Virtual Ramblings

Some of the weird things I have prayed for…

Oh God,
Please make sure we get the movie tickets today
[I am very passionate about my movies]

Oh God,
Please let her not get more marks than me in kannada
[It was my weakest subject in middle school, and used to always loose top position because of this subject]

Oh God,
Please make me big enough, to fit into normal adult jeans
[I had a tough time moving up to waist 26, where all  pairs of standard jeans began]

Oh God,
Let me wake up one day, and power of my eye vanish
[Used to hate wearing specs as a kid, even now I do]

Oh God,
Let me not get any calls tonight,
[On days I am on call, I may have to wake up middle of night and work]

Oh God,
Please get me the joker, in the next time I pick a card.
[Card games can be fun, and am never less competitive]

Oh God,
Let India win today, don’t want them to loose this one..
[Cricket is an important part of most of us]

Oh God,
Please do make the Microprocessors paper go easy
[The only subject which I thought I would have tough time. Surprise surprise I got highest marks in that]

Oh God.
I want to ask something, but having nothing on mind now, so just surprise me this time
[he he believe me I did this once/twice]

And the list continues…

After an unexpected and fun evening with S on Thursday, Friday turned out to be another unusual evening too. Many of you guys know that I don’t smoke, but then this is what I did on friday evening

My friend set up a hookah at home, being a non smoker had never tried one, and it turned out to be fun. As I do not like the tobacco smell, we filled it up with strawberry flavored non nicotine stuff, all in all an unusual experience and a fun filled one.

Meanwhile its been a long time since I posted something over at pure pursuits, so here it goes
I call it “Amateur thoughts“

After a long time met up with S at a cafe with her husband N yesterday, it had been almost close to 5 months since I met her, after couple of hours of chat and a Cappuccino and espresso later, it feels good to realize we still have the old connection intact. I was a little apprehensive first, and so was she I guess. But like old times, it was fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As a kid when I passed by an icecream shop I was drawn to it, I wanted one cone, I never felt bad that I wanted something, I have never dismissed my wants, I have always wanted them passionately, and I have never dismissed my passion, infact I have been proud of my passion for things. But passion can easily grow into envy and then to jealousy. Traditionally both envy and jealousy have been termed bad, people are told be beware of those to feelings, and told to guard themselves away from them.

Theoretically I agree that jealousy is an extreme feeling, and generally harm people who get into it. But isn’t jealousy a very common emotion?, just like you feel happy/sad/angry naturally, you also feel jealous too isn’t it?. If you guys have much self control over emotions that you have never envied anything/anyone than may be I am a very less of a human being. I do envy things, I do envy people, and sometimes I do feel jealous.

As a man in his quarter life, I am on the look our for many things, yep I finally have broken out from the quarter life crisis, not knowing what I want, suddenly things I want seem to be falling into place. I am no saint, I have materialistic things on my list to work for, and also non materialistic things. So now that I know what I want, I am working towards them, some with immediate actions, some with a plan, and some just waiting to have in future. These things amazingly prioritize themselves too, I mean some I seem to want a lot more, and hoping that they happen somehow, and most of them fall into the last category, I mean my wants for the future, which directly I may not have control over, and some which I can do my efforts and have no control on the outcome. Some are really materialistic, and I am surprised I want to have them because there was a time I loathed people who went after them

Over last few months, one of such wants is making me envious. I do not have the word power to express what is it that’s making me envy some, infact every time I get the feeling I am feeling a little bit of envy, I am unknowingly getting disgusted at myself, and driving me out of the scene, making sure I don’t get to listen/view or discuss the matter, and the sad part is that people involved, even though they do not know about it, secretly I have a fear that I may begin to dislike them, like the way its illustrated in all possible media, the rift formed by envy/jealousy. I fear what If I get into that groove.

Jealousy is always considered to be self centric, a selfish act which helps no one, but if you do not think about the extremes, it does help people to work with a better zeal towards the goal, when I grew envious of the kid who used to top the class always, I struggled for 3 full years to topple her at the top. It has not always been bad to me, and I know that, but then why do I fear now?, why am I afraid of my envy?.

When the thought of writing something on my jealousy came up first thing I did was to look up at wikipedia. And I was surprised at their definition and also their distinction between envy and jealousy
Jealousy : “Jealousy typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival”
Envy:“Envy may be defined as an emotion that “occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it.”
“Jealousy concerns something one has and is afraid of losing, while envy concerns something one does not have and either he wants to acquire (nonmalicious envy) or he wants the other(s) not to have (malicious envy)”

After going through this I realize, I have never used the word properly, may be going by this definition I am not jealous, I may be lot more envious.

As usual I am left with a lot of questions at the end.
Is a feeling of envy/jealous normal?,

Is it normal if you end up feeling a little envious about things you want badly for you?,

Does it always indicate desperation?,

Does one need to panic when he feels he is feeling a little envy,?

How does one get himself out of it?, is avoiding a good solution for it, if at all this is a problem?,

Do you feel envy/jealous at times?.

Skittles has an interesting topic for this week’s Heads or Tails. She wants us to share a fond memory. I could’ve brought something out of the my 26 year old memory bank, but I chose to bring out a very recent memory, something as recent as this weekend.

This weekend I took a break from my routine work and decided to take a small weekend vacation with my my parents, my cousin and his family, and my aunt’s family. It began with a plan to spend the weekend at a resort, only to find out they were all booked, we didn’t want to cancel, so decided to spend the weekend at my aunt’s place instead. However we just stopped over on the way to Mysore, to see if there were any last minute cancellation at the resort we wanted to stay, and to our surprise we found what we were looking for. We booked for a single night stay for Saturday, and we negotiated a good deal from Saturday morning till Sunday late afternoon. What followed was a string of sweet memories.

• Nostalgia from years down the line spent in Mysore with my two cousins, the times we have had fun, places visited and pranks relived, fun remembered. Sometimes it fun just reliving the moments from the past
• An Aunt’s special dinner, with a delicacy which she prepared the best, I have to admit I ate a little too much
• A place which is very small, and has an almost unnoticeable grandeur, well I am not talking about the famous Mysore palace, but a place called “Mylari hotel”, famous for their amazingly soft Masala Dosa. Saturday morning spent over a sooper cool breakfast.
• Being greeted by some Bikini clad people at the resort by the pool [well I am naughty sometimes :)]
• An hour spent along the river kaveri, trying to help my 6 year old niece catch a fish.
• Hours spent lazing in the pool, without knowing how to swim, and almost blind without my specs, with my niece and my cousins.
• Playing cards with the family till 1 am filled with roars of laughters and lots of fun.
• Sleeping till 9:30 in the morning to be woken by a bored niece
• A trip to a local hillock and a very calm temple, walking bare foot in a scorching sun.
• A long enacting of a being a wild flower, with a lot of swaying and hushing noise as well, my niece is playing a flower in her summer camp’s play. So we got a demo of her play as well as the dance she is gonna perform.
• A post lunch card game to wrap up a lovely weekend spent, with a lot of fond memories to carry away from.

Rambler will be out this weekend, no not a big weekend vacation, just off to Mysore for a much needed break from all the hush hush affairs of this city. This means that you people are spared of the mindless ramblings for the next two days. Will be back Monday, so until then sayonara

We get used to our own thoughts, beliefs and sensibilities, you speak to people who think very much like you, people who perceive the same sensibilities and believe the same beliefs and then you tend to believe that world is like you, and all us are similar. Once in a while its good to be reminded that world is full of variety and each of us think so differently.

Today I was reminded that how easily one can be the odd man out, how one can be perceived “desperate” or “mad” by people. For a moment I was very angry, in fact a part of me is still angry, but then the more calmer side in me won today, easily I could have argued or had a verbal argument with a couple of people, but then I was in no mood to fight today, and also at that moment for some strange reason I thought they would never understand, even If I argue all day, all I am doing is proving myself to be more “mad” in front of them.

It all started with a discussion about cheerleading which is kind of new to India. The new IPL [Indian Premier League] has brought in the concept of cheerleading to India and Indian cricket. Vijay Mallya who was in charge of the opening ceremony brought in Washington RedSkins for the opening ceremony, which did not go well with many Indians, especially couple of people who travel with me. According to them, instead of giving so much money to them, they could have invited some talents within Karnataka, and they really did not get what a cheer leading team actually does. I was of the opinion that, I totally support that some talents within Karnataka should be given a chance, but what I did not agree was the use of word “instead”.

Today on the way back, somehow the topic of belly dancing came up, I was saying that many people are taking up this form of dancing for fun, and while speaking on that, It just came out that I suggested my cousin’s wife to take up belly dancing for fun. The  usual clichéd arguments came out, and I was saying there is nothing wrong with the belly dancing, and even though I did not use the exact words, what  I wanted to say was its not some kind of erotica or cheap vulgar dance form as it is made out to be. I was greeted with a interpretations of turning into a desperate person, and one jokingly made a comment of saying “mad” person, I did not take it as a joke, I was furious at that person.

That’s when I realized how different our sensibilities are, may be he is right in many eyes, and I am right in some eyes, but the divide is huge. I don’t even want to think about who was right who was wrong. I felt I must be appearing the same way to them, as they appear to me,  as someone who has absolutely no sense, may be its difference in ideologies, or may be just the way we think.

Yesterday’s directions have still kept me wandering, I pick this quote from a lovely blogger friend Autumn who writes over at “Random Autumness“. She is a new blogger friend of mine, and its been nice to discover her over last couple of posts. Yesterday I was just bowled over by this quote she made in one of her posts.

“I can walk any path. I no longer need to control my direction.”

I think somewhere we need to pick this confidence for our life, I mean reach a stage where we feel secure, and believe that we can walk any path, so what if some of them are hard and take a little more than the other sections, so what if we lose our way a little, we will get back on our feet and walk the path.

I also picked up this small meme over at her place , its a set of questions for which we need to answer in one word. So here goes my attempt

Yourself: Boring
Your Partner: Absconding
Your Hair: Receding
Your Mother: Advicing
Your Father: Cool
Your Favorite Item: Food
Your Dream Last Night: Naughty [for a change]
Your Favorite Drink: Coffee [Vodka in alcohol]
Your Dream Car: Mustang
Your Dream Home: Crowded
The Room You Are In: Bedroom
Your Fear: Loneliness
Where Do You Want To Be In 10 Years: Travelling
Who You Hung Out With Last: Co-Workers
What You’re Not: Patient
Muffins: Blueberry
One of Your Wish List Items: Friends
Time: Punctuality
Last Thing You Did: Work
What Are You Wearing: T shirt
Your Favorite Weather: Rainy!!
Your Favorite Book: “Tuesday’s with Morrie”
Last Thing You Ate: Chat
Your Mood: Tiresome
Your Best Friends: away
What Are You Thinking About Right Now: Dinner
Your Car: yet to buy
Your Summer: hot and humid
What’s on your TV: IPL [Cricket]
What is your weather like: HOT!
When Is the Last Time You Laughed: A week back
Your Relationship Status: non-existent.

Its so simple to make instant noodles isn’t it?, I mean all you need to do is turn the packet over, and look for directions as to how to make yourself a wonderful cup of the yummy noodles. I wish many a times that our days were like this, we wake up and open the newspaper and bang, you have all the directions to make your day an awesome one. Two large hour-full spoons of self time, Two and a half cups of  soulful movie with a mate,  A stirring lunch with the family, some boiling playtime with the guys, a cool and soothing dinner at a fancy place, and a couple of miles of moon walk along the beach for the garnishing. Wish it was this simple to make a day awesome, all we need to do is turn over and look for directions

As a kid I remember getting directions from my parents, jumping on the sofa was a big no no, skipping dinner was forbidden, laughing too loudly while having food was almost a un forgivable sin. Sometimes I wish our emotions could take orders like these, I wish I could order myself in the middle of  a busy day, now is the time Laugh loudly, Wish I could forbid thinking anything about work once I reach home, wish I could control my urge to just go up the highs of a vacation when I am supposed to be reviewing an artifact at my workplace. It would be so simple isn’t it, if we could give directions to our mind.

Have you ever checked your deodorant spray? It does have directions for usage, we are supposed to open the cap, keep the nozzle at around 6 inches away from the body, and press the release button for about a second. It also comes with a caution of being highly inflammable, and directs the user to discontinue if a rash develops. Shouldn’t we have such directions to vent our bottled frustrations?, I mean keep your bottled frustration at a safe distance from your family, keep the cap tightly closed, when no ones’ around and you can’t hold it any more, give a  vent for few seconds, one should be cautious of as this can be highly destructible, and should be immediately discontinued in case of any signs rage.

I was once bored and alone in Arizona, and I wanted to go and try meeting someone at a local bar, knowing my socializing abilities, I wanted a backup, I wanted a bar that played music, just in case [in high probabilities] I chicken out speaking to strangers at a bar. So I choose some bar close by on the internet, and take the driving directions from the google maps. I take my car out, and follow the directions the reach the destination, only to find out the bar has long gone, and has been replaced by a dingy and dangerous looking central American place and is named La Bamba. Why does it happen in life, I mean why do we take pains in knowing the exact directions, reach the destination to find out that we were just a bit late, what we wanted has long perished, and whats remaining has nothing to offer.

The topic today over at skittles was “directions”.. and needless to say my mind ran in all four of them