Karma ?

Browsed a website on some ancient form of destiny prediction. Found a link to "what is karma?". On clicking found 'Under Construction'. Pretty symbolic.

Today's day was better than the rest as I just went on typing like crazy. Just wrote whatever I remembered and put into place things the way I liked. This is the nature of my job.Absolutely alone and fearless. It might happen someday I just doze off on my desk and no one bothers me at all. I then wake up and come back home.

Well mornings speeds up by itself. I am grateful to it like anything. I accelerate the afternoons by good string of songs. A meeting or 2 adds to the fun.
Seems like I am working without a very strong motivation. Perhaps I need to undergo this period of restlessness where in I find out what is the real motivation behind my work and and how I am moved by it.

I have always felt that my Singapore visit is little different. Its perhaps my last opportunity to test and try before setting in. Not to confuse it at all with settling in which people generally refer to. I mean they refer to marriage and things attached to it. But in my opinion, a point of time where the restless and experimenting mind just decides to put a stop to multiple dimension of thought processes is the time when one starts settling in. May be I have settled way back and am just anxious about my future now. Now that I have said that it looks scaring and true.

4 years later and thousands of miles away the seeker still is out looking.

The Desperate Seeker

Each one of us has a desperate seeker inside. And this seeker in you loves abstract things more than real brick and mortar objects. It has distaste of things that are real and mundane and that you can associate with in a very physical, regular and real way. It likes to know the right method of living, correct ways to build relationship, ideal frame of mind to attain spiritual peace and tranquility. At the same time it generally hates finding right ways to reduce electricity bill, figuring out how to pay taxes yourself or how to apply and get driving licenses for oneself. It puts a premium on meta-physical (non -real) notions and psychological concepts. It sells this notion that historians, scholars and the monks figured "enlightenment" in the past and solved all their problems with it. All in one shot. If you figure out that one trick, all problems wrap up themselves one after the another in front of you. Of course you will never know before hand how your real problems will go away. But they will eventually. That is the major part of the selling point. The minor yet important point is the halo that you are going to be suddenly surrounded with. The aura and the charm of being enlightened ( or "known") makes you become a perpetual source of inspiration for the less privileged desperate seekers around.

NYC India Independence Day Parade 2014

I felt the need of blogging again after significantly long time. I am in New Jersey for a year now. Time flies by fast. Each day is new and different. I was at Indian Independence Day parade at New York City yesterday. We enjoyed watching Daler Mehndi perform his unique punjabi mix of songs. We were glad to see Sunny Deol, Leander Paes, Raveena Tandon and few other Television personalities right in front of us. The kids came out in us and we were waiving hands to all the stalwarts as if we were handed few seconds of stardom for free.The cultural program, hallmark of all such celebration, really made my wife feel good. She liked it even more because she wore a new dress and was looking gorgeous.

We missed the actual parade altogether as we were short of time. I heard through the news that it was lot good. We did try Indian food in the stalls nearby. I didn't like the food stalls as the food was not cheap and they had very few unique Indian food to try. The cloth stall was not at all happening. I would have loved to see Indian hand looms line up on the madison avenue. The state hand looms are popular among so many fairs a.k.a. "mela" across the nation, especially in smaller towns. I remember Khadi Gram Udyog would set up big stalls in Bokaro (my home town) each year and the city used to crowd at those stalls for cheap and good quality clothes.

The parade reminds where I belong to in spite of where I eventually want to belong to. In modern demarcation of state and countries, both differs significantly and that's the big deal. For many people of Indian Origin, an event like this is a big deal. It may be the only way to stay relevant to their ancestors and roots. For me, it was more about hanging out in the Sun.

Forgiveness 2.0

Of late, I have been switching channels very often navigating through piles of serials and movies all around. On to something very important. Last week was good. I had tough time towards the end but I liked it very much. It forced me to think about it rather deeply. It made me realize the importance of forgiving others. A very good lesson. Gandhian stuff.
I always thought to forgive your juniors is a complete achievement but it seems I had won half the battle.Forgiveness does not have boundaries. My resolution this year is to take the important first 2 steps i.e. of understanding what it means and practicing it.

But what is forgiveness ? People wrong you. It creates terrible pain and then you try to forgive them. And how do you do that ? To answer that seems to be difficult, but let us understand what forgiveness is not.

Forgiveness is not a meek submission to folks elder to you. It is not unwillingly pardoning some one younger to make him feel good. It is not about making a facile smile when your peer pokes fun on you. It is neither forcibly accepting a fault which one has not done just to put things in control. Nor it is an embarrassing smile if you are denied to talk to your so called dream girl or if you hear her being courted by someone else. To add, the deeper and very incorrect notion of forgiveness comes to the fore when you are painfully hit by the wrong end of destiny's stick. We 'justify' it to everyone by associating it to be a karmic event and yet unconsciously curse our selves deep within. Forgiveness is not that justification either.


To me forgiveness is something entirely different. It is letting others be what they are. It is your honest and complete acknowledgment of how others are and the way they behave; what others feel and believe and most importantly 'how things in general' pan out. It is the most faithful acceptance of the fact that you do not have any control of anything other than yourself. And in the extreme cases not even yourself.

It is to watch the pain inside you as it is and yet dissociate the pain from the perpetrator. It is to speak , act and hear about things as they are with no speck of lie in it. To take the truth to its full course.
As one watches the pain , it reveals a control you just lost. It may be material or psychological. And this should force you to look out for things you have unknowingly associated with yourself by now and that too without any right. But most essentially, in the scheme of things , your perception of the perpetrator does not get affected because of the pain he inflicted.

Anything which you might have spoken and done on your 'right' will never cause you any pain. If you are passive and not speaking the rightful truth, then it is a blasphemy to humanity.

As you practice it day in and out, you will see a familiar wave driving these things. This wave has a peculiarity of being correct , reasonable and peaceful. The one who rides this wave is happy. He is also powerful. This wave is called truth, the actual. Forgiveness is the first step towards seeing the nature of truth and what it is not about. It is the fairy tale of life one ought to live.

October Fest

It is October.The most eventful month of any year because of all festivals round the corner. Also the most blessed month as it marks victory over the dark and celebrations abound home and away.
Today morning was a little bit different.I have an unconscious habit of waking up late on Thursday's and yesterday night I took a resolve to reverse it.I woke up at least 5 times between 530 and 8 and yet my conscious resolve lost against my unconscious willingness to sleep. I reached office just in time and a little irritated owing to the morning experience.And then heard the news about Jobs' death.
How do you describe him ? I do not know.
His death definitely ended his perpetual pain and its the only thing which is cheerful about the news. The world owes a bow and a minute of silence to this evangelist of innovation and change.He may very well get back to apple one day

Anna Hazaare not out..A special innings..

Apart from forcing govt to involve civil society in the lokpal bill to strangle corruption,Anna does something very special. Its how his movement forced the govt of a billion to budge that is unfathomable and yet very inspirational.
Anna's movement shows a way to be fearless and persistent not only in the comfort of one's own space but also in front of the mightiness of historical heavy handedness and lethargy. And that separates the one rallying behind from the one leading from the front.I along with my nation backed him without even literally reading the bill at the first place.
I know if it has anything to do with rooting out the evil in my society I can afford atleast an 18/18 faith in anyone who does that . I am not seeing the mahatma out of Anna Hazare but I am happy for him being what he is for the past 4 days.

World Cup 2011-What it means?

Even a week after winning the world cup, the memory of the moment remains fresh. It will linger for weeks to come. Apart from the fact that we won the biggest tournament, the win did a lot of other things which rarely happens to me or to my country.
It brought a sense of previously unmatched euphoria and a surreal satisfaction. Just imagine the calm that follows such feelings.
The joy contains a personal satisfaction of seeing the team win a jinxed tournament, something I longed for ages since I took over my senses. But more than that the euphoria had a collective quotient which made it extra special. Suddenly everyone is happy for real and the mind is without doubts. And we revel in each others joy.
It was a national catharsis made of a billion individual catharsis as if the winning shot, like a guillotine, killed the national pain and an unending wait at one stroke.
We need a lot more of them as an individual and a nation.