in the family, some don't even wash their hair for that reason. Many stay away from using foul language and behave themselves, many countries don't let anything precious leave the house, not even garbage, to keep luck inside. Many pay all their debts before New Year day, some makes noises to scare off the evil, church bells are rung at midnight for this reason I believe.

Superstitions and traditions there are many, but what seems common is what we all wish for – love and good fortune. No matter who we are, which part of the globe we live in. And why is that so difficult to find or keep I wonder. If market logic were to be applied, if demand is high and supply is low, it becomes rare and the prices rise, and it goes to the one who can make the most effort to get it. Maybe that's why a lot of us keep praying for it. And bet our chances on a lottery. But not everyone wins.

A society that invents superstitions to bring in love and good fortune is probably one that is reeling in the absence of it or is fearful of losing what it has. And that indeed is something to think about. Let's make a resolution, to up the supply this year and spread a lot of love and share our good fortune with those around us. So that next year, even if we wish for diamonds and gadgets and things that we fancy, we won't be wishing for the essential of life - love.

Everyday Musings > Happy New Year

What's so special about a new year? A fresh change, like the washing of the train after a long journey. New beginnings are always celebrated, blessings seeked, pujas performed, wishes shared. There's a lightness of the heart that says this year I'm going to achieve what I want to. Well, I've had a very lazy day, sleeping for the most part, and then cleaning up my cupboard for the rest. So today, I'm going to get a whole load of other folks to talk and muse about what they think of the New Year.

Mark Twain says "New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions."

Brooks Atkinson says "Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go."

Bill Vaughan says "Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to."

P. J. O'Rourke says "The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to."

Jay Leno says "Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average… which means, you have met your New Year's resolution."

James Agate says "New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time."

Eric Zorn says "Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle."

Bill Vaughan says "An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves."

Charles Lamb says "New Year's Day is every man's birthday."

Oprah Winfrey says "Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right."

Mark Twain once again, says, "New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

Judith Crist says "Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let's just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that."

Anonymous (love this chap) says "Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits."

Joey Adams says "May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions!"

Anais Nin says "I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me."

Oscar Wilde says "Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

Robert Paul says "I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit rounder, but still none the wiser."

Anonymous (yet again) says "A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other."

Leonard Bernstein says "From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining."

G. K. Chesterton says "The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

Happy New Year folks.

Everyday Musings > The end of days

Today is 31st December. The last day of the year. And everyone’s geared up to celebrate it, to see it bid goodbye to us. TV channels are doing the countdown and making lists of the top events, songs, films, personalities, news, gossip, trends, hairstyles, fashion, dialogues etc etc of 2008. All of us are probably recounting all that we have achieved and all that we yet have to.

What is it about the end of days that makes all of us behave so differently from any other day?

The last day of School - rushing around, writing on everyone uniforms, filling up slam books with 'friends forever' and 'dated till Pisa stops leaning', hugging friends, making up with enemies, professing your love to someone you didn’t all year. College was much the same – hugging, smiling, crying, taking down email ids, promising to keep in touch, having many many final goodbye parties. Then there is the last day at work, where you sit back and remember the good times, the colleagues who came and went away, the ones who stayed, how great it’s been, the last words said by everyone that touches you, the notes you leave for people, the gifts you receive. And then of course, the big one - the last day of life. The time when all your loved ones gather, shed tears, hold your hand and your life flashes by and you tally your balance sheet, for the last time.

The last day is when we square up things, make it all even, say goodbyes, open up our heart, share emotions, truly live. On the very last day. I think it was Confucius who said ‘Live every day like it were your last'. The penny drops. It makes sense. If we lived every day like it was our last, we’d be living the life we always wanted to live.

I watched Dasvidania (similar concept to The Bucket List) a few weeks ago - the protagonist is told that he has three months to live. He first cries and is depressed, then realizes that he could now use that time to make his wishes come true. So he does that. Makes a list. Of the things he wants from life. And goes out and gets them.

I wonder what if each of us gave ourselves a mythical last day, like 31st December is – a created last day in a created calendar that’s a created truth. Not the absolute truth because the Earth doesn’t depend on a calendar to turn.

So let’s say the last day we all give ourselves is three years from now. What if we sat down and made a life list, of things we want to fill our lives with and aim to do them all before we mythically kick the bucket? How would our lives be? What would we want to fill it up with? And when the created last day comes, we could rejoice that we have more days, and create another last day, and keep living, till one day, we meet the real last day. But by then, there’d be nothing to regret or be afraid of, because the flashbacks would be full of beginnings. As the poem goes, 'the first for which the last was made'. An end of days which truly celebrates beginnings.

Everyday Musings > The Handmade World

The New Year's party at work was different this year. Everyone was asked to bring or make something that would be auctioned to raise money to do something meaningful for the city. I made a couple of sketches and others made things too. But due to insufficient things collected, the auction changed to collectibles from clients and their products.

I thought handmade was a wonderful idea though. To make something to build something else. The world has a rich heritage of using hands and craft. But maybe we've fallen prey to the instant culture. Tie and dye, kantha, hakoba, chikankari, smocking, crochet, our homes were a tribute to the handmade and an everyday part of our lives. Today though, we've turned handmade into something exclusive, expensive and hard to reach.

Also, Handmade is raw and unfinished. Machine made is faultless. Much like our new found concept of beauty and grooming, of being impeccable. The enjoyment of the flawed perhaps lies buried under this strain of consistent perfection.

Wabi Sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not laminates; rice paper, and not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. For the Japanese, it's the difference between kirei-merely "pretty"-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful/fascinating.

But there are those who're bringing it back to mainstream life. FabIndia has a poster in its stores that says not all garments will be alike, and any flaws in the weave is intrinsic and makes it more beautiful. I love Labourandwait.com– a UK based store that sells things made the old fashioned way, with time and care – things meant to age with you – things meant to be passed on. Buyhandmade.org promotes it as a way of life and Etsy.com is an exclusive ecommerce venture for handmade creations, and it's a joy to see the things people create.

With play-doh and do it yourself kits, parents are attempting to encourage their children to use their hands. But the kits are mostly put together kits, not sources of creation, of imperfection – they are designed so everyone will have the same outcome – the same picture on the cover – the balsa wood dinosaur will be the same for everyone, as will the DIY car. Unlike paper boats and paper planes and clay pots, where each turns individual and is related to the creator.

I wonder what would happen if we stopped right now and decided to turn back to becoming a handmade world, where each of us learnt a craft of the hand. There'd be less pollution, less clutter, less machines – more joy, more creativity, more life in our life.

Here's how to make a Snow Globe at home. Get a glass jar, any kind, with a lid. Get glitter to make snow. Small plastic toy/figurine (Santa/fairies/animals/trees) you'd like to place inside. Silicone or sealant to seal the lid. And Mineral oil or water to fill the jar. First, stick the toy to the lid with a waterproof sealant. It might need to dry overnight. Now, fill a deep bowl with water. Gently fill your jar - making sure to keep the sequins/glitter at the bottom. Now, gently submerge the jar - lid up - into the bowl. Then, put the lid under the water and make sure there are no air bubbles trapped under it. Twist it onto the jar. Remove jar with lid attached and turn jar upside down. Dry jar and lid completely. Be careful to not wiggle the lid, as this will cause water to squirt out. Take your tube of sealant and squeeze a good amount around the lip of the lid as you turn it around so that there are no air pockets. Again, it'll probably need to dry over night. Be careful to not wiggle the lid because this will cause pressure on the water and will cause it to weaken the sealant and create a leak. When the sealant is dry, your handmade Snow Globe is ready. As is your first step into the handmade world.

Everyday Musings > What's in a name?

My mother's brother, my maama, named me Kavita. I've no idea why. Maybe he liked the name. Maybe he thought I looked like 'Kavita' when he first saw me, or maybe it was just a random thought. All my life I've met so many Kavitas and rued the fact that I had such a common name. I would have loved something more interesting like Zara or Tamara. But when people walk up to me and say that my name is so apt since I love poetry and verse, I wonder. Was it just coincidence that I was named so? Or is that the design of a name?

Naming ceremonies are big in India. The pandit studies the baby's horoscope and decides which letter would best for him/her. The parents, or grandparents or relatives pitch in and suggest names, one of which is finally whispered into the baby's ears. There, that's your name.

I remember reading a Miss Marple story in which two old ladies talk of their domestic help and how the girl's name was beyond her standing in society. Instead of Gladys or Martha, the girl was named Elizabeth, a decidedly upper class name.

Sometimes we see people who are so like their names that we relate to them instantly. And then some who are so unlike their names that you wonder what the parents were thinking. As we grow up, we unconsciously or consciously realise that names are important. Some of us shorten a really long name since we don't like formality or complexity; some on the other hand hate short forms or pet names and insist on using their full name, no matter how long.

Some of my friends are having babies right now. Thus discussion on names is on. If the theory of names affecting destinies is true, then the role they play as parents is so much larger.

Different parents have different reasons to name their children. My brother was named after a Shyam Benegal film, Nishant. In Kerala several communists name their children Marx and Stalin. Movie buffs names their children Rajesh Khanna and Madhuri. Bengali names are sometimes based on sounds like Kuhu, Rimjhim. Some celebrities have whimsical names for their kids - Apple (gywneth paltrow), Rumer (demi moore), Moon Unit (frank zappa), I P Freely (David Carridine), Tiger (Jackie Shroff), Kursi and MISA (Laloo).

There are some names that become taboo because the one who had it became infamous – like Adolf, Judas, Pol Pot, Osama, Saddam perhaps. This December, a Dutch couple was refused a birthday cake message wishing their 3 year old son Adolf Hitler a happy birthday. The store said they felt it was wrong for a kid to have Hitler's name.

People form pictures with just names. And through the years, the context of what makes a desirable name also changes. Ravi Kapoor turns cooler with Jeetendra in the era of big names, whereas Vijay turns cool with a casual Bobby Deol as does Curtis Jackson with 50 cent or Marshall Mathers as eminem. Reema Lamba turned sexy with Mallika Sherwat whereas an exotic sounding Mehajabeen turns to Meena Kumari to act in films.

Each era seems to have its trends. The more rooted we were, the more philosophical our names were perhaps; the more rootless we turn, the more rooted our names are as today we see a return of long names, of traditional names, of very Indian names.

Do our names really shape our destiny and character? Or is it simply that we try and live up to or rebel against our names? What's in a name, said Shakespeare. Maybe the destinies of Romeo and Juliet were bound in their names. Maybe if they were called Brad and Angelina, they would have lived happily ever after.

Everyday Musings > To buy or not to buy

The bag I'm carrying today says 'When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping'. Absolutely true for me. If I feel happy, I shop, If I feel sad, I shop. If I feel neither of the two, I still shop.

I've rarely walked out of a mall empty-handed. It's almost an obligation I feel to the owners, that now that I've dropped by, I should pick something, anything. Price is never important. A thing worth 5 bucks gives me as much joy as something worth 5000. And I'm a sucker for good packaging. A lovely bottle with a great label makes me suddenly want to eat Olives and great typography makes me save butter stained bakery bags (Bombay Bakery) with care.

I am a shopaholic. How to tell if you are? Try this. Is your closet overflowing with never-worn clothing or shoes with the price tags still on? Do you buy new makeup weekly or compact discs by the in double digits or things you couldn't resist you've bought and used just once and they lie unused?

According to an article on msn by bankrate.com, famous shopaholics include Marie Antoinette, Mary Todd Lincoln, William Randolph Hearst, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Imelda Marcos and Princess Diana. Their addictions ranged from clothing (Jackie O, Diana) to art and antiques (Hearst) to shoes (the heralded Marcos collection) to gloves (Mrs. Lincoln owned 84 pairs of them). All of these women have confessed overspending for the 'feel-good' factor during depression and emotional crises.

They added that female compulsive shoppers buy clothes, shoes, jewelry, makeup and compact discs. And men buy clothing, shoes, electronics (TVs, stereos, computers, etc.), hardware and CDs.

Things I shop for the most – bags, shoes, and stationary. Bags I have a special weakness for. I collect them, from anywhere, a local store, a mall, street side, anywhere, as long as they look interesting and unique. Most of my friends bring me bags when they travel, and others get me paper, books, pens etc.

My brother tells me I spend too much money. I do. But I can't seem to stop. Till I made that vow to not take plastic bags that is. The last time I went to the mall and bought veggies, I insisted that they put it all in my cloth bag. Stepped out, went to another store, saw some nice knick-knacks for my home, picked them up, then realized I had no more cloth bags, and I put it all back, telling myself the impossible – I will buy them when I have a cloth bag! And I haven't – some of the things have lost their charm since.

The other day I walked into this store and saw a gorgeous Grey chiffon dress. Thought of buying a size smaller and saving it for when I lose the inches I want to, but stepped out making a vow that I'd buy a new closet when I do lose the inches, but will not hoard for the future.

There are less bags in my hands when I get home now. And though I miss my mad shopping trips, this feels good too. Especially since my bank balance is not showing close to broke as it usually does at the end of the month.

Maybe in a few years I'll enjoy saving money so much that I'll have a new tussle on my hands. How do I get myself to spend?

Everyday Musings > Running out of words

Ever felt like you were going through something you had to say a whole sentence for, and could never find a word to fit it?

I do, Constantly. And googled extensively to find those words. Found one I’d been wondering about for a while - the smell of wet earth – it’s confined in a very uninspiring ‘Petrichor’.

Douglas Adams in his book ’The meaning of Liff, where Liff is defined as a phenomenon for which there is no word, took the map of the British Isles and used whatever places showed up on it as words to describe things he couldn’t find words for. Like

ABILENE (adj.) Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of the pillow.

GOLANT (adj.) Blank, sly and faintly embarrassed. Pertaining to the expression seen on the face of someone who has clearly forgotten your name.

LUPPITT (n.) The piece of leather which hangs off the bottom of your shoe before you
can be bothered to get it mended.

NEMPNETT THRUBWELL (n.) The feeling experienced when driving off for the first time on a brand new motorbike.

NYBSTER (n.) Sort of person who takes the lift to travel one floor.

OZARK (n.) One who offers to help just after all the work has been done.

POGES (pl.n.) The lumps of dry powder that remain after cooking a packet soup.

QUENBY (n.) A stubborn spot on a window which you spend twenty minutes trying to clean off before discovering it's on the other side of the glass.

SHOEBURYNESS The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat, which is still warm from somebody else's bottom.

Adams made it seem so easy. No learning Latin and figuring out roots and etymology to come up with words. Recycle. Reuse. Invent. And if it fits, it’s yours. Maybe I could have a dictionary of my own.

I did start one, a long time ago, called Rayirath lexicon. But it had relatable things in it. Like ‘Pisa Effect’ (taking mistakes and turning them into novelty factors), ‘Mistletoe Syndrome’ (doing things because there is a environment conducive to it, like kissing under a mistletoe because tradition says so) and ‘Subtitling the mind’ (when one person puts into words what someone else might be thinking at that time.)

But maybe I could do one with invented words this time. So I set about the task of creating some meanings I needed words for. Here goes…

YAZOO – The feeling of not wanting to come to work today

PREBZLE! – Figuring the perfect wittiest killer of a come back line hours after you’ve lost the argument.

SWULL – When you’re lost in thoughts and don’t realize the light’s turned Green and everyone’s honking behind you.

YEEHAAA – The euphoric feeling just before you walk into your boss’s cabin to hand in your resignation letter.

GLINK - When your eyebrows rise involuntarily seeing a stunning girl/ boy walk up to you.

Figured something in all this. Nothing in this world makes sense by itself. We created everything when we created language. And oddly, we’ve probably become slaves to our creations, believing them to be the ultimate truth, when there’s possibly nothing like that. Even truth, afterall, is just a word.

Everyday Musings > Help yourself

Most people I know wouldn't be caught dead in the Self-Help section in a bookshop. Let alone sign up for a self-improvement program.

When I did the Landmark forum, I got plenty of 'why', 'what problems do you have', 'it's only for weak people who can't solve their own problems' and 'give me the money, I'll teach you all you need to know in an hour'. 'It's just positive thinking, will work for a week, then it'll fade away'. 'It's mass hypnotism'. I wondered with all this resistance around, why is it that self-help books sell so much or why self-improvement courses have so many people signing up.

One day, out of the blue, we're slapped on our butt and welcomed to the world. Unlike a profession or an education, there is no manual that tells you how to live. You find out along the way. Helping yourself to clues around you. Learning from experience, from parents, grandparents, neighbours, teachers, friends, movies, television. Our understanding of life is such. Assimilated, collected, collated and stored for further use. Self-help. At some point, we feel the need for advice, for direction and begin looking for answers. The options are around us. Peers, relatives, mentors, books, counsellors etc. Each one of us picks the one we have access to or are comfortable with. The end goal being the same. Progress from where we are at that moment, preferably radical progress.

Einstein said 'you can't solve a problem with the same thinking that created it'. I believe that. A change of context changes problems. I felt I was running in loops, that I was sailing through the years without any specific purpose, and it was a fun life, filled with multiple things to do, but I felt that I wasn't tapping my true potential, that my talents needed to be explored, that I was leading a far smaller life than I could.

I chose the Forum to delve more into all this, and found plenty of little things that made way for plenty of big things. I realised that I governed by my 'artistic temperament'. So I'd do things only if I felt like it. One day a dear friend suggested - 'write 500 words every day' - and I turned into a mission. 'Every day' being the operative word. It was something that I would have earlier skipped every time I didn't 'feel' like writing it, which would be every other day. But now I can differentiate a mood from a writer's block, and can find solutions for my writer's block without getting caught up in it. And other things like I make it a point to make chai for my maid Aruna every day regardless of how sleepy I am, I figured that I really love helping people discover their true potential and that I realised that nothing in life was not out of my choice, even the things I'd rather not be part of. Every day I discover something new that I've added to my life. And it's not been a fad, but a way of being.

Mark Twain said, I'm not young enough to know everything. Maybe some of us resist help, personally or professionally, because we believe the answers should lie in us. They do, but sometimes it takes a little nudge or a wake up call for us to see them. Maybe it's the reputation that self-help has garnered over the years, thanks to the people who are the helm of it, or people who have experienced it. And then of course, there's the mirage of positive thinking (translates to whipped cream over cow dung) that kills the actual benefits.

Came across a conversation in a book of 'est', the earlier version of Landmark Forum. It works perfectly for the Forum and anything, be it Art of Living or the wondrous Vipassana, that we see value in.

"What is Landmark Forum?" asked the stranger.

"It's gestalt encounter therapy with the touch-feely left out," said a guest who hadn't done the Forum.

"It's scientology without the hocus-pocus," said a second such guest.

"It's packaged Zen," said a third.

"It's Werner's(founder) way of earning a living," suggested a fourth.

"It's a scientific kick in the balls," said a recent Forum graduate.

"It's two weekends of madness to create saner weekdays," said a second Forum graduate.

"It's a car," said the third graduate.

"A car?" asked the stranger, now totally bewildered.

"Just a car," the graduate went on. "You can use it to get where you're going faster or use it to explore new places."

"I see," said the stranger, frowning.

"Or," said a fourth graduate, "you can just lie down in front of it and let it run over you and then blame the car."

Everyday Musings > In focus

I have had this quote as my signature for while now - "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert Anson Heinlein.

I love this quote. Because it's how I think, and behave. I love doing and learning a dozen things at one time. It gives me so much joy. But I always thought that meant I'm scattered and lack focus, that there is no one single passion in my life, I need to channelize my energies into one specific thing. And let the others go etc etc.

One day, waiting for a friend at a tiny bookstore, I found a delightful book by Barbara Sher called 'What to do when you want to do everything'. The title struck me as being just what I was thinking of – at last here's someone who's not talking of focus, focus, focus. Bought the book. Came home, sat down with a cup of herbal tea to read it.

It spoke of people with multiple interests and talked of how everyone from Da Vinci to Aristotle had multiple interests. To be great and truly accomplished was to do many things in that time. Post industrialisation, specialists came in who did only one thing. And that has followed ever since. And she gave people like me, who like doing multiple things, a name – scanners. Scanners are essentially people who flit from one thing to another, or take up different things, study it in detail, and move onto something else, or those who get bored easily, or some who are very curious and thus do many things etc.

It felt great to know that there are many like me, with a dozen things to list as favourites and must dos. I forwarded that book to many friends who came up and spoke of their focus conflict.

Saw an enactment of a short story on Sunday at Prithvi. It was about a girl who felt she was being followed by this old, angelic looking man. Everytime, it turned out that he pointed out to her laces being undone. Finally he asks her, how are you going to teach your children to tie laces? Then he said that if the world were to end, we would need to forward our knowledge to keep civilisation going. Like Noah did. He saved two of every species so we could continue our existence. He said that he has been looking for Noah everywhere, but hasn't been able to find anyone who does one thing perfectly, even if it means tying shoelaces. One task does master.

Specialists are revered today, but the concept of being an all rounder is coming back into existence now. People are bringing back hobbies and learning to live lives that explore more than one facet of their personality. I wonder sometimes, what would happen if everyone in the world was appreciated for doing many things in their lives. Would people pursue more interests, take time out for a hobby, or explore their limits without any guilt? Would we be more adventurous as a race, more dynamic, more active? Would our children have more options to be happy about?

In this age of chaos and drama, doing many things is probably the one right thing to do.

Everyday Musings > What you see is what you get

You went through school, sat up nights for exams but don't remember much of what you studied so hard for. Your favourite actor you could give your life for as a teenager is now in memory a silly little crush. One moment you're in love and can't stay apart and the next you want space, a bag or car that you just had to have is taken for granted the moment you own it – makes me question if the once intense feelings or reality ever experienced in all of this was ever real or just an illusion?

What is an illusion? Webster says it's the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled. Or the perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature.

Magicians use illusions to make us believe they're doing magic. The stars give us an illusion of twinkling. The sea of being blue. 'Positive thinking' without feeling positive inside is an illusion. If you stare hard at a Stereogram, the mess of colours turn into a picture that makes sense. For many years, I lived under the illusion that if I turned on the gas, it would burst. My palms would sweat, my heartbeat would go up, but by practice, I realised that my fear was an illusion.

Marilla D. Svinicki is englightening when she speaks of 'the subjective experience of listening to a skilled presenter or expert describe a problem solution'. She says 'the fluency of the expert gives the listeners the illusion of understanding or the belief that the material is clear and easy to understand. This feeling that the material is easy then contributes to the false sense of security that students take away from a well-presented lecture'. She adds, 'How often have you heard a complaint that, "I understood it when you worked it out in class, but when I tried to do it myself, I couldn't even start"? That's the illusion of comprehension. And we face it everyday.

In the movie 'Instinct', psychiatrist Cuba Gooding comes to the prison cell to meet Anthony Hopkins and tells him that he's in control of what happens to Hopkins - he controls his medication, his chance of getting a hearing. Hopkins grabs his neck and pins Gooding to a table and asks him to write what Hopkins took away from him by doing that. Gooding, gagging and in fear for his life, scribbles 'My control'. Hopkins says "What do you control for sure? The stereo, the air conditioning in your car? Try again. What have you lost, what did I take?" Gooding says 'My freedom'. Hopkins says "You think you're free? What is it that has you tied up in little knots? Your ambition? Last try, get it right." And then Gooding finally writes "My illusion."

The Indian concept of Maya, very simplistically put, is just that. We don't live on this Earth, we live in our illusions, and that colours everything – our decisions, our choices, our likes, our dislikes, our way of life. The way out of a miserable rut is to identify our illusion and sift it, to recognise what is real in the matter, and what had been spruced up by our attachment, our fear and our imagination.

But if everything we feel or felt and think we know or knew is an illusion, what is real? Is there nothing real? Well reality does exist in our world. In things that are finite, that are expressed and thus have form and can be measured that is, they have a life cycle. The earth, the trees, objects, words, the human form...

The ones on the path of enlightenment spend a lifetime sifting reality and illusions. And in the process see things as they really are and once you do that, you are no longer slaves of your illusions. And are free from the misery of life. Nirvana.

Reality is all around us. The question is, do we really want to give up our illusions to see it?

Everyday Musings > Oxygen

At the Landmark in action series a few weeks ago, it was our turn to make declarations for our life. Someone walked up and said they'd make films that would change the world. Everyone clapped. Someone said they'd work on making their family really happy. Everyone clapped. Then one chap walked up and said, I'm going to be the Prime Minister of India in 2010. Everyone laughed. Some said 'what rubbish', 'this is silly', 'there's no way he can do this' etc etc.

The seminar leader spoke up. He said that by laughing his declaration off, we were depriving the speaker of a fair hearing. We were creating no space for his possibility to do what he wanted to and had already judged him a failure. The point was not whether it is achievable, but that everyone's dreams, no matter how impossible they sound, need oxygen to survive.

Why Oxygen? How does that apply here? Let's see the function of Oxygen in our lives to see that.

Oxygen is what makes us live moment to moment. That feeds us with the possibility of seeing the future, or rather making the future happen. When we provide a person's dreams or ideas with Oxygen, we are nurturing him/her, supporting him/her in getting to what he/she wants. This man's declaration of being PM was as possible as the chap who wanted to make films or who wanted to make his family happy. But we clapped for the ideas we could see as 'yes, that can happen'. And laughed at ideas that we didn't think could happen. We do this in daily life too. With children, our parents, siblings, colleagues, teachers, friends, everyone. We cut off their Oxygen with our reactions.

Flying, circumnavigation, computers, television, mobile phones, India gaining independence through non-violence; all of these were ideas that were laughed at where shared as possibilities, but they happened, and we now take them for granted. And laugh at other ideas which generations after us might take for granted.

Guru forwarded this to me today. In a strange way it is about an idea that had no Oxygen at one time, till one man changed it all.

'When Apollo Mission Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not only said his famous "One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind" statement, but followed it by several remarks - usual communication traffic between him, the other astronauts and Mission Control. Before he re-entered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky." Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet Cosmonaut; however, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian nor American space programs. Over the years, many people have questioned him as to what the "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky" statement meant. On July 5, in Tampa Bay, FL, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26 year old question to Armstrong. He finally responded. It seems that Mr. Gorsky had finally died and so Armstrong felt he could answer the question: "When I was a kid, I was playing baseball with my brother in the backyard. He had hit a fly ball which landed in front of my neighbours' bedroom window. The neighbours were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. As I leaned down to pick up the ball, I heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, "Oral sex? Oral sex you want? You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!" That kid did get to the moon. Because unlike Mrs Gorsky, a whole nation believed he could do it.'

I wonder why Human Beings, unlike plants, never generate Oxygen. We only consume it and give out carbon-di-oxide. Maybe this is a way we can make good and breathe easy.

Everyday Musings > What calls out to you?

I've been asking myself for many years now – what is the one thing that I really feel passionate about and want to do? And I've drawn a blank every time. The biggest quest for most of us is to find our calling, that one reason why we're here on earth. And some of us spend our entire life looking for it.

What are callings? How do we know if we've found it or not? How would we recognise it if it we saw one? Can we borrow someone else's calling? Does everyone have a calling or are some people on this earth with no purpose at all?

I chanced upon the last half of a film called 'Instinct' where Anthony Hopkins opens the gates to a cell in a zoo holding a Gorilla. When a cautious Cuba Gooding tells him to close the doors, Hopkins says, "He won't come out. You see? Even if he can. Not far from here is a fence, and on the other side of that fence is freedom, and he can smell it. He'll never try to get there, 'cause he's given up. By now he thinks freedom is something he dreamed."

I began to wonder if it's the same with our calling. We all know it's out there, some of us even have a clear picture of what it is, or at least know that where we are is definitely not it, but we wait, frozen in our own uncertainties, thinking that the calling was an exercise in idealism, and that life is too practical for all that stuff. We are like the Gorilla, too resigned in our cages.

Harvard Business School psychologist Timothy Butler differentiates between "vocation," "career," and "job." He says Vocation is the most profound of the three, and it has to do with our calling. It's what we're doing in life that makes a difference for us, that builds meaning for us, that we can look back on in our later years to see the impact we've made on the world. A calling is something we have to listen for. We don't hear it once and then immediately recognize it. We've got to attune ourselves to the message. Career is a line of work. We can say that our career is to be a lawyer or a securities analyst-but usually it's not the same as our calling. We can have different careers at different points in our life. A job is the most specific and immediate of the three terms. It has to do with who's employing us at the moment and what our job description is for the next 6 months or so.

I realised recently what inspires and moves me, my true calling. I truly believe that every person on earth has endless potential and I want to make the life of every single person I meet as extraordinary as possible. I think I've unconsciously lived my calling all my life, pushing my friends to dream and do what they really want to, inspiring strangers with thoughts, sharing through my umpteen blogs, but to live it consciously is an unimaginably fulfilling thought.

If indeed, as Timothy says, our calling impacts the world, we have a bigger reason to speed up our efforts to find it. Maybe it's not we who wait for our calling. But our calling that hopes that we'll find it soon.

Everyday Musings > The 'Halo' Effect

A friend lent me her copy of Politically correct bedtime stories once. It was hilarious thanks to the many hyphenated carefully constructed sentences like "Sleeping Persun of Better-Than-Average Attractiveness" awakens from her "deep meditative state" (or sleeping beauty awakens from her sleep).

I've never been much in favour of political correct anythings, simply because I always felt it's the intent that makes a word foul, not the word itself. You could say visually challenged and make it seem worse than saying blind.

Those are words which change and the meaning stays the same. But there are some words that I wish people would re look at the meaning of – like charity. What is charity? What does it mean? Donation? Help? Aid? Pity?

Interestingly, Merriam Webster's definition states that the etymology (origin) of charity is thus - Middle English charite, from Anglo-French charité, from Late Latin caritat-, caritas Christian love, from Latin, dearness, from carus dear; akin to Old Irish carae friend, Sanskrit kāma love.

Love, dearness, dear, friend...words none of us have ever associated with charity. Charity, for most of us, in common parlance, has meant, I am more fortunate, so I will give to the needy. Nothing wrong with that, except that the intention stems from pity and not love. It makes us disassociate ourselves from them as the unfortunate others and not see them as part of us.

I remember a friend telling me about her maid, and how she refused to take some old clothes from her saying she buys new clothes for daughter. My friend said 'how thankless my maid is! I'll never try and give her anything now!'

Why do we give? To make ourselves feel good, in all sincerity so that we may do our duty and do our bit or because if we don't we might go to hell or not attain nirvana?

Visited an orphanage this Sunday with a friend, who had kept aside money he intended to spend on his birthday party, to give to charity. There were around 30 children in the home, the oldest being seven or so, loved by the sisters who took care of them, like any children I've known in my family. While driving back, my friend and I spoke of how we could help. But coming back home I realised that unless and until, we didn't see those children as being our own, we could never do anything for them, and the little-somethings we did out of 'charity' would only lead to a 'halo' effect, a feel good thing.

Charity, in its most sensible unadulterated form, means 'love for humanity'. When was the last time we operated from love rather than from pity when we did an act of charity? What if we made charity also mean responsibility? How would it be then? How would we look at our community? Would it change the choices we make? The one more t-shirt or pair of shoes that we don't really need, or the spare time that we spend doing nothing much could be used to spread love and joy.

We must re look at our intentions in serving and helping those around us, and in understanding those intentions, we will understand what humanity and love mean to us. What we make Charity mean will determine our actions.

Until then, the 'charitable us' will continue to wash our hands off saying 'I have done by bit, now it's someone else's turn'. We're all saviours playing passing the parcel.

Everyday Musings > Come Together

I just watched a movie called The Jane Austen Club. A sweet film that revolves around five women and a man, who come together to start a book club. Starting with Emma and ending with Persuasion, somewhere in-between all these books, their real life stories mirror those of Austen's characters - each lost or found in love – and by the time the club turns the last page of book six, each finds love and meaning in their life.

I found the plot enchanting. Not just the thought of Jane Austen being celebrated, but the idea of a group of people sharing their life through a common purpose was fascinating. Makes me think of the things we come together for nowadays. A drink after work, birthdays and more drinking, vacations and drinking and lounging. A lot of drinking I guess.

We're each masters of our workplace, committed professionals who do so much, and then some more when it comes to pursuing individual hobbies. But coming together, as a group, is a chore. Who's going to keep the momentum going, who's going to ensure everyone is there, who's going to take the responsibility for someone else's interest? So we live within our silos and let in a few now and then and discuss the world and politics and weather and say goodbye till you meet again.

What if each of us got together our friends and some strangers and created a bunch of clubs? Of whatever we are interested in as a group. Batman Society, Horror Film Lovers, Plastic Bag Police, Horses & Dogs Club, Philip K Dick fans, Solar Power Supporters, Mumbai Action Group; and met once a week or once a month. What would it do to our lives? To the quality of our conversations, to our country as a whole when we each participate and create a culture of exploring, sharing and revelling in common goals.

There are several clubs and associations that do exist today. Caferati, a literary club, being one of them. An interesting bunch of people, committed, consistent and creators of something bigger than themselves. I'm sure every member of Caferati has found immense joy in being part of it. I did, even though I attended only one read-meet and that too as a spectator. We need more such reasons to meet and interact and create forces of action and positivity in our lives.

The energy and creativity of a group of people can be surprising and inspiring. And the results of teamwork are proven to outdo that of individual effort. Quit India, Swadeshi, Non-cooperation were all group movements, where people came together for a common cause.

My friends just got back from Colaba. They were raving about the march at the Gateway of India, and said it was a great experience. There were thousands gathered there to share solutions for Mumbai and the energy was infectious. This was one day, one meet. Imagine if this was part of our lives and we came together, every once in a while, to celebrate the people we are, the nation belong to, the world we live in. Gravity would not be the only thing that kept us together then.

Everyday Musings > Work. Work. Work.

I'm surrounded by workaholics. H is wedded to his cell phone, R to his con calls, N to his desk, M to her home and D to his laptop. Even after work's done, they're constantly thinking of work. And are never quite there in the conversation. But if I ever confront them about it, they tell me there's no way out. When there's work, there's work. But I worry because there always seems to be work.

Who really is a workaholic? I googled to find out. One self test suggests that one must observe one's behaviour outside of work to figure it out. Do you start a lot of work related conversations with other people? Do you constantly speak of the poor performance of your co-workers or boss? Do you have problems sleeping well because you're always thinking of work related things? Do you find yourself driving by your workplace during off hours or weekends? If you said yes to one or more, you're a workaholic or getting there really fast.

But there is a difference between a workaholic and a motivated person. A motivated worker loves his work but also loves his life, so post work enjoys without thinking about work. A workaholic finds his/her identity in his/her job and never lets go the workplace unless to take a long break from it. Work is always on his/her mind and he/she has difficulty dividing work life from home life.

In Japan, workaholism is considered a serious social problem leading to early death, often on the job and even has a phenomenon named after it - karōshi. The fatal stroke suffered by Prime Minister of Japan Keizo Obuchi was blamed on overwork.

Gayle Porter, associate professor at Rutgers, says that most workaholics are either perfectionists or have a need for control or both. But it could also be an escape, from relationships and commitments, with work often stated as the excuse to avoid issues in life. And although they're known as perfectionists, it's not that they accomplish more than people who work fewer hours. Sometimes workaholics get so fixated with details that they find it hard to move onto the next task and are often inefficient.

Porter adds that 'If the workaholic is a manager, he/she may expect long hours from subordinates, may force them to try to meet impossible standards, then rush in to save the day when the work is deemed substandard. The person may look like a hero, coming in to solve crisis after crisis, when in fact the crises could have been avoided. Sometimes, the workaholic may have unwittingly created the problems to provide the endless thrill of more work'.

When I look around me, I see so many who fit this description, happy go lucky friends who've turned work horses and often feel guilty for not having done enough in a day. Work seems to become an anchor, a way to judge how life is going. Like R says, if you put in effort into your work, you'll get great results, but you never know if efforts will yield anything in a relationship. So the more you work, the more your return on investment.

That worries me. Workaholism may work for most people I know. But somehow the logic doesn't work for me.

Everyday Musings > Bouncing Back

I was unwell the past week, especially so in the last two days. The doctor said I had low BP, an eye infection and a possible migraine among other things. Bogged down by this and then later by the terrorist attacks, I didn't schedule my weekly team meeting or attend my weekly seminar today. Far from expressing anger or irritation, I was touched by the heartfelt messages I received from my teammates and workmates. They sent me words full of love and concern. And willed me to bounce back faster than I would have done on my own.

We would have done that for most or all of our friends. Stood by them in a tragedy and willed them to bounce back, to be productive with their life and move on having learnt something from the adversity. Why then aren't we doing that to our beloved Mumbai? On Twitter, facebook, newspapers, television, I see personalities and citizens promising furiously not to forget, not to forgive, to let the wounds fester. Why? Just so we can prove to our politicians that they are wrong. Like children who decide to never achieve anything significant because they're angry with their parents and want to blame them for making losers out of them. But in the end it is the child who loses out.

Sunday at the Landmark workshop, they shared what some of them were doing post the attack. They were working on changing the way the world listened to India and Mumbai after the terrorist attacks. By simply altering the language the world was hearing. Instead of empty words of anger like 'This country is full of imbecile politicians' or 'Every Indian should get military training' they decided to speak of progress and action - 'Yes, the incident happened, but we're back on our feet and back to business.' 'We're committed to fighting terrorism and live our lives as best as we can'.

It might sound like a small thing, but if we really heard this everyday and saw this every day, we'd have hope and spirit floating around us, and actually be able to think clearly and take action, not provide reaction.

I love watching Tom and Jerry. And although child psychologists have a different view on it, I love watching how both of them bounce back from any assault. Beaten to a pulp one minute and back in shape and chasing the next. That's spirit, that's being constantly in action. If Tom stopped one day and started furiously shouting at Jerry and doing nothing else, it would be a boring rant. Somewhat where we're heading.

Right now there are a lot of good intentions floating about shrouded in anger. If the shroud slips out, what remains is a heartfelt desire to do something. In the beginning we will not see a way, but as long as we take a stand, we will always find a way to get there. So let go of the anger you're holding onto and free your hands to take action. For till you are bound by your fury, the siege is still on.

Everyday Musings > The end or is it the beginning?

Sundance Kid and I went to town today to see the Taj and Trident. We got off at Churchgate station and were repeatedly asked for our tickets thanks to Kid's goatee, large knapsack and serious demeanour. Once out, we walked to Marine Drive to see the Trident. The road was cordoned off and we stood by the sea amidst onlookers and press personnel. The towers wore a deserted look and everyone just stared, blankly, maybe searching for answers. No one seemed to have any. We stayed a while, and walked to a shuttered Leopold before ambling on to see the Taj. There were people everywhere. Cops. SRPF. Black Cat Commandos. Army. Press. Embassy personnel. All standing, and watching. Waiting. Blank faced. Helpless.

We spotted the Alert Mumbaikar posters on the walls and windows along the way. The campaign was based on a survey conducted by the Mumbai Police that brought to light some startling figures. According to the report, while 79 per cent of Mumbaikars are aware of Mumbai being a terror target, only 3 per cent are alert and take action when something rouses their suspicion. The survey also indicates that 87 per cent people tend to think that if a terrorist act occurs, they will not be affected. The campaign urges citizens to be alert at all times and has a 24-hour Mumbai Helpline number 9702100100, in addition to the existing police helpline number 2633333,for Mumbaikars to call on in case they observe any suspicious or untoward activity. More information is available on the Mumbai Police website (http://www.mumbaipolice.org/).

All through the way, Kid and I discussed and debated on what we could do now. He spoke of creating a citizens action group like the one in Ahemdabad or perhaps googling to see if there are any existing bodies that we could join or support or strengthen. Then he spoke of the Mumbai Police and how they're short staffed, and why aren't smart, intelligent, dedicated youth joining the force. He suggested that maybe we should speak to Ogilvy and do a recruitment campaign, like the Indian Army does, that makes the Mumbai Police seem like an honourable career. I chatted about the next election and how we could all volunteer with Association of Youth for a Better India (AYBI) and create a blog or website where one could get all the information about the election candidates, so that we're equipped to make an informed choice when we vote. For those with voters ID problems, Kid just googled and found www.jaagore.com. The two of us are still googling and asking around to create a database of institutions already doing work in these areas.

Plenty of my friends smsed and wrote expressing their helplessness and anger and wondering what could be done. I've realised that we can each use our strengths to contribute. Web designers could help create better information systems online, marketing people could turn consultants for NGOs working with disaster management and help them work more efficiently, architects could help rebuild damaged structures and so on. There's much to do and even a small effort now will result in big action over time. So let's set aside our knee jerk reactions; let's browse, plan, be involved consistently and make our community part of our lives.

The NSG, Marcos, Black Cats, SRPF, Army and the Police are done with their work. It's time for us to start ours.

Everyday Musings > Breaking News

It's been 15 hours since the terrorists have been resisting the police. The TV screen is choking with images of firing at CST, crowds milling outside Nariman House, remains of a taxi blown up on the Western Express Highway, the burning Taj hotel and news flashes of army personnel outside the Oberoi jumping out of trucks in camouflage that sticks out in the urban backdrop.

Arnab Goswami, Rajdeep Sardesai and their teams are rushing about, losing sleep, reporting, waving mikes at anyone who will open their mouth, including those who're bleeding so much they can't speak. Reporters quote sources, guessing the number of people dead, the number injured and who was responsible – the lashkar or the newbie Deccan Mujahidiin or as BBC says Hindu Extremists. It's a mass of confusion - the random attacks, the random reporting and the random political response from the government.

What is the role of media and the government in a crisis like this? Channels are competing to be seen as the ones with the latest news and often carry unconfirmed reports as being breaking news; politicians are using this as a case for their election campaign. Could News Channels step out of their cocoons and collaborate and create one channel where everyone feeds in all they get, and have a common report that's crosschecked, verified, and responsibly reported? Could politicians get together and stand by each other, and set up an emergency information desk that can speak and share the government's action on this, as soon as it happens?

What is our role? Spoke to V and he said all this makes him want to turn into a monk. I tell him that's escapism. He says this is the time to pray. It makes me wonder. What if we left the reigns of the media and the government to monks right this moment and asked them to set aside praying and participate, do what they will, what would they do? How would they interpret news, present the state of affairs or take decisions for the state? Maybe with a whole lot more perspective, kindness, empathy and love. All of which is sorely needed today.

Obama condemns this, so does the British High Commissioner. R called from Delhi, she was furious. All my friends on Facebook are furious. The terrorists also seem furious. So much anger to deal with so much anger. An Abhinav Bharat for a Lashkar-e-toiba. A circle of anger we seem to be running. Only circles never end.

I've received so many smses and calls since morning. Everyone's expressing their shock and disgust. But then again, Kashmir and Assam live a life like this or worse every day. Is this hitting us so badly because it's so close home – a metropolis mayhem - not news, but reality because we've been to the places this happened in, we've probably known people who've been affected by it.

Are we furious only when it's personal? Then maybe, it's not the terrorist's motives we need to question, but our own.

Everyday Musings > Words are all I have

Last week, I watched a play called 'Karodon me ek'. A dialogue caught my ears; it went something like this – 'whiskey gira, ann gira, bottle gira, phool gira, patte gira, par akshar na gira.' It meant that let everything else fall, but not your words. I held on to it.

And yesterday, as I was sitting in my landmark seminar, I heard them speak of how we create the world with language. And so many things fell into place.

Yes Prime Minister for one. I remember laughing at Bernard and Humphrey as they put everything in such confusingly constructed phrases and words and frustrated Jim Hacker. In one of their discussions, Hacker attempts to understand what an official reply means.

Jim: What's an official reply?
Bernard: Well it just says the Minister has asked me to thank you for your letter and we say something like, the matter is under consideration, or even if we feel so inclined, under active consideration.
Jim: What's the difference?
Bernard: Well under consideration means we've lost the file, under active consideration means we're trying to find it.

The BBC series, though satirical, was my first unconscious lesson in diplomacy. Wars are fought over words said in haste. Allies are made over carefully-worded agreements. Obama's speech would have been analysed and every word accorded meaning, including his wake up call 'change'.

I now understand why my parents don't get words like 'cool' and 'fine' – they're generalised words my brother or I would use for anything from a movie to a family decision to by an apartment to the idea of marriage. It did not clarify what we feel about the issue. It was just cool, just fine.

Often we catch ourselves telling our friends or people 'that's not what I meant', 'you misunderstood' etc, all of it is our confusion about the importance of language. We get lost in the feelings and imagine that if it's in our head, everyone will know and understand and that it's not necessary to find the right words to explicitly say it. Sometimes we resort to quote other people, or remember dialogues from movies or lyrics from songs because they're just the perfect words said in the perfect way.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that 'language represents thought, and may even control thought'. The entire exercise of being politically correct arises there. Though much has been ridiculed about the idea of political correctness, Edna Andrews clarifies why it's a necessary step. We stereotype people. Often unconsciously, through learning that is passed on. And don't even realise that the use of those stereotypes makes us part of a suppression that the stereotyped are already facing. When we render the accepted labels unacceptable we are forced to consciously think about how we describe people who are unlike us, and in this conscious labelling, that person's merits become apparent rather than the stereotype. But that said, like everything else, it is often an abused exercise.

I read somewhere that the only way to expand the use of the brain was through learning new words. I learnt a whole sentence today – don't spill words.

Everyday Musings > Thin is King

I'm addicted to crispy chicken strips from KFC - Juicy, 100% all-white meat chicken breast, marinated and double-breaded in their special seasonings. Their poster says 0% Trans fat per serving. I have no idea what that means. But it feels like I can indulge with a little less guilt.

I look at all the food around us. Packaged popcorn and freeze dried soups and microwave meals and extra large cookies and then there's the surfeit of low fat, no fat and diet food to make up for how unhealthy all the rest of the things on the shelves are. I have a vague idea of what most of the calorie, energy mentions on a bag of chips or a Kellogs box really mean. And take it for granted that if they say zero fat or zero calorie that it really is so. But a friend told me that drinking normal milk is far healthier than drinking zero fat or skimmed milk. Another said that even diet coke has calories. Even diet coke. Hmph.

With the excess of this and that, and with me being the sole heir to my kitchen right now, I suddenly miss home food. And am amazed at how my mother managed to pack in all the essentials in our food every day. There was juice and fruit and boiled eggs in the morning, spinach and carrot and dal and roti and dahi for lunch and dinner. And it's always been like that – a simple Indian meal, devoid of diet talk, and perfectly healthy.

Everyone I meet and know is worried about fat. Worried about not exercising enough. It's become a social no-no to be overweight. 'Lose weight in 7 days!' says VLCC or Berkowitz, Nap uses power plates and attempts to melt fat as you lie down, gyms offer expensive yearly packages that would have previously made people shudder but now makes them rush to it.

But with all this available to us, why is that everyone's not as fit and thin as they desire? Gym statistics would be a testament of quitters - people who start, stop, start, stop and never come back.

Maybe it's what we're aiming for nowadays. What we say to ourselves. '15 kgs less'. 'I don't want to be fat.' 'I want to be thin'. 'I want six packs'. 'I want to be size zero'. Everything demotivating. And highly avoidable, because with a goal like size zero, unless you are size zero, there is no scope for happiness. The road to getting there is not desirable, the end result is. The same with a six pack.

What if we walked into our exercise regimes and worked out or walked or did yoga or kickboxing not repeating the words 'size zero' or 'six pack' but instead saying it's for 'health and vitality', to bring a 'spring in your step', to make the day seem more 'energetic'. Even one day of exercising will make us feel that way. And we've reached our goal effortlessly.Making us continue and make it part of our lifestyle instead of a short-term goal of fitting into your college jeans.

Because truly, the secret to a great body is not in how thin it can be, but in how full of life it is.

Everyday Musings > Precious Junk

A friend told me of a friend of his who collects bottles and calls them his 'precious junk'. It took me back to my gopher days and how I would cherish a collection of erasers and stationary like it was national treasure. Or the dinky cars that my brother and I were soooo protective about. Over time, the nature of my precious junk has changed. The erasers have been gifted, I've actually started writing on some of my stationery and my brother and I have forgiven the boy who stole our dinky cars.

My friend the Kid is the biggest serial gopher I know. Everything is collected. In series. Itemised. Numbered. Stored in stacks and neat piles. Magazines packed in plastic according to month of issue; Life, National Geographic, Graphic Novels, Batman, Sandman; postcards, film posters and god knows what else. Ever since he's moved to Mumbai, he's hit by bouts of frugality, and sends a mail or sms with a long list of 'precious junk' he's giving away or selling. The next few days are a flurry of activity and memory, as he recounts when he bought what, why he bought it, and says with finality 'take it away'. One moment precious, the next just junk.

Stamps, coins, leaves in books, old letters and postcards, we all have our versions of it. My dad loves to collect newspaper clippings, my mom plants, my brother matchboxes. Sometimes our precious junk defines us. A collection of Ganeshas that Dip has, swizzle sticks Vik has or anything frog shaped that Subu is maniacal about becomes an easy decision for what to gift, or how to refer to in a conversation – the guy who collects shoelaces is far more interesting than stating his profession.

But there is more to this habit of ours. As we move on in life, we pick up some not so materialistic junk as well. Thoughts, memories, incidents, wishes, desires. The ones we hold onto and infuse magic into by choice, making them the most important things for us. And one day realise it's not so dear to us, and bid farewell and make space for new junk we call precious.

Why do we hoard? What is it that makes us do so? It could be a passion, a hobby, a habit or a profession. Some are productive hoarders, like art collectors or philatelists who make money or create a standing in their community out of selective hoarding. Some are hobby hoarders, who collect because they want all of what they like – be it antique toilet seats or doorknobs. And then there are compulsive hoarders who can't give away anything and thus can't help hoarding. At which point it becomes a medical condition classified under Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And scientists as usual have been able to identify a lobe in our brain that we can blame for this.

In all this collecting, giving away, attaching, detaching, we define our lives without realising it. In the larger understanding of things, isn't enlightenment the giving up of precious junk? And being human the state of holding on?

Everyday Musings > Stop Press!

Eggs are good for health. Eggs must be avoided. There are nine planets. Pluto is no longer a planet. Eat fewer meals to lose weight. Eat more meals to lose weight. Invest. Don't invest. Jog. Jogging is bad for knees. Wash your hair till it is squeaky clean. If its squeaky clean it means you've used too much shampoo.

Pick up the newspaper or a scientific journal or surf the TV and chances are they contradict themselves every day. What do we believe? What is the source of all our information? What makes us believe in wrong and right? Are books sacred, is the written word God? Were all the authors unbiased and factual? What makes us believe and have faith in the infallibility of our fellow beings when it comes to information? Especially today when we're being buried in it.

New information is being created every second. the latest gossip, which is the best phone to buy, what's the next big trend, the state of politics, celebrity scandals. A few decades ago, we had limited sources of information - grandma's home remedies were the same in all households, as was DD and news. But with 100 channels, a shrinking world and the internet blossoming with more than 70 million blogs and 150 million websites, we are now so over informed about every point of view that we are usually unsure of what or don't care what we believe in anymore. As Barry Schwartz says 'Freedom of choice eventually becomes a tyranny of choice'.

In 2007, the Associated Press hired a research company called Context to conduct an in-depth study of young-adult news consumption around the world. What was thought to be a fun research turned in this - "The abundance of news and ubiquity of choice do not necessarily translate into a better news environment for consumers." Participants in this study showed signs of news fatigue; they appeared debilitated by information overload and unsatisfying news experiences. . . Ultimately news fatigue brought many of the participants to a learned helplessness response.

According to Wikipedia sources, an article in the New Scientist magazine claimed that exposing individuals to an information overloaded environment resulted in lower IQ scores than exposing individuals to marijuana. The same article also noted that a night without sleep can be as debilitating as over-exposure to information.

Every news channel runs at least two simultaneous stories, if not more, at once. One is the visual content, and the second is the ticker that runs at the bottom. I find it so distracting, and am often unable to focus on what's being shown. And thus never remember what I read or saw. It is usually a haze, unless its breaking news and everyone is playing the same clips again and again and I remember it, like an ad, due to sheer repetition and sensationalism.

In this new crazy world, instead of organising information into entertainment and news and family supplements or channels or products, and feeding us with everything from lost dogs to Big Boss gossip to primetime horoscopes on news, I wish the media would focus and find a way to make news matter. My main prayers being for news channels. Slow down. And think outside the idiot box.

Everyday Musings > The diehard romantic

As I write this, the radio is playing 'Holle Holle Ho Jaayega Pyaar', 'Guzaarish' and 'Tu hi to meri dost hai'. All romantic songs that make me stop, smile, turn dreamy eyed for a while, sigh and get back to work.

There's something so charming about romantic films that they make you want to relive them. My friend Mo watched Jab We Met 8 times. I've seen DDLJ 4 times. Jodha Akbar made couples step out smiling and cuddling a wee bit more to each other. Re-runs of romantic comedies on movie channels always make one stop surfing and sit back.

Romance is all about the slo-mo moments. But in our new rushed life, with fast food, instant coffee and daily soaps we've forgotten what it feels like to enjoy things at a leisurely pace. Love is instant. Passion is too. But romance needs time to blossom. At least the hopeless 'pride and prejudice and mills and boons' romantic in me continues to believe that. Just to check if I was caught in a time warp, I asked a few friends what romance means to them.

Mira and Kavs said, sorry too busy for romance. Kal said 'December. Mountain in the jungles, light snow, Victorian bungalow with a high ceiling drawing room, a big fireplace, a cosy mattress, some wine, you and your partner.' Kosh says it's Instant, torrid, fatal. Bil says a 'feeling of timeless togetherness with no worldly distractions.'

SD says romance is an old couple walking down the road holding hands; says it's the last scene in Notting Hill where Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant are on a park bench, she's pregnant, lying down with her head on his lap reading a book. And he's reading a newspaper. SD says it's being with each other without trying very hard to be with each other.

Sue says 'romance is when you feel one with earth. When leaves look greener, the wind feels cooler, and the moonlight looks magical. It's not necessarily something which happens when a man is around.' Shek says it's a feeling of completely knowing that you are attracted, loved and longed for by your partner as much you do for them'.

Anj tried hard to keep it short but admits she's too much of a romantic. Her list had 'Secret gazes in a crowded room. Butterflies in the stomach – even after years. Holding hands at very given opportunity. Dancing. Cooking together. Laughter. My head on his shoulder at a theatre. His head on my lap, fast asleep. A walk on the beach while it's raining. Silly pranks that only he and I get. Fighting. And making up. Then fighting again. And never wanting to give up.'

P says 'eyes lighting up when I see someone/someone sees me. The desire to smoothen things out for someone. The instant impulse to share everything, good, bad, ugly, with a specific person. Sitting on the kitchen counter while he cooks'. Runa says 'romance' is a very personal bubble which we create - it could be on the way to buy bread for example, but if you are with the right person - even if the person is not THE lover, he/she becomes a co-rider inside the bubble. And if there is chemistry and humour - woah explosion.'

Andy says Destiny. Mans says 'The person needs to be doing something that does not make him happy doing it -being delighted over setting a candle light dinner-or buying perfumes and other expensive accessory which invariably makes him happy too. I want him to think harder of what really makes me happy- which is such a difficult thing for guys to do. I love it when romance is the other word for thoughtfulness- something that can make me shed a tear - something that wants me to give him a hug whenever I think of it. What comes to my mind would be simple examples like keeping the house done is it's meant to be. Help save a life - go off non-veg as long as you can and do it for me. Say it with flowers. Be proud of me all the time, every time. Listen to me and most importantly, be patient with me'.

Emi says 'a night at home, candlelight, easy tunes, a bottle of wine, dinner and dancing and hot sex. Guru says 'quietly sipping tea together with your soul-mate while sitting in a balcony watching the sun rise through the morning mist'.

Kit says 'romance is play. It's a game between 2 minds - the more cryptic it is, the more interesting it becomes. Allure, ignore, surprise, share, tease, tempt.'

All of us have our own versions; some of thoughtfulness, some of living in a bubble, some equating it with passion, some finding it in ambience, some in company, some in words, some in thoughts. But something Kit said made me realise what we often miss out about romance – that 'the idea is to keep it going forever'.

Everyday Musings > The Dating Game

Many months ago, I was at a get together at a friend's place, and we suddenly realised that five out of seven of us were single. The discussion went on to why that was so and ended with the familiar rant – 'but where are the eligible single people!' To which we realised that all of us had friends, apart from this gang, who were single and who we feel are wonderful and so dateable. So we said let's get them introduced. The idea was to start a blog of postings, where we featured our friends who were single, and wrote testimonials for them. And tried to get friends and friends and friends together. That night some were excited about the idea, some were not too sure it'd work, but it made for a great dinner conversation nevertheless. That was then. And it was forgotten soon after. Till yesterday, when I had a chat with H on dates; blind, eyes wide open and the hurried kind.

It turned out both of us were as averse to the idea of a blind date as we were to speed dating. And firm believers in 'when it happens, it'll happen' and 'this kind of stuff is not for people like us'. I guess it had something to do with our old fashioned idea of romance. I dug deeper to see what makes people flock to it and make it such a rage.

Speed Dating was started by a Jewish organisation to get Jewish couples together, before it turned popular culture. Participants are given 3-7 minutes to chat individually with other participants, usually moving from table to table, and asked to write down their preferences when everyone's met everyone. Sort of like a round robin. If the preferences match, telephone numbers are given out and dates arranged. But is 3-7 minutes enough to decide if you want to date that individual or not?

UPenn says yes. They studied speed dating and found that decisions were made within the first 3 seconds, and issues such as religion, previous marriages, and smoking habits were found to play much less of a role than expected. A university in Edinburgh also found that dialogue concerning travel resulted in more matches than dialogue about films. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell talks of two professors who run speed dating events, Sheena Iyengar and Raymond Fisman, who found that the preferences stated before the dating event did not match the subconscious preferences of the participants after the event was done. So they always picked people who did not match the profile they stated they desired before the event.

Most communities encourage dating, or as they call it, arranging a meeting, to bring eligible singles together. Arranged Marriages are probably the best case studies for blind dates, where others set two people up based on their perceptions of a good match. As urban living changed, and people moved from joint to nuclear to now single residency, the traditional dating opportunities minimised, thus generating the need for concepts of online dating and speed dating, which are more inclusive and offer a wider selection of candidates.

But whether it family arranged dates, regular dates, blind dates, group dates, holidates (people in long distance relationships who meet on vacations) or speed dates, we pass our verdict in the first three seconds. Everything after that is just validating what we already know and feel. But as in all games, there's no guaranteed win. You have to lose some to win some.

Everyday Musings > Less plastic, more life.

My dear friend and bro Lal just created a campaign on plastic and how it chokes animals. Not to mention the planet. I went into my kitchen and looked at my three large bags stacked with plastic covers of all sizes, neatly folded and pressed to accommodate the ever growing number, saved to reuse someday. Till recently, it made me feel organised. Today it made me realise how guilty I am of filling this world with plastic.

I shop for vegetables at the fancy hyper city where every vegetable and fruit is shrink-wrapped or sealed in a plastic pouch after weighing, where they give out eco-friendly plastic covers which still end up choking animals eating out of a garbage bin.

Looking back, I love the concept of Apna Bazaar and ration shops, where my parents carried their own cloth bags to buy groceries. Or how, in Delhi, my neighbouring aunties would lower baskets with money in them from the first and second floor and the vegetable vendor would fill it with vegetables of her choice.

As a country, we've grown up with the best environmental practices. The ones that people struggle with now to earn green credits.

Our food was packed in leaves, and we made spoons and plates of them too. We dumped our vegetable waste in our gardens or fed them to our cows. Milk was brought home by a milkman in a steel container and poured into steel vessels handed out by sleepy children. We ate local produce. We wore organic cotton and bought new clothes once a year. We ate organic and learnt not to waste our food. We carried our cloth bags everywhere we went and lived comfortably without missing the allure of plastic.

What changed? Why did we start blindly adopting what we can see is not working in the West? Why did we stop doing what worked perfectly well for us and the planet? Why, now that we know the state of things, don't we wake up and see the plastic each of us generates every time we shrink-wrap our sandwiches or ask for extra plastic bags, just in case.

I don't buy veggies from the local cart vendors because I think they'd be unfair with price and the experience is not as exciting as wheeling a shopping cart and being lured by packaging. Now it seems like such a short-sighted choice.

Apart from veggies, I shop lots too - Lifestyle, Food Bazaar, Shoppers Stop, all of them give you plastic bags. And offer no option of you bringing your own cloth bags and shop with them. Actually, I've never asked. I wonder how they would react if I carried a cloth bag in, and asked them to seal that instead of giving me their plastic bags. I will try that next time.

My bag, like many women I know, is stuffed with various things I just might need. The next time I step out of home, I'm going to put something else in it – a neatly folded cloth bag.

Everyday Musings > Thorn Birds

Right now I'm very sad. And as I write this, I feel like I can feel all the sorrow of the world. I don't like being sad. I like musing, thinking, being lost in my own world, but I don't like being sad. And it's not a state I can stay in for too long. Sooner or later I will start to think of the good things I have in life, of how beautiful the world is, of how the sun lights up the one flower blooming near my window. And I'll be happy. And content. But for now, there is sorrow.

I read The Thorn Birds many years ago. The book's title refers to a mythical bird that searches for thorn trees from the day it is hatched. When it finds the perfect thorn, it stabs itself to death singing the most beautiful song ever heard as it dies.

The Thorn Birds could sing so beautifully, that had they lived, and chosen to sing, they would have given much joy. But they choose to live their entire life looking for death.

Many of us are Thorn Birds in our lives. In search of the perfect sorrow - "Nobody loves me", "They don't listen", "Nobody cares", "I'm not important", "No happiness will last in my life". And once we find that, we stab ourselves with it again and again, so that we constantly bleed and never heal, and sing the most beautiful reasons for dying with that sorrow.

Tragedies are all about this. Romeo and Juliet fated to never find happiness, a family cursed like in Othello, a love meant to be unfulfilled like in Little Mermaid. Great for drama and great for plot development. But we do not live in a bound script written by someone else. We write our own. And can pick how it ends and what we'd like to do in it.

There's always a choice. But often, we find ourselves enacting the tragedy in our lives and believing that we have no control over it. 'I'm the kind of person nothing good ever happens to'. And nothing good ever happens. And we were proved right. And we will be, because we wrote the script. If we'd written a different ending, it could have swung that way too, or if it'd hadn't, we could always switch and pick whichever other ending we liked best. Often, we like tragedy best. Because somewhere being sad makes us happy.

An old Zen saying tells us the secret to life - 'Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired.' And if we had to keep adding, we could say, 'Smile when you are happy, frown when you are sad'. What it means is that live everything in the moment that it happens. After the moment is gone, let it go. And live in the next moment. Most of us hold on to feelings long after the moment has passed. Either we hold onto our happiness and don't let it go, making us sad eventually. Or we hold onto our sadness and don't let that go, and that makes us happy eventually.

My moment of sorrow has passed. And I can sleep in peace now. So my fellow Thorn Birds, the next time you see a Thorn tree, perch on it and sing your beautiful song. But when the song is over, sing for trees without thorns as well.

Everyday Musings > Bulldozers

'Good intentions don't move mountains, bulldozers do.' Professor S used to always this to us when we made excuses and spoke of things not working out.

Had a conversation this weekend with my friend R who wants to adopt a baby when he gets married. A noble thought, but one that has always disturbed me. I asked him why he wanted to adopt a baby, and he said because he wants to help an underprivileged orphan child. Wrong reasons I said. The only reason to adopt a child should be because you want a child. That's all. No explanations and reasons of helping and making a difference. Because then, you're bringing up your adopted child as a case of charity instead of love without reason, which is what you would have had towards your biological child. He spoke of the scores of orphaned children in the world and said that by doing this he would truly make a difference. But the thing was he was waiting for a day in the future when he would do that, and as a result spent 35 years doing nothing about it. Is adopting the only way to help Orphan children? And if your intentions are not clear, even that adoption would not help. Perhaps one day, when the child is grown up, and does something that doesn't agree with you, you'd start counting your charities extended through his life. Perhaps. So now he's contemplating doing something actively for Orphan children on a larger scale. And when he does adopt, he says, it will be for the right reasons.

Got me thinking a lot about 'Making a Difference' and how all of us want to do that. We wish to be of use, be productive, and contribute to the Earth. Noble thoughts but not bulldozers.

If each of us took our good intentions and started making them work, our lives would be more fulfilled. I've always wanted grandparents to be around when I grew up. Unfortunately they died early. And my mother's mother, a gentle lovely woman with a quirky sense of humour and a great cook, I wished I had more time with. I often spoke to friends and said I wish I could adopt grandparents.

While creating a community project for my Landmark course, I decided to take this up. I see senior citizens around who don't have people to chat with or those with failing eyesight who would love to keep in touch with the world, if only someone would spend some time taking them through the newspaper or a book. I wanted to do something that made me spend time with them, not out of charity but because I feel I can benefit from their wisdom and company. I decided to create a forum of readers and companions for senior citizens – a group of volunteers who they can call on to read or have a conversation with. Good Intentions. Yes. But it's been four weeks since then and I haven't yet summoned the bulldozers.

My cubicle mate, SD, asked me when I shared this with him, what is it that you want to do. I said spend time with the elderly. He said 'then why wait till you have all the volunteers and the system in place to make it perfect. Just go and read to one elderly person and start it off. The rest will fall into place.'

True. The bulldozer is here. Mountain, beware.

Everyday Musings > With compliments

A few days ago, V from artnlight.blogspot.com wrote to me saying she’s been reading all my blogs and she liked them and that she’d like to do a post on me on her blog. I was touched, and then, a day later, the post is up. I read it, and was overwhelmed by the generosity of her words and the spirit that makes her so open with her appreciation.

It led me to wonder about appreciation and how generous are we with it in our lives. There are plenty of times I’ve watched a great play and not gone backstage and congratulated the cast, either because I thought there must be enough people already doing that or because they surely must know they did a great job , so it’s ok. But last night, I watched a play, Karodon Me Ek, where one of the audience members shared her appreciation and wept in front of the cast, and left them so touched and inspired.

Among one of the countless quotes scribbled down in my college days was this - Everyone needs recognition for his accomplishments, but few people make the need known quite as clearly as the little boy who said to his father: “Let’s play darts. I’ll throw and you say ‘Wonderful!’“

Everyone wishes to be recognised for the things they do in life. It could be as simple as getting up to give a seat to an elderly person in a bus or jotting down notes for a friend who missed a lecture, or saving a seat for a friend in a busy canteen. It’s not always about verbally saying thank you. Sometimes, it’s just a warm smile, a squeeze of the hand, a slap on the back, a post-it note. Recognition is an acknowledgment that they made a difference.

Sharing appreciation is uncomfortable at most times. It seems like we’re being formal when we say the words ‘thank you’ to people close to us. Sometimes we go out of our way to recognise and appreciate strangers who help us but hardly ever acknowledge the ones closest to us. Like our parents or friends. Making a meal for mom and letting her take the day off, getting dad a DVD of the best cricket matches India ever played and watching it with him, taking care of the kids and giving your wife some time off, just sitting and listening to your grandparents...just to tell them that we care and appreciate what they do for us.

Teacher’s Day, Boss’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day...Hallmark makes a killing on these days by simply giving people a reason to say ‘thank you’ without being embarrassed about saying so. I’d got dad a tiny little plaque that said ‘world’s best dad’ when I was in school. It’s still one of his prized possessions and he keeps it somewhere he can see daily and talks of it and says ‘I’m the best daughter in the world’.

Appreciating opens up worlds we did not know exist. And when we acknowledge someone else, we’re really acknowledging humanity. And sometimes it’s also about acknowledging those who don’t seem to be on the same page as us. As Obama generously said in his speech – “And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

So today, I thank all of you who’ve been reading Everyday Musings; the ones who read every one of them, the ones who read just one, the ones who read none but saved it in their inboxes promising to read it soon, the ones who chose to follow the blog, the ones who chose not to, the ones who forwarded it to their friends, the ones who didn’t, the ones who look forward to them, the silent readers, the vocal ones, the ones who shared how you felt, what it did to you, what it didn’t. Thank you so much.

Everyday Musings > Funny Bone

My friend The Kid told me that I don't have a sense of humour. And that too because I don't laugh at his silly puns. Hmph. Not willing to let it go just like that, I investigated.

What makes me laugh? Woody Allen's books and his movies or even just a picture of him. Micheal Palin's dry wit. Yes Prime Minister. Russel Peters stand up acts. Candid Camera. A fish called Wanda. Oscar the movie. Eddie Izzard's History of the World. Winston Churchill. The Mahabharat scene from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. Hasya Vyang that used to feature on DD. Oscar Wilde. Ogden Nash and 'when you see a panther, don't anther'.

Dry, witty, sarcastic humour gets me rolling and smiling all day, but I love my share of surdy jokes as well. But puns, somehow, get my goat, unless they're intelligent and not hugely corny. A friend of mine was working with the Times, and he walked into a room where there were dying carnations in a vase that were being watered. He quipped 'reincarnation' and no one laughed. It had me rolling. I'm surrounded by people who pun. Are puns the easiest access to humour? Is it that everyone can pun, well or terribly, since even a bad pun is a comedy act, but not everyone can tell a good joke?

Can people be coached to be funny? I googled 'being funny' and saw that it's big business. There are coaches like Stanley Lyndon who uses the God model and promise to make you funny in 7 days! Woody Allen said 'I think being funny is not anyone's first choice'. People wished to be astronauts and engineers and actors, but not stand-up comedians. Though that's changing. Serious brands are willing to look at the funny side of things to connect faster to their customers, bosses now crack a lot more jokes to seem approachable and the fun chap at work is looked up to. Even sadhus and politicians and newscasters crack jokes to keep people interested. Being funny is now not considered being immature or not serious. It's been seen as a talent and there are careers to be made of it.

I also came across Laugh Lab who researched nations with the best sense of humour - strangely Germany tops the list. They also said different countries reacted to different kinds of jokes.

People from Ireland and the UK loved wordplay. Patient: "I've got some strawberry stuck up my bum" Doctor: "I've got some cream for that."

The Americans and Canadians liked gags which had a sense of superiority. Texan: "Where are you from?" Harvard Grad: "I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with propositions" Texan: "Ok, where are you from, Jackass."

France and Belgium liked ones which had a surreal element in them. Like An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote; "Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof." The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog, "There are only nine words here. You could send another "Woof" for the same price. "But", the dog replied, "that would make no sense at all."

Ha ha ha ha. So the next time The Kid says I don't have a funny bone, I've decided to just laugh it off.

Everyday Musings > Not time yet

I live out situations in my head. And in the theatre of my life, I have the wittiest lines, the best comebacks and a life where I live out my dreams every day. But in reality, I'm standing, with a 'things to do' list, waiting for a moment that's around a corner without realising I live in a circle.

Maryanne Williamson says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

We wait our whole lives to live the life we want to live, to do the things we want to do. 'It's not time yet', we say to ourselves. 'I'll have fun and freak out. But today I need to work'. 'I'll take my family to a great vacation, but not now, someday'. 'I'll learn to dance, next year'. 'I'll start a business of my own, when I feel the risk is minimal.' 'I'll backpack around Europe, let me get used to the idea.' 'I'd love to bungee jump, let me think about it.'

Our dreams are secondary to our survival, and we get so caught up in the predictable routine which we know will bring us a predictable productive future, that we postpone our dreams.

Each one of us has an unfulfilled wish list. Mine's an ongoing one. I want to travel to Europe. See Paris or London or New York in Christmas. I want to dance all my life. I want to write a book. I want to have a baby. I want to learn how to sing. I want to bungee jump. I want a house in the hills I retire to. I want to love like I've never loved before. I want to make a difference in people's lives. I want to make people around me fulfil their dreams.

I sat on this list for a long time, waiting for a good time to start doing what I want. I realised the good time is 'now'. So I'm ticking things off, making new experiences, so that when I shut my eye, I don't have a pillow of regrets to sleep on.

This is one of my favourite poems, Warning by Jenny Joseph. She talks of living her life, being herself, 'making up' for living such a sedate life, and doing whatever she feels like, but only when she grows old. Read it aloud, or have someone read it to you. I found myself in her words, you might too.

Warning by Jenny Joseph

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat, which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple."

Everyday Musings > Not in the mood

Our moods rule our lives. Mine have ever since I can remember.

I'd wait for the weather to tell me what I felt like wearing, would study when I felt like studying, suddenly feel in the mood to sleep during my Math tuitions and bounce back to a happy mood when it was time to chat with friends.

Moods stay on in spells. Sometimes for days, months, even years. Some are personal to us, like you're generally feeling blue, don't want to step out of bed, just lie in, contemplate, eat junk, watch tv, be numb. Then there's the infectious moods everyone catches, like Monday Blues, Saturday Night fever. Or holiday moods or exam blues. All moods we live everyday. Artistic temperament is nothing but a mood swing. In an artist – very inspiring, in your spouse – as irritating. We all have our pet mood phrases. 'I'm like this only', 'Mood nahi hai yaar', 'Don't feel like it','Chod na yaar', 'Bore ho raha hai yaar', 'Tu apna kaam kar na'.

My friend S today sent me a link to a website www.moodcheck.com. It had a list of questions on multiple choice questions which finally lead to what mood you're in right now. Their moods were classified under 'intuition', 'satisfaction', 'perfection' and 'innovation'. I've never seen moods classified like that. Each seemed to lead to an action. If mine came up innovation, I would probably be energetic and raring to go and create something. If Satisfaction, then I had probably just finished with my job list or fulfilled a wish.

Moods are a result of our inaction or action. Not vice versa. This means we think about something and then do or not do something about it and our mood arises as a result of it. This means, we always create our moods. They stem from us. Then why do all of us feel so powerless in the face of a mood. Why do we deal with it like it's something that jumped on us from a tree, and we have no control over it?

Now when I look back, I realise that I manipulated my life with my moods, choosing to believe that my moods choose what I would do. And lived like that. Avoiding things I didn't want to do, doing things that suited me, living a life that was well within my comfort zone.

Writing 500 words a day started as a reaction to the moods. I realised that I always waited for an inspiration to do anything. A mood that made it worth the effort. I was being a slave to excuses and reasons when I gave into my moods. And decided to write 500 words regardless of the mood that I am in.

To tell you the truth, I'm not in the mood to write this right now. And my mind's found enough reasons to not to. I'm suddenly very sleepy, there's a mosquito that's demanding my attention, my feet feel dry and I need to cream them, I'm thirsty too, and probably will feel hungry soon, even though I just had my dinner. 500 words done. Guess I'm not in the mood for excuses today.

Everyday Musings > Q&A

My friend Bilat sent me a forward today on questions that haunt. Some of them were quirky and interesting - 'Can you cry under water? How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered? Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground? Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?'

I used to read Open Space, in the Sunday Times, which talked of such questions. They would invite readers to research and send in answers, and publish the correct answers with some funny ones as well. Questions have always intrigued us. And all progress is a result of constant enquiry. Fish questioning why they couldn't get out and walk, Early Man questioning what would happen if he struck two stones, or lay his meat on the fire. Eve wondering what would happen if she ate an apple. Newton asking 'why did the apple fall.' Questions are catalysts for evolution.

Even in religion, where the presence of God is a matter of faith, questions and debates are encouraged for further understanding of the nature of reality and God. Buddhist teachers wrote Zen Koans, or 'checking questions" to validate an experience of insight and put a great thought into a couple of words. Koans are not rational questions with final linear conclusions. They are especially designed for one purpose - to open the mind that has been closed by habitual responses to the world and reality. Like once when Zen Master Unmon said to his disciple, "The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robes at the sound of a bell?"

As children, we all asked questions. Profound questions that adults sometimes had no answers for, or wondered 'where do kids come up with all these questions'. But as we grow up, we shy away from questions, and believe that only people who do not know ask questions. The wise ones have answers. And thus life becomes all about killing the questions and having the right answers, the quick answers, the witty answers, the noble answers, the perfect answers.

I always believed that my life was a quest for answers, for a purpose, for that one thing I'm on Earth for. But I have come to realise that my life is really a quest for questions. The nature of my questions will determine the quality of life that I have. What do I have for breakfast? or 'Why can't I get an auto when I want one?' will lead my life in one direction, and 'How can I eradicate hunger ?' or 'How do I give senior citizens a fulfilled, joyful life?' will lead my life in another direction altogether.

Answers can never exist without definite Questions, whereas a Question can always exist without an apparent answer. And even if it is answered, unless the answer doesn't fit our understanding of what its answer should be, chances are, we'll keep asking it again and again. Like our quest o know the meaning of life. As far as I know, Douglas Adams, in his book, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, answered 'What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?' The answer is 42.

Everyday Musings > Great Expectations

Frederick E. Perl once said "I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful."

I once narrated this to a friend of mine and received a lecture on 'this is not a perfect world and we don't live with perfect people, that expectations are a way of being, and that you can't help expecting things from people'.

Keeping that in mind, I set out to see if there are any real expectations, necessary ones that cannot be questioned. My friend Shilpa had sent me a link on Jean Leidloff's book Continuum Concept. And I found my answer there. "Expectation... is founded as deeply in man as his very design. His lungs not only have, but can be said to be, an expectation of air, his eyes are an expectation of light..."

Beautifully said, and I wholeheartedly agree. These are vital expectations. Without which the body cannot function. Everything else, if we're really honest to ourselves, we can live without. We only kid ourselves in thinking we'd die if that expectation is not met.

Expectation is a dictator. And it makes you run your life with an iron hand. 'I wanted', 'I thought', 'why didn't you', 'how could you' etc. These are the ones that get expressed. But there are those, that do far more harm, that never get spoken of. They dwell in our mind – the shhh...Silent expectations. Ideas of right and wrong that get built up over the years and you don't even realise that it's there, infesting your thoughts.

Was chatting with a friend on why he kept turning down all the marriage proposals that came to him. He said that none of them were his type. Expectations. He had a pre-set frame of reference, and whoever the girl it was that he would marry had to fit into it. The reason why no one ever did. No one ever could. It was too strict and definite an expectation, not allowing him to see what the girl had, but what she should have. So it was about looking for what's missing instead of what's there. And that's just the tip of the expectation iceberg. Say he finds 'the girl', he would have then have silent expectations from his marriage, and if it turned out different from the frame in his head, it would lead to disappointment.

Expectation arises from two things. Firstly from the past, that is to say, 'something happened then, and now it shouldn't, or should'. Like you best friend let you down, and now you expect an insane amount of commitment from every friend you make. Or you stop being friends with them. Secondly, from the future, from already having lived your life in your head, that 'this is the way things ought to be'. Like you make a new friend, imagine your life, happy forever, doing everything together, a friend who'd die for you, and then the next day, you ask him out for a movie, and he says he's busy and you feel extremely cheated and hurt.

For the fortunate beings who live in the present, in the now, there are no expectations, except the vital ones that keep them alive and going, and are immediate to the task at hand. And those are indeed the greatest ones.

Everyday Musings > You got message.

I'm addicted. To my mobile phone. I'm possessive about it. And don't let it out of my sight, or hand, for more than a few seconds. I message, hate calling (it heats up my ears) and have withdrawal symptoms even if I'm away for five minutes. Have I missed a call, do I have an unread sms? Gosh.

Francisca Lopez Torrecillas, a lecturer at the department of personality and psychological assessment and treatment of the University of Granada, surveyed several 18 to 25-year-olds. Torrecillas says mobile addicts 'can become totally upset when deprived of their mobile phones for some time, regardless of the reason. Switching off their phones causes them anxiety, irritability; sleep disorders or sleeplessness, and even shivering and digestive problems.' Sweden's Sahlgren Academy also found that adolescents who made more than 15 phone calls and sent more than 15 text messages in a day not only slept poorly, but when compared to kids who made did the same less than five times a day, they were also leading more careless lifestyles, including spending more time on their computers, drinking more alcohol and caffeinated drinks.

Woah. I haven't thankfully got to that, though I'm sure I'm pretty close. All of us would be able to point out to the mobile phone 'addict' among us. But can we recognise the symptoms when it happens to us. Here's a short checklist. See how many you tick off.

- You can't get through dinner at a restaurant without sending text messages or pounding out a note on the Blackberry.

- You compulsively check for voice mail or new text messages and are irritated when you don't receive any.

- If your mobile phone stays silent for some time, you get worried and check to make sure you haven't set it wrong.

- You often mistake the ringing of other people's phones as that of your own and tend to be bad-tempered.

- There's a need to continually buy the 'lastest model' with advanced features

- You feel anxiety when you're away from the phone.

If most of this sounds like you, then you are well and truly addicted. Might explain why people who 'forgot' to check their messages over the weekend, or switch off their mobile post 8 pm irritate you so much.

Many years ago, British Telecom launched a campaign to encourage users to switch off their phones more. The Switch It campaign promoted the "sensible, considerate and responsible use of mobile phones". Would we be able to do something like that? Just switch off our phones and relax.

Most of my friends are like me, always on the phone. If we're meeting up for a coffee, the cell phones occupy prime place on the table instead of being shoved into the bag, if we're out shopping, its sunglasses, shopping bags, wallets and a phone in our hands. Even in a movie hall, most of us message to update friends on what a bad or what a rocking film it is.

Perhaps it's something to do with always wanting to stay in touch. Switching off is then like cutting off blood supply and only the really brave attempt it. But unlike the life support system, turning this one off might actually bring you back to life.

Everyday Musings > Would've, Should've, Could've

I scrawled this Harriet Beecher quote in the margins of my diary when in school - "The bitterest tear shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."

As I grew up, I realised what it meant, only I didn't have to wait till someone died to understand it. I believe, 'graves' here is a metaphor for anything that dies; friendship, love, relationship, trust. All for the want of a few words.

Why do we wait for an appropriate time to let someone know how we feel about them? Right now is as appropriate a time as anytime else. So why not now? What stops us? What makes us justify it all with 'why make it so 'said' – too emotional and mushy' or the time tested 'words are overrated' or the clear winner 'If they love me, they should know how I feel, I don't have to put it in words'.

They say actions speak louder than words, but unless you don't say it, no one will know what you did. Some live their lives wondering what would have happened if they'd confessed their love to someone they had a crush on in school or college. Like with my friend M, who loved this girl in college, and would take the whole gang out for a movie or to a restaurant just because he wanted to take her out, and would hope that she'd understand how much he loved her just because of his actions. What he could have done instead is just tell her how he felt. The whole life after that seems to be interrupted with the three witches of regret - 'would've, should've, could've.

If you don't tell people, they might guess, but they'll never know for sure. Many parents never end up telling their kids how much they love them and the kids grow up thinking their parents are too severe or don't love them or are just not the emotional kind. Many bosses don't tell their empployees when they're proud of them and the employee feels neglected and unappreciated. Husbands don't tell wives and wives don't tell their husbands. We hold back so much in our heads and for the rest of our lives play private videos of melodramatic what ifs.

While in college, I used to write a lot of little notes, and leave them around for friends. No reason. Just. Sometimes, even now, I sms friends with a 'hugg' or a 'mwah' or randomly tell them how special they are and how blessed I am to have them.

But there are people I wish I had said things to. My grandma who was the sweetest lady and the oldest Mtv fan I knew. My friend Vin who went away one day and I haven't seen him since. My friend Pur who I wish I could clear up so much with. My kitten who walked out of the door and lost her way. My kindergarten teacher Jeanne, I wonder where she is now.

Churchill said, 'We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out'. But I feel the unsaid is a killer too. To be dramatic, it's like a giant python around our neck - you don't realise when it creeps up and crawls around us, then weighs us down, and slowly chokes our thoughts.

So the next time you plan to leave something unsaid, think of what's creeping up your shoulder.

Everyday Musings > Yes we can

Many of us at work were glued to the television sets to hear Barack Obama's speech as the new President of America. As glued as we were when enraged politicians waved wads of currency in the Indian Parliament before the trust vote was to be declared. As glued as we were in the Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremony. As glued as in the finals of the Cricket World Cup.

We're all suckers for the finale, for the Ceremony.

Obama's speech today was a bit too pat and quite uninspired. But he did make some interesting points. Especially this - "This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change."

Somehow, in all the ceremony of the beginning well and ending grand, we seem to miss out on all that happens in between. The elections are celebrated. But the tenure is not. There is much fanfare when the Manifesto is declared but none when what is said is adhered to or not.

The matter doesn't seem to matter; only the embellished skin does. Everything turns into a symbol for something else. And the true purpose turns to smoke in all the fireworks.

Obama becoming President makes me wonder who the American people really elected – a symbol or the man. If it was a symbol, then the victory and the purpose is done and over with. America has its first African American President, as McCain very cleverly repeated again and again. 'You wanted a symbol,' he seemed to say.' You have it.' But what after this, what about the man who will live on as President every day and take decisions that have nothing to do with his race or colour of his skin. Where the symbolism will mean nothing. What then? Or will America wake up again, at the end of the tenure and then watch Hillary fight it out perhaps for another symbolic win – America's first Woman President.

They're all tags. And we're suckers for tags.

The world is increasingly finding refuge in these tags. Wearing pink or red ribbons to support Breast Cancer or Aids doesn't mean anything. It is a symbol that ends its purpose the moment someone wears it. And then what? Watching 'An Inconvenient Truth' and promoting it is seen as having done enough for the cause of Global Warming. There is no action required to be taken, no responsibility for changing status quo.

This 'I endorse' culture is a lazy world's social aphrodisiac. Can we break out of it and realise that endorsement is not the same as action. That to take a stand, one must stand and face and take charge. Be in the centre of action, rather than in our living rooms, smsing our vote or forwarding chain mails and signature campaigns or wearing a hip Live Strong band. Can we break out of our social cocoon and actually create change, each one of us. Can we? 'Yes you can' says Obama.

Everyday Musings > Friends

Dee just mailed me the 2008 girl friend survey. It had a list of questions – what are my fears, whether I like summer or winter, what did I want to be when I was little, what's my shoe size, whether there's a new and exciting thing in my life that I'd like to share. A footnote said that I would learn a lot of little things about my friends that I might not have known.

Are there things I don't know about my friends? In college, in school, while growing up, I knew everything. Their favourite colour, their favourite ice cream, their favourite actor etc. But now, when I have to get them a birthday gift, I stick to a bottle of wine or a cake. Just making it to the party is a task itself. Being in the same town, or sometimes in the same office, I hardly meet up with my buddies.

Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the City; they're all about friends who manage time for fun and a long lunch on workdays, every episode. I don't know how they do it. It's been six months back in Mumbai and there are a dozen friends I haven't even called because I don't have the time to go meet them. But even if we do meet, it's rare that we discuss the kind of things Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, Miranda do. Or the kind of togetherness that Ross, Joey, Chandler, Phoebe and Rachel share. And all of us love re-runs of their lives.

Being grown up, becoming responsible, making a living, all this doesn't seem conducive to friendship. Is it distance, sudden maturity, or the realization that friendships actually need effort? That they require you to be there, to care, and share. Conversations now run into
'Hey wassup?'
'Heyyyy wassup?'
'How's work?'
'Oh sucks man, I need a break.'
'How's work?'
'Same old, same old'
'So what's up?'
'So what's up?'
And then someone gets a drink and switches on the TV to watch F1 or the match or soccer or a film and that's it. Or there's the good friends, the 'Gang', that'll meet up again and again at the same place, same faces, same stories, like a CD I know by heart. I know who'll say what and who'll reply with what punchline and who'll laugh and who'll sit quietly and smirk. It's like a rerun of Groundhog Day. No one new seems to add into the 'Gang' unless by marriage. And then it gets all strained for some reason, and the married friends start making alternative movie plans and the circle gets limited to the singles who complain that they can't seem to make new friends anymore. 'Too old to make new friends yaar. The ones I have, that's it. Bas'.

So where do these sitcom writers find inspiration for characters like Carrie, Samatha, Charlotte and Miranda? Do they live in their imaginations, or do these friendships actually exist? And then I hear immense laughter and look up. The Three Girls. Of course. The Three Girls and I share a cubicle wall. High enough so I can just see the top of their heads. But I can hear. Everything. Not that they ever speak in hushed tones. Sex, friendships, fashion, cute guys, a new dress, marriage, boyfriends, nothing is taboo here. And everything must be talked over. I walk by and see identical mugs on their workstations, see them watch Sex and the City together, lunch together, go to the washroom together, even leave work together.

The boys around me shake their heads and roll their eyes. But I love the Three Girls, find them utterly entertaining and very sweet. Their openness and madness is something I've only seen in a sitcom. And I'm glad I can tune into this reality 'Friends' episode, everyday. Wish my friends could too.

Everyday Musings > Goodbye

Read a cartoon strip in which Snoopy said 'Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? … I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.'

Mother left for Bangalore last evening. At the airport, I hugged her tight and watched her become a speck among strolleys and hand baggage and smiled when she messaged, 'Boarded. Nice kind gentle person sitting in the seat next to me'.I woke today and it was a quiet house without her rushing about making juice, boiling eggs, piling my multi-grain toast with peanut butter and talking to the sparrows perched on my plants. Quiet, but not sad.

Goodbye means 'God Be With You'. When did we start relating it to being something so sad and avoidable? Having moved much, Andhra, Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangalore, Mumbai, I have said a lot of Goodbyes. Written a lot of notes. Shared a lot of hugs but shed very few tears for I never felt like I would never see them again. It always seemed like I was going to make new friends, and the old would be there as well.

A friend of mine hates dropping people off at railway stations and airports; says it's too painful. I love going though, and watching. Especially departures at railway stations. You see last minute rushes of advice from parents, 'be good', 'study well', 'eat well', 'call us when you reach'; acts of love for a spouse or friend where a bottle of water is squeezed in through the window, words said to the fellow passengers 'he/she's traveling alone', food wrapped and handed over, bags secured with chains and the few steps walked with the train as it departs.

Goodbyes perhaps make us aware of the fact that everyone's going to leave sooner or later, and that being alone is a reality. Osho, though, always reveled in it. Even when he died, he instructed it to be celebrated happily, cherishing his memory rather than shedding tears on the fact that he left. He says, 'if you see that the moment has come to depart … you say good-bye with great gratitude for all that the other has been to you, for all the joys and all the pleasures and all the beautiful moments that you have shared with the other.'

I got to work today and realized I'd missed a goodbye. To Jammie, my cheerful cubicle mate, as fond of food and black tea and music as I was. Maybe more. Every day, for the past six months, I would walk in, say 'Good Morning Jammie', and he would play songs. He had treasures in his 2nd drawer – first flush Darjeeling tea in triangular gauze, McVities, fat free khakra, sugar cubes, and a kettle. At 11 or sometimes at 4, he'd turn around and say 'Kavity, tea?' I'd say yes and he'd heat water in the kettle, I'd place tea bags in our mugs, and we'd watch the color rise in satisfaction that it would be just perfect. He's gone now. To Dubai. I'll miss our tea ceremony, his endless music and the generous helpings of laughs and conversations. But I know I'll remember him with joy.

He left a goodbye note for me, short, sweet and unlike any goodbye note I've ever received. It was joyful. 'Dear Kavity, 2nd drawer and kettle all yours!'

Everyday Musings > The Patriot

I've forwarded chain mails on how great India is. I've voted for Jana Gana Mana as the best national anthem in the world. I've pinned a little flag on during Independence Day and wherever I heard the national anthem, I've stood in attention. But having said all this, I abhor patriotism. At least what I see and hear of it nowadays.

Patriotism, in modern times, is often confused with nationalism and jingoism, and is seen merely or rather strictly as love or devotion for one's country. If we agree and it is just that then GB Shaw is right in claiming 'Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.' And it makes even more sense when George Jean Nathan says, 'Patriotism is an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.'

To truly understand patriotism, I revisited its roots. What does it really mean? Patriotism, the word, has a Greek origin. Greek philosopher Socrates distinguished it thus 'patriotism does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it possibly can be.'

But if it's about principles and love and strength, when did Patriotism become about being exclusive, about symbols and words and standing for your nation no matter if its right or wrong? When did patriotism become about blind loyalty?

Howard Thurman offers an explanation, 'During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.' It becomes clearer when we see Hiroshima Nagasaki and the invention of the Atom Bomb justified in the name of patriotism, when we see Iraq become a fight against terror and Bin Laden being hunted down, all using patriotic taxpayers' dollars, and closer home, when we see the Kashmir issue spiralling out of control. Albert Einstein called it 'Heroism on command and all the loathsome nonsense.'

Carl Schurz said, 'My Country! When right keep it right; when wrong, set it right!'If patriotism is truly about making a country the best it can be, are we really patriotic? When an official takes a bribe or a citizen gives it, when ministers don't keep up their promises or people spit on the streets, why is it that we call them cheats, liars, uncivilised but never tag them as unpatriotic? Why does patriotism only rise as a reaction to an outside threat or a united stand on a border dispute? Of what use is this word that claims to bind us all if it doesn't encompass the reality of the nation, its people, its everyday living. The plight of its poor, the state of its cities, the lackadaisical approach to disaster management, the low nutrition rates, why is insensitivity to all this not raised as an unpatriotic act? I agree wholeheartedly with Mark Twain, 'Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government, when it deserves it.'

There are those that stand up, fight, make a noise, raise issues, and make the government nervous. We term them radicals, ban their groups and refuse dialogue till they do something drastic to be heard. Assam and the recent blasts stand witness to that. A reaction to successive governmental unpatriotism. H L Mencken says 'a radical is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.'

We send missions to the Moon, eulogise the Mittals and Ambanis who put us on the world map and make us great, but as Sydney Harris puts it, 'greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.' If we, as a nation lived by the true meaning of patriotism, we would have the peaceful, prosperous, strong, civilised nation each of us wants. To end, I quote Voltaire, 'It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.'

Everyday Musings > Smile please

My mother and I were sitting over dinner today, discussing happiness. What makes people happy? Money? Power? Fame? Family? Friends?

The American Psychological Association (APA) says that attaining popularity or influence and money or luxury is not what makes people the happiest. All that is actually at the bottom of the list of psychological needs. According to them, what really gets the smiles going is this – doing something that you really want to do in life, being good at that thing you do, feeling loved and close to people, and having self esteem. Psychologists say that contrary to popular notion people aren't very good at predicting what makes them happy.

I realised it the other day at work. A colleague and I were having a conversation and he said he'd be happy if he had tons of money. So I asked him how much is tons of money? He said he wanted a house of his own in a certain part of town. I asked why. He said because he had shifted to the suburbs and his mother doesn't like it there, and he wants a large home so that she can come back to where she lived all her life. I asked him why isn't she happy. He said because all her friends are there. So I asked him, why not help her make new friends here? He thought for a while, and then said 'yes, I could do that. That would make her happy, and that would make me happy too'. And it didn't need tons of money to do so.

Back to the dining table. Mother wonders how some people can laugh so heartily all the time. And I wonder if happiness has any value if there's no sadness.

So we decided to do something to understand happiness in our lives. I made a list of what makes me happy. And mother made hers.

Mine read, sparrows chattering on my windowsill, my happy healthy plants, early morning light peeping through my window, rolling in bed, being able to sing along to a song, running in the rain, dancing anywhere and anytime, being read poetry to, surprises, being in love, watching children laugh, cooking a delicious meal, the moon, watching birds in a bird bath, pups and kittens and all things little, a serious Great Dane being bullied by a little beagle, someone playing with my hair, a day out with Suzanna, sitting in a garden, watching someone smile, making someone happy, doodling, wrapping gifts, receiving handwritten notes and letters, being on stage, reading a good book, having a good conversation over some soothing Tulsi tea.

Hers read, feeding pigeons in the morning, getting dad's breakfast and lunch done in time, seeing that all her plants are alive and well and green and blooming, having the maid come on time, doing yoga early in the morning, no pending tasks at the end of the day, having conversations where people don't gossip, a clean home, talking to friends over the phone, having dinner with the family, when children message or call, listening to music and working out, watching TV and having lunch, singing songs with the words all mixed up, spending time with her brothers and sisters, talking of her childhood memories of growing up in Ooty.

We realised that happiness means different things to different people, and even though people might not be good at predicting what exactly makes them happy, it's always easy to tell when they are happy. They can't stop smiling.

Everyday Musings > Keep in touch

I had a couple of pen pals when I was in school. I'd sit up all night, and fill up colourful stationary with sketches and drawings and little stickers, and write about what's been up with life, add a poem or two, some quotes, sign off with a big 'keep in touch', seal the letter with lots of stamps and ask my father to post it on his way to work.

Then would begin the agonising wait for a reply. Rushing back from school and checking the post box every day, catching hold of the postman and making him look and relook in his bag till I was sure he hadn't missed my mail. Then one day, there it would be, waiting on the dining table, freshly stamped, well travelled and bursting to fill me in on the latest news from my friend. Except my mother would insist I had lunch first. Hmph.

The joy of receiving and writing letters, of telling a friend what was up in your life, putting in photographs of boyfriends and pets, that was fun. Today, I have technology to help me. Internet to send mails and receive replies in an instant. SMS to keep in touch every second. Can't remember the last time I mailed a letter.

But of late, even the regular mails have stopped, and I've realised I stay in touch with friends via status messages. On Facebook, gmail and Twitter. And there somehow isn't any anxiety of not keeping in touch with them.

Just browsed through today's latest on friends.

Kal says "How far is new years??"

Dev is not.

Ra who's still saying "Happy Diwali"

Sh who says "doesn't mail anyone anymore"

Amb's being thoughtful "Recycling is good, but pre-cycling - cutting out packaging in the first place and buying only what you need - is better."

Pa who has his ongoing playlist as his status message, so there's always a song playing in his life.

Me is "groggy from all those meds"...and I think I should sms her, she isn't well.

Ami who's raising money for children in need.

Ad who thinks "the leaves are talking"

Ma who says "damn, I'm lazy!! I copy pasted a smiley!!"

Meet was feeling blue, but it's fading away.

Or my namesake who tells me "a hammock, a good book and a big, fat glass of orange juice is what I need."

I read a story as a child, of a girl who could read people's thoughts. It would be something like this I guess. It's like they're around me, lounging in the same house, but in different rooms, and I hear them shuffling about, muttering, and know exactly what they're up to. It's amazing, being part of their lives, without being there at all. Without actually keeping in touch.

A few days ago, I received a package. Stamped and addressed to me, tucked into my door handle, waiting for me to get home. I opened it, fixing a snack, expecting it to be an invite for an event a friend was hosting, since invites and bills are the only things that come by snail mail nowadays. But inside was a beautiful Murakami diary for 2009 and tucked in its little pages was a lovely handwritten note from a friend, scrawled in Ink, on serene white paper with a Lotus trellis embossed around the border. The note said, 'Since you like surprises, and since everyone deserves a few'.

And she didn't end it with a 'keep in touch'. Didn't need to.

Everyday Musings > Life in an Elevator

I work on the 13th floor.

Towards nine thirty am, everyone starts lining up in a long winding queue and are shunted into one of the four elevators that services the four floors our offices are on. 11 ... 12 ... 13 ... 14.

After the initial smiles and 'Good Mornings' while in the line, the elevator is usually a quiet ride up, with everyone staring at the closed metal doors as if in intense prayer. One or two have iPods and escape the silence. The others shift their feet around, some look at the ceiling as if light suddenly dawned upon them, some their shoes to check if their laces are tied perhaps and some their watches as if deeply concerned whether its 9:25 or 9:26.

If it's been a weekend, and a Sr. Exec is part of the entourage, there's a cheerful 'how was the weekend' from an eager Jr. Exec to which the Sr. says 'great, how was yours' to which the Jr. Exec says 'great' and then silence. And a bunch of rabbits somersault in the Jr. Exec's head, trying to grab something intelligent...lift, speed, road, jaguar... when someone glibly pops up about the sub-prime crisis and Jr. is like, drat, wish he'd read the morning papers instead of flipping through Auto Car in the loo. And this is just from 9:25 to 9:35 a.m.

An elevator, like life, has its characters. As the day passes, all of them emerge, and claim their space in the shuttling metal box.

About 11 a.m. or so, when you decide to get a cup of tea at the canteen on floor 11, you'll meet the no-Deo person who's just rushed in from the hot sun and a long meeting. Usually people busy themselves or avoid entering the elevator when they spot one of these, and if they do find themselves closeted with one, try entering the book of records for the longest one can hold one's breath, unassisted. Or perhaps this would be assisted. Close to murder then. There's also the too much-Deo person who's as bad. And the same record is aimed for.

Towards lunchtime, you're bound to meet the entertaining ones. The local train ones that rush into the lift before anyone's had a chance to get off, the merry hummers, the backslappers, the swearers, the silent smirkers, the liftman's best friends. There'll also be a bunch of girls, one of whom would have a new bag or a pair of impossibly high stilettos that the others must admire right then and there, with an excited squeal. Then guys and girls that unwittingly fill everyone in on the latest affairs, who's bitching about whom, and what porn film is on the shared drive. And of course, the ones who hold up everyone's lunch, by saying, 'just a second, just coming', and don't allow the doors to close till all of his/her gang has made it.

At about 3 pm, when the elevators are sluggish, sleepy and empty, you'll meet the lurker. The one who no matter how empty the elevator, will stand close to you. Within breathing distance is preferable. It might force you to step out a few floors earlier and walk the rest up by stairs or simply wait for the next elevator, but that doesn't seem to waver his/her 'no personal space' policy.

The evenings are peaceful, with everyone beaming, saying hurried byes, rushing to catch their 6:00 bus or the 6:15 train or get their cars out before the highway traffic gets worse. The elevator is slowly emptied and left to wind down till the flurry begins the next day. The same drama, the same characters, move up and down again.

I read just now there's something called elevator etiquette, and thanked god that we didn't have any of it. Life would cease to be such a fascinating journey every day.

Everyday Musings > Happy Diwali

As a child, my brother and I would wake up early, wear new clothes, and rush up and down the apartment stairs to gift our neighbour’s thaalis that our mother covered gently with patterned napkins and filled with a variety of homemade sweets. We’d gleefully ring the bell and grin, jointly declaring ‘Happy Diwali’. The aunties would feed us ladoos and would send their children to gift my mother sweets as well. In the evening, as mother and father did the Diwali puja, my brother would be busy admiring his collection of crackers, and I would light diyas all over the home and make a Rangoli outside the door, with as many colors as I could find, and light lamps around it. And then friends would start screaming by the window, and we would all rush down to celebrate with everyone in the apartment.

Diwali was and is a beautiful time of the year. I especially love how the whole city glows. It’s different from New Year lights, warmer and more traditional. Balconies and stairways and verandas lined with tiny diyas, some colourful and glitzy, some plain clay with a red stripe running across the rim; some filled with ghee, some with til oil, all glowing, like tiny beams of hope and joy. Even the poorest house in the neighbourhood looks warm and well.

I sat last night and looked at all the windows and balconies and saw parents and children stringing up lights, hanging up coloful paper kandils. I saw my neighbour’s rangoli, colourful and playful. The doors were all dressed in garlands and touches of turmeric and sindoor. Lamps were placed, and incense sticks burnt, it all looked so welcome, like you knew if you rang any doorbell that day, they’d welcome you with smiles and sweets.

Diwali is a great time to meet all those people you haven’t met for so long. Smses come in and make you think, gosh has it really been so long since we met. Friends call and invite you over for card parties. Everyone’s dressed in Indian clothes, probably the only time in a year that some of them do. And all revel in the show of fireworks in the sky or the sweets they indulge in with an ‘its ok, its Diwali’. Relatives call for sweets and sharing crackers with their children.

My maid was telling me of the sweets she’s been making for her children. Karanji, Ladoo, Kheer. There are so many kinds you get to eat, and the dry fruits that keep coming. Mother would stock for an entire year just with Diwali gifts. And fruits as well, large generous baskets of fruits, and later, there were even chocolates and wine and Kiwis and Rambuttans. Diwali is such a giving festival.

But there is something that I don’t look forward to in Diwali. The firecrackers. The pollution. The smell of gunpowder and the particles floating around that choke my throat. My brother and his friends loved them. Bombs. The bigger the better. Atom bombs, Laxmi bombs, string crackers etc etc. Each year, there’d be something that outdoes last year. I’d sit in a corner with cotton filled in my ears, and fingers in it, just in case, sound came through. The only I’d come out would be for the finale. A round of firecrackers in the sky. That was beautiful, like fairies with stardust, sprinkling it in a mad dance. I’d think of that and go to sleep that day, all the excitement having made me drowsy.

In the morning, on the way to school, the road would be covered with thousands of tiny paper bits, abandoned bottles with singed mouths that launched a few hundred rockets, burnt zameen chakris that left tell tale marks on the verandah, sparklers that melted into the tar. Memories of celebrations, spent, sizzled and sleeping. To joyfully rise again, after a year. Happy Diwali.

Everyday Musings > Laws of Love

A dear friend, inspired by Asimov's three laws of robotics, took upon himself the brave and many may call the 'are you mad' task of defining the 3 Laws of...drum roll... Love.

I found it an immensely interesting task. And a task it is. To attempt to ascribe the rigour that Asimov gave Robot Laws, to the holy grail of relationships 'Love'. It was just not done, and thus a brilliant idea. I sent out a note to a few of my friends and asked them to write in 3 Laws of Love, their versions, not coloured by the social Laws of Love - no PDA, anti-gay relationships or expulsion of mixed marriage couples in the name of family pride. But their inner Laws of Love. Universally applicable.

But before I share theirs, I'll share what the expert on 'all' Laws, Murphy, has to say. Law #1. All the good ones are taken. Law #2. If the person isn't taken, there's a reason. Law #3. The nicer someone is, the farther away (s) he is from you.

Now that we've had every possibility deflated, we'll move onto the mortal rest, who surprised me with their Osho-Krishnamurthy-Buddha-Einstein take on Love.

Mira says, 1. Love should be unconditional, like grand moms , like trees ...chop em , abuse em , scratch em , build around em , build on em ... they endure , yield fruit , offer shade unceasingly; we revel in their luscious kindness and beauty. 2. Love, does not seek reciprocity. It is. 3. Love should make no expectations. Only handmade birthday gifts...no back presents.

Human Error refused to put down laws but unwittingly did. He says do not have any rules for Love. And that Love is a neurotic hallucinatory behaviour that is definitely recommended.

Payal says, 1. Don't think about forever. Think about next week. Forever is often so daunting you make the wrong decisions. If your life seems blank/incomplete/empty without someone next week, you'll reach forever. 2. Love dispassionately. That doesn't mean without passion, it means with objectivity. It outlasts love of the dreamy kind. 3. Give up anything for love but yourself. Who you are inside. It should cost you anything else, but not your soul.

Sanghaji says 1. Don't be scared to get hurt. 2. Love like there is no tomorrow. 3. Say I love you all the time.

Sue says, 1. Be Honest. 2. Go with instinct. 3. Give unconditionally.

GP-almost-Asimov says, 1. You may love but not bring any harm on your loved one through your love. Thou shalt not suffocate your beloved. 2. Thou shalt give until you can give no more. And then give some more. For in giving will your love find fulfilment. But only as long as this does not conflict with the first law! 3. You will cease to exist. You will merge completely with your beloved till there is no 'you' and 'I' left. But only as long as this does not conflict with law 1. Law 2 will no longer be relevant!

Anjali says, 1. Love is always right around the corner if you aren't looking. 2. You can't truly love anyone else unless you love yourself. 3. You can always see it in someone's eyes, always.

Dee says, 1. That there be friendship. 2. That there be space. 3. That there be humour.

Finally the laws of the one who started it all. My dear friend says, 1: Thou shalt not place love over your emotional, mental & physical well being or through inaction let love lead you to a point where your emotional, mental & physical well being may suffer. 2: Thou shalt not accept any behaviour, expectation or opinion from thy lover that thou would not have extended to thy lover, even if there is no conflict with law 1. 3: Thou shalt not ascribe all positive or negative changes in your daily life - work, hobbies, craft etc - to love or lack of it. (Hmm. Still thinking about this set, I am.)

And mine? Well, the eternal die-hard romantic says, 1. Love without expectation. 2. Love without prejudice. 3. Love without reason. Just Love.

Everyday Musings > Five Things

Dinnertime word quiz: My dad loved/loves words. Big words like 'quintessence' and small words like 'ennui'. Words I would never come across in a school text book. He would thumb the dictionary, rest his fingers on a page and say 'learn these ten by end of day' and tap my nose and my younger brother's bewildered head and smile away to work. We'd nod, glance at the page, mark it for later, and rush off to school, come back, play, come back, shower, dress and then panic. oh shit! it's dinnertime. Dad's word quiz. Dad had a rule. He'd want us to know the meaning of all ten words, but he'd also want us to use the words in our conversations all dinner, so we had to actually understand those words. Last minute prep training began there. And it's continued ever since. So if today, I know the meaning of 'Traipsed' or 'Obsequious', it's thanks to my dictionary dad.

Larkin: Rajiv first introduced me to him. First name Phillip. He looks like a banker. But sounds like no poet I've ever read before. Maybe it was the way Rajiv recited his words, with abandon. For the first time, I felt like I understood poetry. The first poem was "broadcast" - written for Maeve who sat at a concert hall while Larkin sat by the radio imagining her sitting in a concert hall. It was beautiful. "A snivelling of the violins: I think of your face among all those faces...Leaving me desperate to pick out, Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding." I spent days at the British Library devouring his words, writing them down on little slips of paper I was recycling. "Where can we live but Days. Ah, solving that question brings the priest and the doctor in their long coats running over the fields." and "A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet" from Churchgoing. Even today, when I meet someone who knows Larkin, our faces glow in the knowledge of a genuis. But the others are disadvantaged. None I've ever met has heard Larkin read out like I have.

Paper fetish: I am crazy about stationary. CRAZY. At one time, my cupboard, little boxes under the bed, under the bedding, every bit was filled with paper of all kinds. I used to leave cards and notes for everything. Missed you. Thank You. How are you. Hello. Goodbye. Long time, no see. Sorrrrry. There was a store called Chimanlals that I used to run to for letter writing and wrapping paper. And come back with a smile as big as the shopping bag. I would shiver every time I had to use them to write to my many pen friends (ahem, it was a huge rage then). Because you see it had to be written perfectly. I'd practice on my notebooks, then copy it. And wrapping paper, I collect them by the dozen. And use them to wrap the ugliest handed down gifts so that they looked like Tiffany jewels. Grin. I still get gifted stationary (now bags) from those who know me well. The nicest books and cards lie unwritten on. A fear that was forcibly ousted by a wicked friend who got a cartload of moleskines, and refused to give them to me, till I used up one entirely. Now I write on books more freely. Scribble, scrawl etc. But there's still a secret stash that I'm itching to write well on. Sigh. Oh, and I haven't even begun on the sharpeners and erases and coins and stamps and comic strips. I'm a beaver.

Ice Cream at India Gate: We were in Delhi from when I turned four till I was in my fifth standard, living in Old Rajinder Nagar. Dad had an ambassador, and sometimes, when the weather was nice, or the day had been too warm, after dinner, my brother and I would beg to be taken to India Gate for ice cream. Dad would drive us there. We'd be chattering, singing, and saluting severe looking police guards as we passed through the large gates of some place I don't remember. Once at India Gate, mom and dad would find a cool patch of grass and sit down. The ice cream seller would come walking to us, and we'd buy Chocobars, every time. Crisp Iceberg like coating of chocolate with goey cream inside. And we'd buy a balloon each, which the balloon seller would twist into shapes; sometimes dogs, sometimes monkeys, sometimes a cheesy heart. We'd skip and play and fight with our balloons and once the last bits of ice cream were licked off our fingers hastily, we were hustled into the car, to ride back home, as my brother and I stared at the disappearing India Gate from the backseat.

Samir Mondal: Long before 'Taare Zameen Par' made him a household name, I discovered Samir Mondal on my umpteen escapes from college to the Jehangir art gallery. His first painting I saw was Prince and the Pauper that was part of a group show. I was mesmerised, and went back every day to look at his work. I saw him at Prithvi once, standing beside his art that was on show. I greedily picked the pamphlets that had pics of his other watercolours, each more evocative than the other. Samir walked up and I gulped. He said 'I'm a big fan'. I blinked and blushed till I heard Govind Nihalani, who was standing by my side, telling Samir, 'thank you, so am I'.

Everyday Musings > I have a dream

For many years, I had a recurring dream. Of me standing at a bus-stop, by the beach, watching a giant tsunami rising to an enormous height. I just stand there, facing it, frozen, fascinated and terrified, unable to move, knowing that it would definitely sweep me away.

Dreams have meanings, I learnt much later. And went about trying to find what this meant. According to Carl Jung, a tsunami dream is very significant. It is one of those great “archetypal” dreams, meaning symbols which are universal across all cultures. A tsunami is supposed to be a symbol of some great spiritual change, the washing away of the old and the beginnings of new growth.

Jungian therapists recognize three levels of dreams. Level 1 dreams have no deep symbolic meaning, and are just remnants of the recent thoughts and feeling s of the conscious mind. Level 2 dreams use symbols to express material in the personal unconscious — material that relates primarily to our physical and sexual preoccupations, much like Freud. Level 3 dreams, or what Jung called “great dreams”, are qualitatively different. They contain emotionally-charged and powerful symbols that express the innate qualities and behavioural predispositions that make us human — what Jung called archetypes.

Why are dreams so important? Haven’t dreamers always been told it’s an unproductive exercise? Dreams are unique, and are drawn from our individual reality, our life. We spend two hours every night dreaming. And most of us don’t remember a thing when we wake up. Sigmund Freud believed that ‘dreams are expressions of unfulfilled wishes and desires’. A person's dreams can give a sense of direction in life.

Amazon has books on the healing power of dreams, how to improve and remember your dreams. Martin Luther King said ‘I have a dream’ and fought to make it real. Honda, in a world of serious cut-throat competition, stands for The Power of Dreams.

Akira Kurosawa once made a film called ‘Dreams’, on his dreams. The film is filled with strange events, that make no apparent sense to the viewer, yet everyone in the story lives it as real. One dream is about a former military commander who meets the ghosts of all the soldiers who died under his command and explains why they died. There’s one about a young boy that finds a group of living dolls in the fields. The dolls are furious that the boy's family have destroyed all the Peach trees in the Orchard. And another where there’s a nuclear meltdown. Panic spreads and a few survivors contemplate whether or not to end their lives.

What fascinates me about dreams is the elasticity of Time. I can be anywhere, in just a second, defy gravity, sing, dance on Mount Everest, kill myself and be reborn, touch a dead tree and make it come alive. I am not governed by the Earth rotating around the Sun or the laws of the world. Or the restrictions of my mind. A crystal ball into my head, it shows me possibilities of a future I can be. A messiah. A world leader. A peacemaker. A healer. I could be anything I dream, if only I could remember what I dreamt when I woke.

Everyday Musings > Googly

A friend, today, told me of an advertisement for a Church that he saw. It said "there are some questions that Google can't answer" I decided to test their claim.

But first what is that the Church believes Google cannot answer. God, faith, where do we come from, retribution, life, love, society. Let's see what Google has to say.

First up, God.

530,000,000 results that ranged from What or Who is God on Wikipedia to a website called doesgodexist.com to God TV to Why won't God heal amputees to God's yellow pages (meaning the Bible) to Egyptian Gods, Jewish Gods, Indian Gods ... the whole internet seems to be talking God. The church people should actually have a website of their own here. Do online advertising to combat Google. Maybe even launch their own personal God search engine, with answers.

That query exhausted, I moved onto Faith. 184,000,000 results. Where do we come from? 76,200,000. Amen. 28,200,000. And so on till every God question was a mass of results.

That got me thinking. Is there anything that Google will not throw up any result on? I tried. 'Aliens fall in love" 106 results, "Ouch" 19,000,000, "Hmm" 103,000,000 – this was hilarious. And profound.

Searches show up because they are people out there feeding it content, filling it up with things we can't even imagine. Got me wondering on the weirdest things that people would have ever searched for. Googled. There are plenty of lists online. One had a countdown of the 20 best. Here are the 20, reproduced, as is, rated A for use of language.

"Khmer women dark skin beautiful, crotch deep in mud (what?) , Become your girlfriend, Are tall girls pretty, Best sex tall guy short girl, Bukake, Attractive successful guy (sigh), Ashleigh brilliant if your careful enough nothing good or bad will ever happen to you, Anyone found the fat cure(ya right), Become success in days. Advertising a hose to stick up your bum to cleanse & refresh. Are g strings dangerous. Excuses on why I took your girlfriend. How to become a gigolo? dog fart protein, man-thing naked, penis tucking for cross dressers. How to give a gay head job, does acting gay to hang out with women work (what kind of a creep is this!) and finally what made it to number one - place to have gay sex with horses.(sheesh)"

That was some list. I can't believe people actually googled the things they did. I tried the query 'are g strings dangerous' and actually came up with facts supporting it, including a lady who's sued Victoria's Secret for selling her a malfunctioning one. How to become a gigolo actually shows up tutorials on it. And Anyone found the fat cure actually says yes. Amazing. The things I didn't know existed in here.

But I have questions to ask Google. Why throw up so many results? When was the last time someone checked page no 12,000,000. But Google would probably say 'God is in the details'. Is it so Father?

Everyday Musings > Thank you for not smoking

India has finally gone 'No Smoking'. On Gandhi Jayanti, smoking was banned in public places in India. Thanks to Mr Ramadoss, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare.

I'm thankful, at a very selfish level, because now it means, I can sit in a meeting at work, without twitching my nose and go back home without cigarette smell in my hair. It's a big relief, being able to breathe in a pub, or enter any place and leave it, still being able to smell my perfume.

But declaring it, as far as the government is concerned, doesn't always mean it will happen. The Centre had brought an act on no smoking in public places two and a half years ago, but it only remained on paper. The same has been modified, and enforced from 2nd October, 2008.

As per the revised Rules, smoking is banned in shopping malls, auditoriums, health institutions, bus stops, cinema halls, public and private workplaces, hotels, banquet halls, discotheques, canteens, coffee houses, pubs, bars, airport lounges, railway stations. People can smoke on roads or in their homes since, Ramadoss added, the impact is more while smoking inside a closed environment than in roads or streets. Those caught violating will be fined Rs 200, which may increase to Rs 1,000.

Fair enough. But why will it work when it didn't two and half years ago? What makes it so foolproof this time?

I found the solution in the Hindu that day. Well, simply put, this time around, the law seems to be clearer about whose responsibility it is to enforce it. It defines the duties and responsibilities of the owner, manager, proprietor, supervisor and anyone in charge of a public place so that he or she can enforce these provisions. Public places have been asked to identify the individuals empowered to enforce the law, issue challans or collect fines. And the best part, Dr. Ramadoss said if the owner or authorised person failed to act on complaints, he would be fined equivalent to the number of individual offences. A ha.

The penny finally drops. For the past twenty days, there hasn't been any smoking in office, in the mall, in any pub that I've been to. The law is being respected to the fullest. There are many at work that grumble since they've to get 13 floors down to smoke in the open, but many are thankful for the forced cut down and say they feel healthier and would probably stop altogether now. And the cabins smell fresh all the time.

If assigning responsibility is what worked in favour of the law, I wonder if the same could be carried forward to other civic problems as well. No spitting, no urinating, no littering. no noise pollution, no crackers. It would be great if the health ministry could take this up next. Even if the smoke stops killing our billions, we have many more aces up our patriotic sleeve. The plague, malaria epidemics, typhoid, allergies; all thanks to lack of hygiene in public and private spaces. Mr. Ramadoss, help. Smoke this menace out too.

Everyday Musings > Arrested Day

My maid usually tells me the local news, even before I get to the papers. Her husband was a driver for a Congress leader in my area, and thus, he's in on all the news. She walked in today and said "Raj Thackeray ko police pakad ke le gayi, ab Mumbai bandh ho jayega." I sleepily muttered and shuffled my feet back into bed.

A lazy few hours later, I stepped out. It was quiet, few people on the streets, a little tense. I caught an auto to office. Not many had come to work. The LCD's were tuned to the news. Flashing the same footage over and over again. Raj is led out of a car, flanked by the police, walks up the stairs to the Bandra Court and disappears. If he had to really walk it up and down as many times as in the breaking news, Raj and the pot bellied policemen would be a few kilos lighter. The program breaks for ads. Back again. The title flashes 'Raj Thackeray haazir ho!' Back to car, walk, gone.

Another channel flashes 'End of GoondaRaj', grin, some pun they must have thought it'd be. The office is buzzing with conversation. Some debate on how what happened in Kalyan with the railway examination students was wrong, but Raj's arrest is wrong too. Some are too busy laughing at the media portrayal of it, switching to see who's got the cheesiest taglines. Some are glad for the holiday like mood it's created at work.

I watch the riots in Thane and Navi Mumbai, where shops are being trashed and windshields are being broken and wonder about the ones affected by that. The car owner who's probably paying off EMIs. The shopkeeper who was just doing what he does everyday. The rioters, mostly unemployed youth, who find a way to release pent up frustrations. Everyone is affected. The perpetrator and the victim.

The news channels are back in action. Raj's bail plea has been rejected. Aaj Tak says, 'Jail me diwali!' The drama continues, the venue changes. The mobs that rioted outside the Bandra court will now get a new place to throw stones at. The Dombivili police will get to wield their laathis on them, and the press will rush about trying to squeeze in more of a story to fit the 24 hr News format. Meanwhile, the normal junta, with and without political views, lives a restricted life, and initial excitement wearing off, wait for a normal tomorrow.

Raj Thackeray will probably come out of this stronger, and turn martyr after a week in prison; the Policemen would have got a conviction, even if short term; the shop keepers will be back in business; the car chap will probably fix an insurance; but the frustrated rioters, what do they really gain?

Martin Luther King Jr said 'Riots are the voices of the unheard". He added, " The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility." Yes, futile. Just the word for today.

Everyday Musings > Churchgate Fast

Goregaon Station. 1:30 pm. Was on my way to Mahalakshmi. Standing on the platform, swaying on my toes, waiting for the train. There were so many people, going somewhere, like me. Busy expressions on their faces, some troubled, some rushed. And then a rush of wheels. The expressions changed. To determined frowning of brows. Women tucked their sarees, held their bags close, their elbows held out to ensure no one came in the way. The train hushed to a stop, waiting, like a restless camel, to breathe a bit, and start again. Weighed down my more sometimes, and less sometimes, but always weighed down, except for odd hours when people decided to stay away. But oddly, of late, those odd hours are almost never.

Anyway, the train pause. The woman in front of me pushed her way in, the woman behind me pushed her way in. I didn't have a choice and was squeezed, bag, phone, sunglasses on head, into a sweaty mix of coconut oil and jasmine, in an orgy not of my design. And the train whizzed and chugged and pulled off. The ones who made it adjusted to the space. They always did. One can never really tell how many can fit into a train. Everyone can.

Once in, I slink to the corner, by the door, my back against metal. Breathing above the heads that tease my nose. I see the handiwork of many tailors, mochis and sareewalas. A snapshot of working class fashion. Lurid colours, bling hair clips, cheap perfume. Second class is a treat for the senses. As all Indians, I adjust to the smell, and start studying those around me. And wish I had a camera.

Some of the women had such beautiful expressions on their faces. One had a pained longing look as she stared into the passing nothing outside, some young college thing smiled as she messaged furiously, perhaps to a loved one, with earphones stuck in her ears, perhaps a love song. There were ladies, friends, because they met everyday, holding on to seats, for others, sharing snacks and stories. There were the squatters, who travelled ticket less and seat less. They hugged the entrance, with their feet spread out, their children crawling on the metal floor, munching on peanuts, or stringing flowers.

The train stops. Some leave. More enter. Hawkers add some flavour. Colourful clips. bindis, plastic ticket pouches, scarves. They hang their wares on the rungs and let it sway, waiting for it to catch the eye of the chattering women cutting vegetables on their way home. The young boys who sell these wave hankies for the older women. 'Only ten rupees didi' they say. The women haggle, say 'nahi nahi, I ll take two for ten'. The boys shake their heads, grudgingly accept the money and say 'aise dhanda kaise karega' and walk off grinning, to a bunch of college girls for whom they have a bunch of hair clips and a silly smile. Everyone's taste is profiled, valuable research, all in their dusty brown heads.

Trains are travelling libraries of people. Rich, full of data and experience, and life. Another train passes by. Stops. I stare at a young man standing in the bogie opposite me. We catch each other's eye. I turn away. He stares on. The onlooker becomes the study. And I feel violated. Ironic.

Everyday Musings > Happy Birthday

I was born on 21st October, 1976. It's been 32 years, but I still celebrate that day, every year. Why are birthdays so special to us? Even after so many years of being born, why do we look forward to it? Not just us, what makes everyone revel in it, wish, call and bring gifts.

Early man didn't celebrate birthdays. Simply because there was no concept of time. They saw the sun rising and setting, saw people being born, growing older, seeds start as saplings then becoming trees. But had no way of marking milestones of the past. That happened when moon cycles were discovered, changing seasons were noticed and finally, when the first Calendar was drawn up. That made birthdays possible.

But was everyone's birthday important? There are only a few documented in early history. Kings and Queens had birthdays. As did prophets and saints. And Gods in most religions – Christmas, Buddha Jayanti, Janmashatami. (Though I do wonder how human beings found out their birthday)

So there seems to be an economic reality to it. Big celebrations, launch of big projects, grants to citizens – all related to the importance associated to the individual whose birthday it was. Be it king, saint or nobility. That's till Germans, the ones considered so severe and unemotional by most, celebrated their children's birthdays. These celebrations were called "kinderfeste", meaning children's party. And that spread to adults as well. A European theory states that evil spirits were particularly attracted to people on their birthdays. To protect them from harm, friends and family would come to be with the birthday person and bring good thoughts and wishes. Giving gifts brought even more good cheer to ward off evil spirits. This is how birthday parties began.

Birthdays come with plenty of traditions. Cakes, buying new clothes, surprise parties, blowing candles, horoscopes, having Kheer, singing Happy Birthday (originally written by two sisters, Mildred and Patty, as Good Morning to you). In India, it's a visit to the temple, in Denmark, a flag is flown outside a window to designate that someone who lives in that house is having a birthday. In England they bake Fortune telling cakes. The object that you find in your piece predicts your future. If it's a coin, you'll be rich. If a strand of hair, probably that the cook will be fired. Grin.

My friend Suzanna and I are born on the same day. As a birthday tradition, we make a wish list and give it to each other. Things that we like, could be simple things like colorful paper clips, a temple tree sapling, movie tickets, a foot massage, we'd mix up with lots of trinkets and gift them to each other.

A friend of mine is turning 40 next week. And was making up a list for his party. A grand celebration. Where he planned to call everyone he knows and have a great bash. Five minutes ago, he dropped the idea. And decided to spend the day with underprivileged children and give the party money to contribute to their lives. Something that I have seen many do, in the past and now.

Makes me rethink of birthdays and how perhaps this is the social catalyst for the future. Maybe the way to transform the world lies in the way all its inhabitants celebrate the day they were born into it.

Everyday Musings > Sneakers Day Out

Yesterday, on my way back home (walked, thanks to the auto strike), I found a delightful park. It had high walls, was gated, guarded and had a five-rupee entrance fee. The little I could see from outside looked serene and lush. It was decided. Tomorrow, that's today, would be the day to start the exercise routine that I'd been putting away for so long.

I'd made a few resolutions. To write 500 words, to cook every meal, to sleep well, to lose 5kgs by December. Now, thanks to the frequent cooking, the 5 kgs looks like it's adding on rather than disappearing, and the guilt trip to join a gym has gotten stronger. I keep telling myself I like dancing, kickboxing, but not the gym. Actually I like anything that tells me 'hey you're not exercising, you're having fun.' Grin.

So, I mused, on exercising and gyms. Which genius mathematician came up with 36-24-36? Who was the great philosopher who said 'forget the donut, hit the gym'? We're all reaping the fruits of the revelations of these unnamed few. Let's hope they attain Nirvana and never reincarnate. But pushing all those evading exercise thoughts aside, I decided to be firm this time. I will walk.

This morning, I fished out my sneakers. They hadn't seen daylight for months. And lay stiff, squeezed in their laces. I gave them a stretch and fit my foot in. The white laces felt odd. Make two bunny ears and tie them together. Gosh, had it been so long. Stepped out and a short walk later I was at the entrance of the walled park, paying five rupees.

The park was surprising. Amidst the dusty, treeless Filmcity Road, this was a burst of beautiful pale green Bismarck Palms, a barrage of sparrows, a spattering of Umbrella Palms by a water body, dragon flies whizzing along the walking path, Heliconias and pagoda trees in bloom, ferns sticking out from everywhere and trees that covered the paths such that the sun peeked but never stared at you. A secret garden. The generous bloom of green was cut in by angular Grey stone structures. A vacant amphitheatre, a reading room with newspapers and magazines, an unfinished central hall, out of bounds for now. The walking track was paved with square stones and wide so that many could walk without bumping into one another or forced to march to the stride of the one ahead of you. I walked for twenty minutes. They had set up a Herbal Juice corner where you could buy concoctions of Tulsi, Neem, Karela, Doodhi, and Carrot for just ten rupees. Sipped a glass of Tulsi-Pudina juice and sat on a bench by a bunch of ferns and shut my eyes. Five minutes of just observing my breathing and I was filled with life.

It's rare in Mumbai to find a space that leaves your peaceful, where it's not about shopping and movies and work. I wonder why it was gated. And not open to everyone. Walked out thanking the chaps who had made this place. I assumed it was the Oberoi Builders who were doing a considerable amount of construction in the area. My eyes were drawn to a plaque outside. It said Public Park by the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai. I was surprised. It said, this is a space for peace. Not recreation. Somebody out there knew the difference.

Everyday Musings > Chip off the old Block.

I have a blank page staring at me. I've been tapping my keys for a while, wondering what to write on. Bees or why airline seats are arranged the way they are, or on the auto-taxi strike today or on the sky and how that's actually Outer Space we stare at every day.

Am I suffering from Writer's Block? Is there anything called Writer's Block, or is that also a figment of a writer's fertile imagination? As neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg states in his book, The Executive Brain: "The distinction between the 'diseases of the brain' and 'diseases of the soul' is becoming increasingly blurred."

First, to identify, when does Writer's Block happen? Many explanations. It happens when you try to do everything at once, when you don't know enough to begin, when you've exhausted all the good or original ideas and feel your creativity flagging, due to physical stress, lack of sleep, depression, and bad health, due to mental blocks: fear of failure, fear of success, overbearing inner critic and due to psychological disturbances ranging from neurosis to something scary.

While there are plenty of authors with an excess of words on how to get out of a writer's block, there are hardly any scientific studies around it. But there is clearly no one answer for all. Unlike acidity or fever or malaria, there isn't a way to confirm if a person really has Writer's Block. So writers facing a block attribute it to symptoms, often a struggle to start or finish a project, but of course, the duration of the struggle varies vastly.

The struggle makes for good storytelling though. There are many movies made around this subject. The wikipedia list states some of them - Fellini's 8 and a half (on director's block actually), Adaptation (writer struggling to adapt a book into a film), Barton Fink, Deconstructing Harry, Finding Forrestor, Quills, Secret Window, Shakespeare in Love (the most famous author to have had a block), The Golden Notebook, The Shining (the horrifying aspect of the Block), Leaving Las Vegas and closer home, Shabd, Kaiyoppu (Malayalam) and Meenaxi: the tale of two cities.

A friend gifted me a beautifully ruled notebook from the Metropoiltan Museum of Modern Art. It's called Writer's Block Journal. And has quotes from various writers to help egg you to write. Some of the quotes are lovely.

"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma...In the afternoon-well, I put it back again.
Oscar Wilde

"It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing." Gertrude Stein

"I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction." Katherine Anne Porter

"At painful times, when composition is impossible, and reading not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction." Elizabeth Barett Browning

So the next time you have a Writer's Block, remember, you're in illustrious company. Hmm...maybe there's an idea there.

Everyday Musings > Zzzzzzz

I yawn. Throughout the day. It’s not that I’m bored and sometimes, not even that I’m tired. Yet it’s always there.

As is widely known, a yawn is the reflex opening of the mouth that ensures deep inhalation and slow exhalation of oxygen. Andrew Gallup and Gordon Gallup at the State University of New York at Albany further add that yawning is a mechanism that helps increase blood flow to cool the brain; since the brain works better when cooler.

That makes me see yawning in a completely different light, since it means that I don’t yawn because I feel tired, I yawn so I can become more alert. The Gallup’s say that a good yawn actually offsets the wish to sleep. So when yawning spreads to the whole group in a meeting, it’s actually an attempt of the group to keep everyone alert and vigilant. A ha.

So much talk on yawning begs some talk on sleep. Apart from 500 words a day, I also resolved to get enough sleep. But I’ve been struggling to define what ‘enough’ means. Alexander the Great and Margaret Thatcher got by on four hours a day. Giraffes can do without it for weeks. Edison claimed it was a waste of time. Even the sheep I summon at night snoozes for about three hours. Just how much sleep do we really require?

Research says there is no ‘right’ number, but as is said, 8 hours is an average. But it’s how deep we sleep rather than how long.

The Sleep Foundation in America states that two factors affect sleep. A person’s basal sleep need – the amount of sleep our bodies need on a regular basis for optimal performance – and sleep debt, the accumulated sleep that is lost to poor sleep habits, sickness, awakenings due to environmental factors or other causes.
Two studies, they say, suggest that healthy adults have a basal sleep need of seven to eight hours every night, but where things get complicated is the interaction between the basal need and sleep debt.

For instance, we might meet your basal sleep need on any single night or a few nights in a row, but still have an unresolved sleep debt that may make us feel more sleepy and less alert at times, particularly in conjunction with circadian dips, those times in the 24-hour cycle when we are biologically programmed to be more sleepy and less alert, such as overnight hours and mid-afternoon. We may feel overwhelmingly sleepy quite suddenly at these times, shortly before bedtime or feel sleepy upon awakening. The good news is that some research suggests that the accumulated sleep debt can be worked down or "paid off." Whew. It’d be ironic to have sleepless nights worrying about sleep debt.

But that said, sleeping too less or sleeping too long has its effects. Too less and you could trigger obesity, heart problems, diabetes even. Too much and you could turn morbid and die faster.

The internet is crowded with tips on smart sleep. But I just heard this one. Before hitting the pillow, tell yourself, ‘I’ll sleep well”. And miraculously, it works. Try it tonight.

Everyday Musings > A snail's life

I've never thought much about snails. In fact, I don't know anything about them. Except that they're slow, slimy and carry their homes on their back. Not a fantastic impression to have of anyone. And then I saw Slinkachu's Inner City Snail. He calls it his slow moving art project. And I had to know more.

Snails cannot hear. Not just that, they have poor eyesight too. So they depend on their sense of touch and smell to find food. They are more active at night, mostly to avoid the deluge of predators in the day and to escape from the sun so it wouldn't sap all the slime. Why would anyone willingly want slime? The thick slime ensures that their soft mass can crawl across anything, even the edge of a razor, and not get hurt. Respect.

We call postman delivered messages snail mail. We say that traffic's moving at a snail's pace. I checked just how slow that really is. Research says, they move up to 23 inches in one hour. That's slower than slow motion. But before you judge them for being slow pokes, how fast do you reckon we'd go if we were carrying our homes on our back.

Snails can mate with themselves and thus even one can reproduce in an aquarium or pond. Most snails lay eggs but some, like the trapdoor snail, give birth. Some snails have been known to live up to 15 years. And the biggest any of them have ever got is about 15 inches. And the thing on menu cards called Escargot is actually a garden snail. Such a delicacy that they even have a day named after it. May 24th, National Escargot Day.

Now that you know so much about the little slimy chap, here' a bit on what Inner City Snail is all about. Will Self, known as Slinkachu, a London street artist, uses the snail shell as a medium of 'art'. His says, 'No snails were harmed, they just had their homes vandalized'. So you'll find a bunch of graffiti snails crawling around London. He paints their shells (non toxic paint for those who're about to hit send on a 'save the snail' mail) and leaves them be wherever he found them. He even combines some with his Little People Project, where he paints miniature plastic people and lets the two interact. One snail was given a graffiti-style urban revamp with a new name – John – spelt out across its shell. Another had the Tube logo painted on as well as acquiring a couple of little passengers. And one had an illegal occupancy notice stuck on its shell. The snail shell graffiti is eye catching and makes one see the streets from their point of view.

Slinkachu does make them quite lovable and watchable. So if any of you are tempted to keep one as a pet, all you'll need an aquarium or large jar with a mesh wire lid or a plastic lid with holes in it, dirt, plants, rocks, a few snails. And of course, a lettuce that it can munch on for a week. Did I hear someone mutter slowpoke?

Everyday Musings > The Tokyo Report

It was January 2007. Cold. And the transition between winter and spring, so everything was on sale. It’s been a year and a half since I visited Tokyo. Had jotted down what stayed with me a while ago. Revisited. Its memories surfacing, like flashes of clarity in a thunderstorm.

What I saw and did and figured there. Ogilvy Office, where on a clear day you can see Mt Fuji. Basement Japanese Restaurant Oto Oto where I grated my own pungent as hell Wasabi on a shark skin grater. Got the intonation of and said Arigato (thank you) and Sumimase (excuse me) to whoever I met. Drank lots and lots of Sake and Shoju. Visited the Tsukiji Fish Market. Sushi lunch. Watched gardeners on ladders, manicuring those perfect looking trees at the Imperial Palace. Met an old soldier at Asakusa Temple. Bought stationary at Ginza. Discovered UniQlo. Watched two hours of splendid Kabuki performed by the Nakamura family. Tasted delicious raw horse meat. Sat in Vajrasana (as your feet as not supposed to face them) and from 2 ft away, watched early morning Sumo practice at a Sumo stable. Walked around Akihabara – the geek zone, bought some Manga, went to a Maid Café, had a traditional Ramen lunch. Attended a noisy, happy beer and snacks party at a Dagashi – a traditional children’s snack shop.

I saw coins for 100 bucks; commuters sleeping while standing, without support, in speeding trains; roads teeming with people but not noise; change returned on a tray and no one counts it to be extra sure; masks to protect others from catching their cold; clean and warm toilet seats no matter where you go; GPS trackers on children’s school bags; cycles and vending machines everywhere; more non-cola products from coca-cola than cola ones; everyone reading Japanese novels; books read backwards and top to down at the same time; English being treated as a foreign language; rap being as popular as Manga and Hermes; older women dressed as schoolgirls; everyone brushing after every meal; no one worrying about leaving their bags around; large buildings, small houses; brands like Diesel, Prada and Levis marketing exclusive lines for Japanese girls; more stores for women’s clothing than men; tiny dogs with backpacks for food; No public display of affection.

The older Japanese dress like the British, the working girls dress French and the school girls have high hair and love Beyonce; The government, not Ogilvy, is the hottest job in town; In a Sushi place, when a customer walks in, the whole staff shouts ‘welcome’; A fish market is the best place to eat fish; Refilling your own drink is considered an insult to your host; Chopsticks have etiquette too, if you keep them stuck in your bowl, it signifies death; The Japanese and the Koreans argue every year when the Japanese Prime Minister pays his respects at the Yasukuni war shrine; Only two families perform Kabuki in Japan and men play every role; Regular Japanese packaging is far superior to their regular advertising work; The right way to eat Ramen is to slurp it; Japanese are more uncomfortable with drunken behavior at Roppongi than with crazy tattoos and Goth make up in Harajuku; Japanese women straighten and curl their hair; The Japanese are very explicit in their directions but not in their emotions.

Flashes. And a yearning to go back and see more of this place where everything was new but nothing seemed unfamiliar. Arigato Goziamas.

Everyday Musings > A nose for memory

My life is pervaded by smells. I have memories and attachments to each one of them. Wet earth reminds me of Delhi, and childhood, and dancing in the rain. Tulsi tea of quiet evenings and afternoons by my window. A whiff of Gold Flake in an elevator reminds me of an old love. Dad's suitcase smell after a trip abroad reminds me of gifts. Freshly ground coffee of my tam-bram friend's home. Chandan of my trips to the Guruvayur temple. I often dig my nose into old books, new books, soft baby hair, fresh bread, freshly washed linen, even green leaves on my planters. Each has a memory so distinct.

I've read that Real estate agents often bake fresh bread in the oven before showing prospective buyers a house, so that the smell reminds customers of coming home, and the deal is closed happily and quickly. Retail stores often use smells to imprint a picture of the brand. I dug a little on why the nose is connected to the memory box. This is what came up.

'The connection between odour, memory and emotion has an anatomical basis. The primary olfactory cortex, which receives information about smells from nerves in the nose, links directly to the amygdala, which controls expression and experience of emotion, and the hippocampus, which controls the consolidation of memories.'

Whew! Something simpler would be nice. Well, I dug again. And saw this. 'When you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment. Your brain forges a link between the smell and a memory -- associating the smell of chlorine with summers at the pool or lilies with a funeral.'

Hmm...that would explain why the smell of basil reminds me of my grandma, or why nothing but CK Truth smells like me. German researchers in a study also showed that smells can reinforce brain-learning pathways. A theory supported by psychologist Gerald Cupchik, PhD who studied the ability of undergrads to recall a series of paintings when cued either with words or with odors. Each participant saw a series of 16 emotionally evocative paintings. Half the paintings were paired with one of eight odors, including peppermint, iso-amyl acetate and lemon oil, and half were paired with verbal labels of the same odors. Herz found that memories for paintings associated with smells were more emotional than memories associated with touch or vision, i.e the smell of an apple versus the touch or sight of an apple. Wonder what that would mean for furniture or architecture. Could buildings be associated with smell? Would that make people who live in them happier, or if it's an office, more productive?

No mention of smell would be complete without Proust. So I end with him. In his 'Remembrance of things past', he wrote of smell and how it brought back the memory of the past. On this occasion, after having a cake dipped in light aromatic tea. "In that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea."

Everyday Musings > Ten heads and a million stories.

It's Dussera today. The day Ram defeated Ravan in a battle for Sita. Near where I live, a makeshift stage was set up where some actors with terrible singing skills were enacting the Ramleela in lurid costumes. I didn't stay till the end. Had seen it before. Ravan's cracker-filled ten-headed effigy would be burnt with a single arrow. The only show of skill at least for this evening.

I read in Bill Bryson's 'Short History of nearly everything' that history is written by winners. I wonder about Ravan. What kind of a chap was he? And of Valmiki and why he portrayed his characters so black and white. I wonder, like Mahabharata, if Ramayana had allowed for shades, would Ravan still be called demonic, or just a brother taking revenge for his sister's nose being cut off. Maybe if it was written so, then instead of effigies burnt, songs on Ravan would blare on loudspeakers, on rakshabandhan day.

There are many who don't see him as all black. They speak of him being a Brahmin scholar, a connoisseur of art and music, a great singer, astrologer and a generous king to Lanka. Shobana who recently played the role of Ravan in her dance drama 'MayaRavan' researched him in detail and says 'Ram would not waste his energy in killing someone insignificant; he killed someone who was equally powerful.'

The Sinhalese regard Ravan as former king of Lanka. And have many places named after him. India, though, relates to him as a kidnapper, an evil man, who died so good could live. Ravan means villain in the Indian lexicon. MidDay did an article that asked, 'Who is the Ravan in your life?' Answers ranged from boss to BEST to auto drivers and bai's. But not all of India agrees. There are temples dedicated to Ravan here. In Kanpur, in Rajasthan, in Vidisha. There's even a mandap where Ravana is said to have married Mandodari, in Mandor, Jodhpur, which the locals respectfully call it Ravan 'Jee' Ki Chanwari. As India celebrates, the Dave Brahmins of Mandor even perform the shraadh of Ravana on Dussera every year.

Wikipedia says that the term Ravan is a derogatory reference to him. His original name was Dasamukha, which means bearer of ten heads. It is said in Valmiki's Ramayana that once Dasamukha annoyed the Great Monkey King Vaali by lifting the mountain on which Vaali was praying and was punished by Vaali who trapped his hand with the mountain. Dasamukha howled for ten days after which he was freed by vaali. The term Ravana means Howler. Since Dasamukha howled for ten days when trapped, he began to be referred to as Ravana meaning the howler. Some also say Ravana means "(He) Of the terrifying roar", a name given by Shiva as he pressed Mt Kailash down on him.

The stories are plenty. But there's no doubt that Ravan is the most intriguing character in Valmiki's opus. I just read that Mani Ratnam is making a film on Ramayana. Not surprisingly, he's chosen to call it Ravan.

# 11 Gas

It happened when I was seven or so.

She was my mother’s best friend from college. And had moved to Delhi, close to Rajinder Nagar, where we stayed. She had two children, happy, just as she was. Aunty looked a lot like Zarina Wahab, so we always called her that, between us.

Zarina aunty was a great cook, and my mother let her indulge us. My brother and I spent a lot of time in her home, playing, sharing our dinky cars, gobbling freshly baked cakes. We would stuff ourselves and run down to the corner bakery for more cream rolls and gold coin chocolates. Calories were never a problem then.

One day we came home from school and mom was crying. She told us that we would no longer go to Zarina aunty’s place. In her favourite kitchen, surrounded by her favourite baking dishes and cookie cutters, she had died, in the flames stoked by a gas cylinder.

I never went back to see the charred home or the empty faces of her children, but my imagination filled in the details, and every time I saw someone light a burner, I would see the flame rush down, stumble and trip the regulator till it was hissing with anger and soon flaming with rage. And shudder. Every time.

Even today, as I stood watching two imbeciles struggling with my brand new regulator on my brand new gas cylinder, I shivered.

One was wearing a dirty unwashed HP Gas uniform, and the other, a tattered something. Both sweating so offensively that my sandal agarbatti curled in and died. They had no idea that it was the first time I was setting up home, that it was the first time I would be the only one in the kitchen, reaching for the knob, clicking the lighter, again and again.

The two struggled with the regulator, pushing it in, and it plopping out. Pushing. Plopping. Pushing. Plopping. My heart was doing the same. I thought I’d have an anxiety attack. Push. It stayed. They turned the knob. Held the flame to it. I held my breath. Waited for a boom. Instead there was a swish of a flame. They nodded their heads, and were about to leave, when I noticed the metal ring on the granite slab. It had to be placed around the end of the pipe to hold it securely to the regulator. They hadn’t put it on.

I pointed to it; they looked at it like the Masai looked at a Coke bottle, and my heart skipped a beat. They discussed, pulled out the regulator, fastened it, pushed, and left.

Left me with a heart beating faster than the July 26 monsoon on a tin roof. I called up a girlfriend who suggested I call a trained mechanic to have a look, and not turn it on till he’s had a look. I called HP, who gave me a number and asked me to call the mechanic. I called the mechanic who asked me to call another mechanic. Or wait till tomorrow. I waited. For a second after I put the phone down to let my tears fall.

I hadn’t cried like this in ages. It was utter helplessness. The worst emotion in the world.

I was hungry after the excess of salt and wanted to set my rice cooker. It was right above the cylinders, separated by a fat slab of granite. I hesitantly bent down to sniff, to reassure myself. And a strong smell hit my nostrils. I rushed to open the windows, and stood frightened, thinking of no worse way to die. My fear paralysed me. I sat there for what seemed like hours, but what must have been seconds. Till the air brushed some life into me. My nostrils could still smell it, but now it was familiar.

Tyres. Someone was burning tyres.

Tears ran down my eyes. I laughed at myself. But my heart refused to lighten up.

Her name was Asha. Hope. I wish I had called her that.

# 10 - THINGS THAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT ME

Be natural. It's not about honesty, truth, sincerity; it's about doing what is natural. Being yourself, and not someone else.
Focus leads to concentration that leads to us placing value on what we see. That is the root of all happiness or unhappiness.
Eg: When in love, one person is the center of all our attention, once that focus is shifted to some other purpose or object, the former person is no longer obsessed upon. The same theory applies to worry, pain, suffering and anger.
Most often people don't notice other people. What they see in another person is a failing that they have in themselves. Often, such people are needlessly aggressive or too uncommunicative to other people (who they feel mirror what's missing in them). What's important here is to realise which side you're on. If you're being picked at, know that the person doing so is acting under a sense of insecurity and that the action has nothing to do with you. If on the other hand, you find yourself as the aggressor, stop and think about whether the anger or irritation is based on a sound reason or is baseless.
E.g.; a person who is nice/friendly is a realization to someone else that hey, why am I so grouchy.
People don't change. The ones who transform are merely those who'd lost their way somewhere and have now returned to their true nature.
Every relationship exists because you want it to exist. The moment you do not want it to, it will fade. So, spontaneity, attraction, love, friendship in a relationship arises not from being in it but from wanting to be in it. Thus if a relationship/friendship is going downhill, one of you wants out, or maybe it's the two of you who want out – some are vocal and impatient to get out, some will wait till it runs its course and dies because then they don't have to be vocal that 'they' wanted it to end.
There's no peace in knowing the future. If we knew what would happen to us in the future, then we would either try and change it, or live our lives according to the path we think is going to lead us to it. In both ways, we have, by our actions, changed our future. And our mind, instead of concentrating on the present, is setting itself on a timer for that future date when something will happen. It's like a countdown. And the anxiety it causes robs you of any happiness in the present.

# 9 - TEN RUPEES EXTRA

Went over all the pictures I've been taking on my phone and realised that I had plenty of me in Autos. Will explain why as we go on.

I've realised that public transport in Indian cities have distinct identities. Mumbai trains are like the Japs, always on time, be it 6:57 or 9:23, and their cabs are blue and cool, unlike the weather. Chennai autos are known for taking people on a longer ride than they expected. Delhi buses, like most brands today, believe in catering to different target audiences, U Specials, Red Line, Blue Line. Calcutta, like its people, has its well rounded ambassadors, its laid back trams and its artistic underground.

In all this, how can Bangalore be left behind. Namma Bengaluru autos specialise in turning the roads into museums. You can see the autos, stop, sigh and stare hopefully at the empty colorful seat inside, but you cannot get in. Nah, that's unless like in the museums, you are willing to pay an entry fee. In the underground circles, the auto slang for the entry ticket is 'ten rupees extra' or one and a half (pronounced 'unn und a alf').

It is safe to say that in this age where everyone wants to go faster, the auto guys in Bangalore are satisfied with free parking and a lazy ddddddrive. Like the American Presidential cavalcade where hoards of loyalists wave their arms in the hope of catching the President's attention. The President, on his part, simply rides on with a pleasant smile on his face as if saying, 'Yeah, you wish.'

From my vast experience in being stranded on the sidewalk at all hours, odd and rush, I have come to the conclusion that there are different types of autodrivers (or as my dearest friend Deena calls them 'Automan!') in Bengaluru.

Yaake Automan - He has neatly cut out pictures of Uppi in various action and romantic poses peeping out of every corner, has FM that blasts Kannada numbers for every car driver to hear, and firmly believes that his three wheeler is actually a Bugati Veyron in disguise.

Namma Bhasha Automan - Get in and say anything to the effect of 'Yahan se left lena bhaiya' and he takes off on why I haven't bothered to learn Kannada even though I am in Karnataka, and how great the language is, and how these non kannadiga people have come and taken over all the jobs in the city. For this kind, I have memorised leftu, rightu, stoppu. Works like a hot knife on butter.

Old Muslim Automan - The best kind. Never ask for more money, never say no to going anywhere and never lech at you, but like all good things, they're very hard to find and bitterly fought for. If you find one, thank your stars.

Faccha Automan - You can go wherever you like, as long as you know the way there. The faccha looks like he's new in the city, and is stopping to ask you for directions. And you, kind soul, step into his auto, and take him there, while paying him for following your directions, and putting up with his false starts and wrong turns.

Yenu, Yavadu, Trafficu Automan - The eternal cribber. The moment you sit inside, you'll wish you hadn't. He'll get into a monologue about the traffic in the city, his wife, his kids, his mother in law, the policeman on the street, and when he gets stuck in a jam, probably turn and glare at you and say, 'this is not done', 'I should not have agreed to come only'. Get an ipod, stick it in your ears and turn the volume up.

The Lech Automan - This variety will look you up and down and give a lopsided grin and cock his head and ask you to sit inside. Then, every few seconds adjust his rearview, and pretend to check for the gas lever right between your feet in a traffic signal. Stay away from dark roads and avoid after 8:00.

No matter who you catch, they always have a dramatic expression when you want them to go anywhere. Some will sigh at the mention of where you live, almost as if saying 'couldn't afford a better place huh?'; some will whine and say 'no return passenger, extra kodu'; some slow down the auto as if to tease you, sneer when you yell out your destination and ride away; some stop, listen to you, do some complicated math in their head, then ride away; some stand still, yawn, scratch their ears and say no without once looking at you.

So, after all this, when you finally find an automan who after all the pleading eyes, aye aye aye and finally ten rupees extra, agrees to ferry you home, you feel you ought to take a picture of the victorious moment.

# 8 - TAKE A BREAK GOD, TV SHOPPING NETWORK IS HERE!

As I write this, Gouri ma is lying on her bed, measuring tape and instruction manual in hand, wishing her inches away while plugged in to the new magical inch minimising Smart Sauna.

Makes me wonder, is tele shopping network the modern day panacea for all evils?

Ask today's junta. While prayers offered to Gods in earlier days consisted of asking for good health and wealth, we've now progressed to include flawless skin, good hair, flat abs, winning Miss India and a chance to make it to Page 3.

And while Gods are easily placated with coins, coconuts and hard work, the tele shopping network claims to make you wish come true, effortlessly, just as long as you send along a nice little cheque.

And what wishes can your money buy?

Take your pick. A one minute slimmer that'll get you looking like a baywatch babe, the magical mini sew which will turn you into Martha Stewart, the ab king pro that gets you a six pack with no effort at all, the car scratch wipe that'll make your beaten up Maruti 800 look like a racing car etc etc etc.

Honestly, could God ever match up to all that?

# 7 - ARE THERE MACKERELS ON PLUTO?

We had Mackerel for dinner today.

Gouri ma is Bengali, and like all Bengalis, very specific about her fish. That's river fish. Sweet and no smell. She makes sea fish, with her nose wrinkled politely, just for me. Mackerel, a sea fish, just like Seer and Pomfret, is one of my new favourites. So today, as I was wolfing down my fried Mackerel, rice and dal, I asked her a question.
"Ma, what do you call Mackerel in Bengali."
She calmly said, "We don't have a name for it. We don't eat this fish." and walked away, completely unaware of the bolts of lightening raining on my head.

Four days ago, I posted a question on Yahoo Answers! - Has modern science really moved on from what the ancient civilisations already knew and practiced? The obvious answer is yes, and I did get a lot of those.

But what i didn't get was a philosophical take on the question. I was looking for someone to shed light on, what do we, as humans, really need from life. How much of what we have learnt, that earlier civilisations did not know, is essential knowledge? Are we filling our minds with trivia that is not relevant, but merely adds more pages and diagrams to our text books ? Yes, modern medicine has cured plenty of diseases and life expectancy is higher than ever. But are these necessarily good? Would those diseases have existed if we led simpler lives? Would population be such a problem if life expectancy were lower? Are we interfering with nature?

Read somewhere that 'just because you give something a name, doesn't mean you understand it'.

In Grade 1, I learnt that there are nine planets. It was in my drawing book. And I had to paint over all of them. Pluto was the smallest and my crayons could never paint inside the circle. Today, as I read the news, I am told that that little planet no longer exists. Knowing about Pluto, apart from getting me a tick and an extra mark on my exam sheet, never featured in my life. But it has always been tucked away, occupying place in my mind. Now I know, that what I knew so long is no longer needed to be known.

This name changing altered some other lives though. Those that profited by its existence, like the discoverer's wife who was miffed that her husband' discovery is being slighted, and those that profited by its demotion, like Janis Robinson who sold T shirts that said, 'Pluto is a Planet' and others who have "Pluto, we hardly knew ye ... 1930-2006" posters and bumper stickers that say "Honk if Pluto is still a planet."

People on the street, making a living, will get used to it, because it was never essential. It was just a name. But essential things, like walking, talking, friends, parents, sense of smell, sleep. If they were declassified, we could not live on.

Today was my first storytelling class, and Geeta, out teacher, spent six hours telling us stories, and telling us about the most important quality of a storyteller, listening. But as humans evolved, first physically, then mentally, she said, we are getting more complicated in our thinking, and thus in our listening. We are not practicing full listening, instead growing into critical listeners, where we listen more to pick holes in what is being said, than to absorb.

She told us many stories, with her hands, her eyes, her voice, her body...instruments that we've had since we were born, instruments we will have even if a bomb destroys every living possession we have. I have always been too wary of trusting technology to such an extent that I forget how to live without it. I think its necessary to know how rice was made before the rice cooker, how fire was created before matches and
lighters, how to hunt for food, how to grow food, how to cook with the barest minimum ingredients...that is all that we really need to know. Everything else is just window dressing.

If we question ourselves, why do we live and die, what is our purpose on earth and how can we be happy doing that, we'll find simple answers. The greatest thinkers used simple thoughts, simple ideas - it's never about achieve more, learn more, know more, from something external. It's search within yourself, live simple, think simple. Be natural.

A friend of mine told me about expending energy. All creatures that live the longest, breathe the slowest, and expend less energy. They do as much as they have to do, and no more. And that's how they survive. But that isn't true of us anymore. We live to spread ourselves thin, expending energy, far beyond what we need for survival, filling our minds with much more data, our hands with more action, our eyes with more pictures, without pausing to assimilate why.

Coming back to my mother in law and the Mackerel. She seemed to have got it with her fish theory. What she didn't need was not relevant. An entire region and its people decided that they did not need a name for something, because they did not require it. Maybe Pluto would not have been missed if we followed life like the Bengalis follow their fish.

# 6 - NOW I SEE YOU, NOW I DON'T

5th March 2005

Mae West once remarked, "It's better to be looked over than be overlooked." I was waiting for a friend to show up at Victoria (now lamentably Bangalore Central), playing cross and knots with leaves when a twig lying on the table stepped into my plate. I'd seen a Stick Insect in treks and camps before, but to have one sitting on my lunch in the city was quite another thing. The camouflage was so perfect that if it hadn't moved, I'd have snapped it in a fit of boredom.

As any animal's ability or instinct to hide itself from predator and prey, camouflage is Darwinism at its best. In nature, every advantage increases an animal's chance of survival, and therefore the chance of carrying on its gene pool. So animals will essentially resort to anything to survive. Take the Geometer Moth Caterpillar; it's so twig-like that it even has a 'bud' growing out of its butt. Or the caterpillars of Swallowtails, Pug Moths and Chinese Character Moths, which don't mind resembling bird droppings, as long as they can avoid being bird fodder.

That got me thinking of how, as humans, we have similarly mimicked our way through our world. With our changing faces, hidden agendas and secret identities, each one of us has used camouflage to survive.

Humans, as do animals, tend to blend in with their environment so that others might overlook them. We feel safest as part of a larger group of people, who think and seem alike; the belongingness serving to reduce friction and propagate similar ideals. This kind of camouflage doesn't hide, merely misrepresents. Just like a herd of Zebras to a hungry Lion. Most fashion folk and models don't dress like everyday professionals because they'd stand out in a crowd of 'alternate' dressers; just as corporate professionals don't sport wild colors and cuts in a zone where everyone's wrapped in a tie. Alcoholics Anonymous, Art of Living, Landmark, Freemasons, the Amitabh Bachchan Fan Club. In animals, individuality opens one to the dangers of losing limb and life; in humans it brings in the fear of criticism and evaluation. And most people are content merging with the decor.

Next are those that don't hide at all, but throw predators off by disguising themselves as something dangerous or uninteresting. Like the Hawk Moth, a non-poisonous caterpillar that tries to cash in on the nasty reputation of the snake and mimics its hood. Much like Rugby players on the field with their heavy shoulder pads and grills, or the police squad called in stop riots, both of who dress to intimidate. Thus succeeding in creating an illusion of fierceness that acts more as a deterrent rather than an act of offense.

Bitterns (birds native to Britain), when they sense danger, stretch their neck and sway with the reeds they builds their nest in, turning almost invisible. Much like politicians or bureaucrats who sway with the changing wind, and lie-low at the mention of trouble or hard work. Then there are insects like the Stick Insect, that most resemble their surroundings, which still during the day to avoid being noticed and are active only at night. But as is the case with us, letting down their guard sometimes gives them away. Like the Starched Face colleague who's funniest after a few drinks or a Buddha-like Actor, who turns on the paparazzi in a fit of anger.

And who can forget the mighty Chameleon. That can change color to fit any background. In the case of the human kind, a Chameleon can go from blue and friendly to white and cowardly to servile and ash in a matter of seconds. Always taking care to see which side of the color bar is more profitable to be in. This is the one pretender that's constantly watched out for, but that's rarely caught in the act.

As species evolve, their rapport with their environment improves. Often, these adaptations are more effective survival tools than an animal's (or human's) more aggressive weapons of defense. Claws, talons, teeth. Or fists and a sharp tongue perhaps.

Guess we're still animals at heart. And, like most animals, being overlooked is preferable to having to put up a fight. If humans had to go through creation all over again, I doubt we'd choose any differently. Or would we?

# 5 - JUDGMENT DAY

26th February, 2005

Everyday, we the simple, far removed from war and crime, pronounce death sentences on people. We hang the innocent; suspect the sane and beat up an accused - in our thoughts, our reactions and our memory.

There is little logic to prejudice. The sparks are often very different from what our mind is charred with. Came across an interesting poem that illustrates this. It’s on Fire Engines and why they are red;

They have four wheels and eight men
four plus eight is twelve
twelve inches make a ruler
a ruler is Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth sails the seven seas
the seven seas have fish
the fish have fins
The Finns hate the Russians
the Russians are red
Fire engines are always rushin'
So they're red.

Apply the same logic to war. Unlike what ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Independence Day’ would like us to believe, disaster doesn’t always unite. War often means distrust, where baser instincts goad one to protect their own. Take the recent Tsunami relief camps. Even in such trying times, the Upper Castes segregagated themselves from the lower castes, and saw to it that their camps were kept cleaner than those for lower castes. The tide might have changed, but not necessarily in our favor.

World politics and diplomacy isn’t free of prejudice either. Shiv Sena leaders have, in the name of Indian tradition (which incidentally extols love as the highest form of devotion - Meera, Radha), stormed Mumbai Parks to separate couples on Valentine’s Day. An active voice against gay marriages, George Bush seems to have problems with heterosexuals getting married as well. Papers were bursting at their columns with news of the White House not giving Prince Charles and Camilla the red carpet because they are adulterers (diplomatically, divorcees). This coming from a country with an ex-divorcee President (Reagan) and an oval office that's seen more shag than my rug.

Why should the modern office be left out - Recruiters look for certain qualities in the ‘recruitee’; some based on skills and others based on traits that cause least friction at work. Loud people are considered misfits, as are people who talk too fast, too slow, too much, too little. Do we want all people to be the same nice, the same good, the same brilliant? Have we as a policy, stopped celebrating differences?

Like friends, our Gods are a mirror to us; Jesus had to fight his evils, Ram listened to a common washer man and turned his wife away, Shiva, the most revered, is easy to anger; easier to please, prone to impulsive mistakes and dopes. They’re all worshipped and loved. Maybe it is the hope, that Gods like them, will listen to our prayers more kindly, understand our frailties better. Maybe differences are god’s gift to mankind.

So, in the all-accepting New World, where everyone has a right to their views, where the individual is king, are we really all accepting?

# 4 - THOT

Life has plans.

But I'm sure they don't include a nine to five job or the 8:34 local
train bursting at the sides with too many people and too little time.
Or insurance papers with details marked with a 'x' you're not sure are
necessary - precautions in an increasingly cautious world.

Life. A simple word. Made complicated by the baggage that the modern
world places on it. Trips to the end of the universe to know more
about alien forms of life, but not one single visit to the neighbors
across the street.

Time. A slightly more complex detail. With days and hours and seconds
introduced to make it simpler. 365 days in a year. No wait, there are
a little more in a leap year. And 24 hours in a day. But not all at
the same time. They have time zones for that. So if we're zipping past
three continents it's possible we've just lived through the same hour
three times. Isn't that time travel? Hasn't that time already occurred
in some portion of the world?

Breath. Present in each one of us. Goes in and out of our bodies,
touching the icky insides without so much as a tickle. Makes us live
but doesn't make its presence felt…like wind and cool breeze on a
Friday evening that we know we can enjoy a little bit more because
there's no work tomorrow.

Money. Created. Little fancy looking notes and coins that rule
destiny. We can burn them, crush them, destroy them. But we don't. We
hoard them till it consumes us whole. Let bits of paper pulp lead a
monstrous existence in our head. We've given them too much space. And
like all pulp, it sticks to grey matter and turns our brain into paper
mache.

Space. A notion of what the world would be without mortar and lime.
Without ego and the superfluity of fashion. It's an innate sense of
nature and the elements and we can sense disorder even before it
happens. How and why are for the ones with scientific spirits to ask.
And to find no answers. For they prefer to peer with their microscopes
than walk barefoot through wet grass for fear of mites. Things they
will not like may surface and maybe they're afraid of believing what
they already believe anyway. Space is all the fluids of our bodies
mingling with the atmosphere through thin membranes. If we look
closely we are all one body, of equal mass and value. Bodies within
bodies within bodies.

Spirit. Soul. Silence. The absence of sound. And body. And disbelief.

# 3 - HOME ALONE

18th January 2005

Big cities, having lived in a couple, are rarely warm and friendly to strangers. Usually just large, merciless and fickle. Massive black holes, which consume hoards of gatecrashers ruthlessly. Which is probably why, despite its cosmopolitan nature and its Silicon Valley chip on the shoulder, Bangalore has consistently missed the 'Metropolitan' tag.

Studying in Mumbai, I often watched movies on my own or picked a book and sat at a café to kill time. Most times because my friends were too busy doing something else, and later because Mumbai's charming way of making one independent was also to turn them selfish. No one looks, bothers or cares to disturb. Their lives too busy to notice me. The need to watch their backs was greater, because the city was ruthless to dawdlers. Still is from what I hear.

My friend Hemal from the 'aamchi' city had come down. Took him to Road Trip, had a relaxed typical-Bangalore-working-evening dinner. He couldn't understand it; Mumbai didn't afford anyone such time. Everyone was always rushing to go somewhere, and the only friends you had were from work, so conversations always revolved around clients, what the next project was, and who landed what deal. There was no time to have a hobby or pursue one. Just work. And TV.

Bangalore on the other hand, is not a loner-friendly city. I've rarely seen someone sitting alone in a café because they have no one to talk to. Maybe it's because there's always time for friends, to make them and meet them. And competition has not reached a scale where working people need to feel threatened by each other. It lacks the vibrancy, the passion of Mumbai, but has the gift of comfort and camaraderie that I've gotten used to. So much so that Mumbai is now a happy memory that I don't miss. Bangalore spoils you for any other city.

From what I once heard, ours is a shared destiny. And civilization, at its own pace, is racing towards the same end. Every few years, we see antipodal cultures swapping ideals and values, and one will be where the other was. Guess everything comes a full circle, even the squares.

# 2 - LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACT.

21st February 2005

One of Karan Johar's favourite rapid-fire questions is about overrated actors. His guests give him varied answers, some candid, some not, but none, surprisingly, ever question the validity of the question. From where I see it, there are no overrated actors. Only incompetent directors.

Cinema is the director's medium. Everyone else, on the set, away from it, only sees the film in parts. The entire drama is being edited, processed, and understood, only in the director's head. He is the
connecting element between all the entities (and there are a good many) that eventually make a film. And actors, though the most visible, are quite frankly, perhaps the smallest part of that process.

Good actors can get typecast in good roles. Reflecting the ethos of the same society, the same social pressures, the craft begins to blur when faced with great scripts showing Gangster sagas, earnest cops and the hope-laden tragedies over and over again. The audience that goes to watch them enjoys the predictability, then after a couple of films, finds the familiarity of their acting good, then okay, then so what and then leaves them mildly contemptuous. Nana Patekar, Sunny Deol, Déjà vu.

But a smart director can change the equations ever so smartly, gambling, taking risks with his casting. Abhishek in Yuva was a great casting decision (though Jr. did turn the role into a caricature). The role could have been given to Manoj Bajpai or Ajay Devgan's role given to Irfan Khan but the director decided to create an imbalance in the minds of cine goers with a cast that didn't quite fit in. The focus of the audience then shifts from watching great actors do their stuff to normal actors do…what…they don't quite know. From thereon everything is a surprise.

There are many such subtle and not so subtle shifts in balance that have been attempted in Hindi films over the years. Such as Sadhana in Who Kaun Thi and Mera Saaya, Dharmender in Satyakaam and Sunil Dutt in Mujhe Jeene Do. The most recent ones include Urmila in Rangeela and Sathya, Amitabh as the underdog cop in Khakhi, Kareena in Chameli and Saif in Dil Chahta Hai. Urmila shed her sweet image to turn sexy, then shifted from that to plain Jane, Kareena went from rich spoilt girl to a bad mouthing prostitute and
Saif turned from maybe gay Casanova to the charming bumbling sweet guy next door. A smart director would give Saif a more serious part next time. Anyone who watched the effect his role had on 'Ek Hasina Thi' would agree.

It's not just the actors who need to keep themselves fresh, it is also the directors, who, when faced with a handful of saleable faces, need to make the right switches to get the best out of their script. On rare occasions, actors switch roles and attempt to place themselves in the director's shoes, but most are content to just rehearse their lines, pucker their foreheads and wait for the director to say 'Action'.

# 1 - BY THE BOOK

9th February 2005

It's damn near impossible for any book lover to walk into a bookstore and walk out without a book. But with writers and publishing houses turning so prolific, it's quite a task knowing what new book or author would be a great pick. As a result, a graveyard of unread, half read, never-to-be-recommended books haunts every bedside.

Maybe the problem is the new age departmental book store that caters to all and sundry, that in a bid to stock the floor, employs sales staff that don't read the books they sell or watch the movies they peddle. As compared to serious reader stores (thank heavens for them) like Strand and Premier, who always have a recommendation or a quick warning shake of the head before the bill has been made. Along with of course the generous 20% off.

I was wondering, if perhaps, the new stores, bereft of such good counsel, could hire avid readers and ask them to reviews books, old and new. Perhaps there could be a common rating for the store and a panel of chosen readers (or anyone who buys books from the store), could rate the books; maybe even write a pithy review on it. Or a call center number be provided so readers could call in ratings, or an online space created where reviews could be submitted.

Ratings and book reviews are commonplace now, but a bookstore encouraging it standardizes a process otherwise dependent on the likes/dislikes/whims of one reviewer, and makes a collective estimate of a book's worth. Case in point, www.IMDB.com. Also known as The Internet Movie Database. It has a comprehensive mechanism by which people all over the globe rate movies online. An average score is given to each film, and a recommendation by them is usually a safe watch.

Bookstores could only stand to benefit from peer reviews and it would, in the long run, create a greater sense of loyalty. Not to mention, provide that much needed comfort to the ardent book lover whose eyebrow is raised ever so often in the hopeful anticipation of an affirmation.