Virtual Ramblings

Every day, different people we meet can give you so much information, more importantly so much thoughts to wonder about. Same with two people I meet almost everyday, they are my coworkers, and both married, and both with  one kid too. As we share the same mode of transport to get to work, I get to see them very closely and observe.

Let me start with one of them, he is late into 30’s, must have got married at a late age, and he does care a lot about his wife. I have seen him get a call everyday as soon as he reaches half way to office, thats when his wife would have reached her workplace, its her “got there safely” call, every single day he tells her that, we are on our way, and promises her he will call back once he reaches office. Its the same story in the evening as well, he will call her to let her know that he has left the office, and would be at home at such and such a time. He also admits that he calls once in the afternoon after his lunch to update he has finished his lunch, and also ensure if she has done with hers. The interesting thing, is to hear his tone when he speaks to her, I don’t think I have seen a person more polite  and respectful then him when on phone with his wife.

The second of them must be in early thirties, who must have got married in his late 20’s. He is generally a little mean and rude when he speaks normally, and he almost never gets call from his wife, but when he does get it, we can easily make it is from his house because, he becomes extra rude and extra mean. We all have, jokingly how he can speak to them in such a tone, but he continues to speak that way. He speaks to the point, and makes sure they would think thrice before calling him up again. In a way totally opposite to the first person.

First person sounds all so romantic, but the truth is when he speaks normally otherwise he is not that polite, nor so respectful either, and somehow I have a doubt he fakes the politeness a little too much, so when we tease him about this, he always says I don’t know about all this as I am not marries, and he claims that it requires to be like this, in a relationship, to keep the other one happy.

Speaking of the second person, he says openly that the only way to dominate a relation is to claim the dominance before the other person has chance to think about it. He says the right way to speak to one’s wife is to make sure, they do not get the idea of possible weakness, and try to be as unapproachable as possible. He is not all that mean to others, and not that rude to others on phone, still he kind of fakes dominance over phone.

When I get to see extreme actions such as this, what makes me wonder is that, is this faking really required?, how stupid the respective wives must be to not recognize that their partners are faking?, I am sure they would have known, but they must be behaving as they haven’t found out. In a way faking, that they do not know their husbands are faking.

How difficult is it to remain honest in marriages?, do one need to resort to these tactics?, I know the obvious answer is no, but then still why does it happen in so many cases, why do one go out of their way to please others? or in some cases please themselves.

Simple things like these can say a lot about one’s marriage, I get a feeling that most people tend to live a pseudo relationship, where each one knows the truth, but never want to show the fact that they know. When did we become this, when?

One could easily see the love for each other in their eyes, its not that they did not try to hide it, but the love and admiration for each other was too much for them to hide. It was almost as if they want to ignore it. They had read a lot about the work place romances, and their ill effects on each others career, and both of them did not want to risk their careers, something which they had achieved with lot of hard work.It did not come easy to him, he had always dismissed the idea of falling in love with someone, or idea of a relationship. She on the other hand had experienced it once, and knew the importance and the happiness in it. She seemed more calm, but still apprehensive about the unfolding events.

They were never a typical couple, they never hung out much together while at work, nor physically close to each other all the time. They did not even hang out much after work, both busy with their own personal lives after work, it was as though “love” was ironic in
their case.

What held them together was their countability to each other, anyday she could be sure that she could count on him for anything. Same was his case, he could trust her with anything when needed. No there was no money involved and no favors too, it was just the emotional support they sought in each other. The bond was growing stronger, with every shared thought on high and low days they spent together.

He always had a thing for single moms, no he was not of the types who would lust at the possible sight of a hot single mom. He had a theory that any person who has lost something would value it better, so a single mom would value love and commitment more than anything in her life, this is what he believed in.

It was not easy for her being a single mom, she had a lot many people in her frame, and more importantly her kid. The decisions she made was no longer totally hers, she had a kid to think about. It was not easy for him either, the society he lived in was not mature enough to handle a good hearted relationship with a single mom. All people thought, was that, he is an unmarried bachelor, trying to take advantage of a lonely single mother.

The kid was old enough now to accept the lack of a father, more importantly it was old enough to want one, he was filling the shoe very nicely. Even though they never noticed, the kid was beginning to accept the rare visitor.

He did not speak much, even when he was around once in a while helping her. One thing she noticed was that he was never sympathetic, he was never sorry for her, he treated her normal, just like any other woman, with equality in his own way. This is what had drawn her to him. More importantly he was open to accept her help whenever she offered, it may not be big things, just simple chores, she loved this quality of his.

After a lot of effort, and lots more thinking, he finally did it, he did propose to her. She knew this would happen some day, but she was surprised at herself for not giving an instantaneous yes, she did ask for a couple of days to think it over. She thought this would be a formality, and was sure she would say yes.

It turned out it was not a formality after all, every time she wanted to dial him up and say yes, there was some force which stopped her, she was not happy saying yes, she doubted, no not him, but herself, she doubted her worth, wondered if she was spoiling everyone’s life here. She was now spotting in herself, what others had seen in her. The “tear”, the feeling of a torn paper was eating her. She feared that how much ever she tries to
glue it together, people will spot the tear. After a lot of thinking, she decided to move on, leave the city and take the job at a distant place.

He too did move on, he married the one chosen by his family, not that he was very sad either, he had really moved on.

What she failed to realize was that it was not only her who left with a “tear”, it was also him, the paper did tear in his case too.

The paper did tear.

photo courtesy Smibee

This week topic over at skittles is “A person you would like to meet once in your life”. I started to think, who is that one person whom I would love to meet once in my life.

First person to come to my mind, was a close friend of mine from 1 and 2 grade, we shared a common bench for two years, and have never met that person ever again. All these years, any school or college I went to, when I used to hear the name of the person, I used to look up once atleast to see if it was the same person, not that I remember how she looked, not that I would have identified her, but still the ears grew attentive. I think it would be fun to meet her once, just to see how different we have turned out to be.

The next person who came to my mind was a teacher from my high school, how much of an idiot I was to think she was partial against me, only because I was too stupid to think about the religious difference we had. Just because she was of “a” particular religion I always believed she did not give me enough importance. Every time she scolded me, I worked harder, mainly because I wanted to prove her wrong. I feel disgusted about myself, because she was one of the best teachers I have ever had, which I realized just about the time when I came out of the school. I have always wanted to meet her once to thank her properly, for making me a lot like the way I am today.

Thought of high school made me remember one and only major crush I have had in life. A girl from my high school, I might have wanted to talk to her for long, may be just one more time, I would love to have a conversation with her. The fact is that I do know where she is, and I have the contact information to talk to her. Just that there is nothing left to talk about. May be for the old times sake I would like to meet her once.

Thinking of high school, I thought about my grandfather who passed away just after I finished high school. He was one of the highest principled man I have ever seen, one who knew how to value money. In a way I think all my financial will power is because of him, I would like to meet him once, I am sure he would be happy to see all of us doing reasonably well with our lives. He always told me, that I have habits of a spoiled brat. I never agreed with him. I want to show him that I did not turn out all that bad, and I am sure he would be happy to see that :).

I know I have told that I would not like to meet anybody from virtual world. There have been authors whom I have come across in this short period of time I have been active in blog world. I have read some of the posts, I would be lying if I say I did not feel a strong urge to meet the author. There have been some amazing people in the virtual world who seem to have such wonderful insights into life. I think I would be happy to meet many of these people and may be share a coffee or two with them. Would I do it, probably not.

Then I thought how I would love to meet myself, myself from different facets of my life, time when I would drive my first car within the horrible traffic of Bangalore city, The time when I would say “yes I do”, time when I would be walking up and down the corridor of a maternity hospital, time when I would get to see the success of my kith and kin, times when I would need strength and support from inside. How wonderful it would be to meet myself from the future.

Moving on, my thoughts wondered far and near before settling on Richard Bach, one of my favorite writers, I would love to discuss “A bridge across for ever”, “One” and “Jonathan livingston seagull” with him, may be have a small discussion about a topic. I think he is one author whom I would love to think like. I am sure, the meeting would be amazing.

Well one person really has to be Richard Bach, whom I would like to meet.

I thought about this for couple of minutes, and it turns out that I am selfish, a big one at that after all, I do want to meet all the people I have mentioned above, and many more of them.

I wanted that toy, the one I saw on the shelf,
I guess, I desired the joy of playfulness.
I wanted that look, that style, The one on my hero,
I desired the joy of being handsome.
I wanted to excel in academics, be a topper,
I desired the joy of being successful.
I wanted to make loads of money, and fame,
I desired the joy of comforts.
I wanted to be with the pretty girl I saw,
I desired the joy of beauty.
I wanted the company of my beloved,
I desired the joy of love.
I wanted to marry the one I loved,
I desired the joy of togetherness.
I wanted to have kids of my own,
I desired the joy of parenthood.
I wanted to age beautifully,
I desired the joy of experience.
I wanted to die one day,
I desired the joy of peace.
In retrospect,
I wanted just one thing
I think I desired the same thing,
“Happiness”.

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I had a real tough time to write on this week’s topic “desires” over at writer’s island, not sure the end result is worth submitting. Guys let me know what you think.

This week has been really low in terms of thoughts, I was too much occupied with my work, my regular time with myself suffered because of this. I am not complaining, I did have a good time doing what I was doing, just that I do not have much randomness this week.

Random Return:
Every year my dad’s cousins meet at a place on 26th of January, which happens to be a national holiday here, this has been going on for quite some years now. As a teenager I used to love these meets, because I could meet some of my distant relatives, more importantly, I could meet my second, third and even farther levels of cousins. We used to have a blast during these meets. I was the one who kind of walked away from all that, I don’t know why, but I started avoiding going to these meets, and also we used to meet very often outside as well and I started skipping that as well. Naturally the bond went down, and from last 4 years I had hardly met them. This year even though I wanted to skip as usual, due to a lot of persuasion from my parents, I had to attend.
Man this was fun, getting back at once to the way I had left, and getting rid of the guilt of being the one who went away, both at the same time, was real fun. The best part was to follow.

Random Travel:
As I was saying, since I was meeting some of my very far cousins after a long time, specially whom I was very close to at one time, One of my uncles proposed we should all go for a road trip, just for a day or so. Amazingly all of us agreed, knowing that most of us work for tech companies, this was something close to impossible. It was supposed to be male only road trip, and probably on bikes, but later due to cold season, we decided to take a jeep instead. So there I was reluctant to attend the meet, and within an hour packing for the road trip. Yesterday and today was so much fun, just being with the guys.. who cares if the place we went out turned to be a flop show, and the food was horrible. I had tons and tons of fun. The same old laughters of few of my cousins, after a long time, bought a very unexpected happiness overt the weekend.
Pictures sometime soon.

Random Discussions:
With all of us around, with such wide age group ranging from 65 to as low as 20, discussions and arguments were bound to happen. I was really surprised, this time we had no verbal fights, which is very common when we all gang up. Anyways I really got to relive an old saying in kannada. Roughly translated, it means “Tounge speaks about your heritage and legacy.“, It may look very plain statement, but I find it really profound. When you speak to a person, just the language gives you so many things about the person, When a person begins to speak bad language, I mean not in terms of grammar, but in terms of content, like curse words, or about really bad thoughts, It kind of talks a lot about his bad personality, his culture, his upbringing, his legacy. If you hear a person scolding another person, even though the mistake is really done by the other person, the person who speaks really bad language is the one who ends up being smaller.

Random Regrets:
You guys have guessed I am too excited and charged up with the road trip, I promise you this is the last one from that trip. On our way back on relatively newly laid Mysore-Bangalore highway, we were struck behind a slow moving car. Generally I do not get very frustrated at a bad driver, but this guy was really over the top. I am sure he had no clue what does a lane mean, and whats the slow left lane for. We could make out that he had loud music playing inside his car, and he could not hear any of our honking, and we were almost sure that he was not watching rear view mirror, there were like 10 cars struck behind him, because passing in the left lane there looked too dangerous, because he kept drifting slowly towards left. Idiot while driving slow, did not even know he should be in the leftmost lane, and the right one was for faster vehicles. Worst part was every vehicle which eventually passed him from the left, were giving him long stares, and honking very badly. Still the stupid could not make out he was being an idiot here.

Random Foodie:
Yes guys the random foodie is back after a long time, even though I did not have a big weekend in terms of food, I just made a new discovery. I have been going to an old restaurant on CMH road called, Casa Piccola, a self claimed “Euro Restaurant”. I tried a new dish this week called “Epinard a la Crème”. I have become a big fan ever since. It has crisp outer crust made out of potato, the inner layers of the crust are smooth boiled potato, the crust covers a dish made our spinach, cheese, and cream, with a dash of vegetables like capsicum, corn, mushroom. It comes with a piece of garlic bread. All in all an excellent dish.
Its slightly bland for Indian tastes, but for people who don’t mind bland food, I can say it was just “Yummy”

Random Retrospection.
I was kinda struck in two minds, whether to write about this or not, finally decided to write. I guess over last couple of weeks, I am being drawn blank whenever I speak to a close friend of mine over IM, someone whom I generally have lots to talk about or listen to, both of us seem to be hitting a wall after we say hi, and wassup. I don’t understand the reason, have we lost things in common between us?, or is it just a passing phase. No clues.

Guys the request is back again.. as I run out of pages to read from the book “On the road” which I am almost half way through, I want to stack up my shelf yet again. Please let me know if there is any book which you found really good, and want others to read as well. It could be of any genre, anything which you found interesting.

Seems to have suddenly run out of steam for writing, not really sure why…

A friend of mine returned my book  “Eleven minutes” by Paulo Coelho today, and was just running through it, the pages which I had marked when I read it for the first time. Here’s a passage which caught my eye.

 ”All men, tall or short, arrogant or unassuming, friendly or cold, have one characteristic in common:when they come to the club they are afraid. The more experienced amongst them hide their fear by talking loudly, the more inhibited cannot hide their feelings and start drinking to see if they can drive the fear away. But I am convinced that, with a few very rare exceptions, they are all afraid.

Afraid of what ? I’m the one who should be shaking. I’m the one who leaves the club and goes off to a strange hotel, and I’m not the one with the superior physical strength or the weapons. Men are very strange, and I don’t just mean the ones who come to the club, but all men I’ve ever met. They can beat you up, shout at you, threaten you, and yet they’re scared to death of women really.  Perhaps not the woman they married, but there’s always one woman who frightens them and forces them to submit to her caprices. Even if it’s their own mother.“

Got me thinking today.. really is it true?

On my way back from work, my cab went past a cafe coffee day outlet, Its a chain of cafes which has become really popular all over Bangalore, As I went past that, I saw that all the tables were full, and outside was an young woman, probably in her early twenties waiting for someone. That’s when it stuck me how much has changed, over years, when it comes to places to hangout.

As a kid, I had exposure to many teenagers, as we lived in a joint family back then, I had many cousins and my dad’s cousins who were the “youth” back then. As any other kid, I wanted to be them, I wanted to be friend’s with their friends, and talk their stuff, so usually tried to hang in with them, and that’s when I got the idea of my first hangout. Back then, the place where people used to meet used to be the “Gate”, the entrance to ones home, friends used to flock around it and chat for hours together, I always wondered how come their legs never pained, probably when with buddies they hardly cared for their legs. Anyways If you took a walk around Bangalore, around 4o clock in the evening, back in late 80s, you should see lots of groups of guys and girls hanging out at the “Gates” having fun, talking, just enjoying.

As we got into 90s I saw more and more people coming out, getting beyond the houses, seeing more cash flowing in, getting the taste of the “West”. Bangalore had always been good with the technology and education, with people giving in, what I call, over importance to education and studies. So This was a big leap, in what was destined to come to Bangalore. Youth too moved out of the home and found “katte”, the new popular hanging out place. It was nothing more than stone construction in front of a tree in centre of the locality, or may be near the bus stand, with a small restaurant near by to supply coffee and cigarettes. I have to admit the katte was mainly a male hang out place, and females still chose the gate, or the “jagli” the small stone bench which used to be in front of every house then. There have been so many friendships which have been built over the katte. This was the time when I could hardly see any mixed gender groups around, may be I was too young, or may be my memory is poor, but then mixed gender groups in early eighties was still a rare sight, atleast in parts of Bangalore I grew up in, well there was occasion stories of couples being spotted at parks, but a proper group of mixed genders hanging out was I think not so “in” thing back then.

Late 90s was when I went to high school, the mixed gender groups had become popular by then, and so were cinemas, I guess one of the biggest hangout places of those times was a movie theater, and going to a movie a full day program, hanging out waiting to buy tickets, and then hanging out after the movie. Theater used to be the place. Ice cream joints were also becoming slightly popular with people who did not mind spending much. School kids driving on bicycles, spending time after school, in a local bakery drinking a cool drink, having a piece of cake or just a lick at the “ice candy”. I still remember how we used to walk home, pushing the bicycles, when we could have ridden it home quicker, just talking, chatting. Also this was the age, when telephone became a normal house hold appliance, and people started to use it very much, talking for hours with your friends, If parents stopped you from going out to meet friends, then no problem just call them up and talk. That used to be 90s

Early 2000 was when I could remember the first outlet of Coffee day in Jayanagar, we were doing our engineering, and coming from a conservative family, paying 30Rs for a coffee was just felt idiotic, For people from outside Bangalore, cafes were common, and what I failed to realize was that it was not a place for coffee, more of a place for hangouts. I remember days in
college, where we used to hangout for almost whole day there, just ordering a cup of coffee and just chatting. The best part was that they didn’t seem to mind it. What I failed to realize was, the idea was new to us, not to them. The place did have a nice ambiance with a nice couch, and a rich feel to it, so middle class people did find a new idea of of hanging out place in
there.

Now late into the first decade of 2000, I see new malls coming up every corner of Bangalore, and how it has kind of become the new hanging out place for teenagers. When I was in Pheonix,AZ couple of years back, the idea of mall being a hangout place really surprised me, all I knew of shopping complexes were to just spend money, shop and head back to restaurant near by. The concept of spending hours together hanging out in the malls, is totally new to me, and many of bangaloreans like me. But I do see a trend.

As we close in on 2010, I am just wondering what will be the new age hangouts, clues anyone?

He was fast asleep in his favorite spider-man jammies, the one he had dreamt about for long, and was very happy to have. It had been a very tiresome day, he was sleeping like a log. He felt a soft hand on his shoulder, within no time  the hand was shaking him up, trying to wake him I guess. He open his eyes reluctantly, he thought he must have really overslept, and his mom would be very wild at him he thought.

As he opened his eyes, he could here a chorus “Surprise”, He could see his mom and dad, with a small home made cake, with his name on top. It was his birthday, he was angry at himself for forgetting that, There were 8 full candles on the top, one for every wonderful year he had lived on this earth. His parents started to sing “happy birthday to you”, with the soft music of instruments playing on the music system. One could easily spot his happiness, he was almost grinning ear to ear.

He cut the cake with a small knife, which had a ribbon bow tied it, as he held the knife it started to play his favorite rhyme too, “Row Row Row your boat“. His happiness had no bounds. He quickly made his parents eat the piece he had cut, and also ate the rest of the piece. His father has brought him many gifts, which also included a coupon with permission to watch TV with no restrictions. His father also had kept his promise to take him out for a week vacation to his grandfather’s village, which he had always loved.

After the short but very sweet ceremony he was asked to sleep, so that they could enjoy the day next morning. He woke up, and eagerly rushed through his morning routine, he brushed his teeth and rushed downstairs, his mom had prepared his favorite breakfast combination, just the way his grand mom would make, Idli’s along with the khus-khus payasa [a sweet made of poppy seeds]. What made it more interesting was to see his mom take a day of her busy schedule to make his breakfast. As he sat at the breakfast table, he was surprised to see his dad reading newspaper patiently, he had never seen his dad in recent times being so laid back, In fact he hardly got to see him, as his parents used to get off to work before he wakes up and generally back only way past his bed time.

As he sat there having the breakfast he began to plan the day mentally, the places he would like to visit with his parents, the games he would love to play with them, and that playground which he passed daily with lots of kids playing with their parents. He had so many things to do. He did not want to waste time at all.

Just as he finished the breakfast, the phone rang, and it was his grandparents, calling to wish him on his birthday. They could easily make out the joy in their grandson’s voice, which they had been missing to spot for long long time.

He quickly took his shower, which he insisted that his mom should not help, well he was grown up now, and it was indeed shame to ask his mom to help, but she convinced him it should be her to dress him up, as she hardly got chance these days. He was happy indeed, to see his mom comb his hair, no one took so much interest to make sure the line on his forehead formed at the  parting of hairs was perfectly straight, and exactly to the left of his forehead. He loved it when she chose to be so perfect.

All set he was, for “his” day.

Just then he heard a buzzing sound, he could not help but get annoyed it was not stopping at all, it was some kind of a ring, he realized that it was his alarm, and it was morning. Poor guy he could not believe it was all his dream. He woke up, and he was right it was indeed his birthday. He quickly brushed his teeth and rushed down.

It was just another day, his parents had left already, the housekeeper was busy preparing his breakfast, she wished him a happy birthday, and handed him a huge collection of cleanly wrapped presents. Which he threw aside, got ready for his school quickly not showing his disappointment.

As he walked past the playground, still watching lots of kids playing, all  we could see was that he was humming his favorite rhyme

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is like a dream.

Today’s topic over at skittles for “Heads or Tails” is “One of the senses”. I slightly changed it and chose to write about all of them. In fact, in a way, none of them. What would be the state of human life without senses is what I chose.

Just got me to wonder, what a life it would be without any of the senses. I mean can’t see, hear, touch/feel, smell nor taste. You know the heart continues to beat, but there is hardly any life left. What a life that would be. Is that the state of coma?.

So much of our consciousness is through senses, the way we perceive things is so much dependent on things we have sensed from long, so what if a person is born without any senses at all, would he live a life where he is totally unaware of things going around him?. The idea is so vague that I can’t even imagine how he would live, what would be his memories?. Speaking of memories, so much of our memories are from senses, just wondering if you can’t feel anything, what would we remember?. Does it mean most of our organs are indirectly dependent on our senses?.

What about emotions without senses, would humans still continue to have emotions, if you think emotions like happiness, sorrow, love or affection should not really depend on the senses you see, not all of them can be defined fully. Shouldn’t they be felt from the inside, so going by that defitions, one should continue to “feel” emotions even without the senses.

Just looking at emotions from the other angle, Don’t emotions need a trigger too?, before we get into the trigger, ets first look at the different emotions, popularly termed nava rasas, Sringaram (Love) Hasyam (Comedy/happiness) Karuna (Kindness) Raudram (anger), Viram (Heroism) Bhayanakam (Fear) Bibhatsam(Odious), Adbhutam (Wonder) Santam (Tranquility)

Just wondering how many of these would get triggered without senses? According to many philosophers all emotions are triggered by thoughts, Thoughts themselves are mainly triggered by things we perceive, which again is dependent on senses.

Origin of thoughts in turn is a huge debate in philosophy. Origin can be traced to many things, they could be memories from the previous thought process, or the feelings from the current state of mind, generated by any of the senses, or any of the emotions. Definitions look all tangled up, don’t they?.

May be without senses, one may not even have emotions or thoughts too. Now this makes it a life without senses, emotions and thoughts, I can’t imagine what else would be left. What a life that would be!.