Strings

They cling to your body like wires
controlling your thoughts your ideas and your movements
They make others expect things from you
controlling the way you speak, listen and emote
Do they make you who you are supposed to be?
It is tough to cut them away
It is difficult to let go
Let them go and life might not be as complex
Let them go and you will have to make sacrifices
One string makes the kite fly and one string makes the dog walk straight
What do we do away with?
I wish there was no philosophy
No need to portray an image
Only needs and no wants
But then would I be human?

Time does not fly

When you are facing the grind that no body can help you with. When there are too many routes to take and all of them seem lucrative. When you are stuck in your dreams. When you would gladly exchange your work for a swim in the sea Time my friend does not fly

My thoughts in monochrome

As I swim deeper into the PhD I have started really understanding myself (or so I think). The more I read the more I research the more I want to move away from this juggernaut of modern-capitalism. I in no ways think it is bad but then I also think it is not the solution to all the problems. I do not have a solution neither do I claim to be intelligent enough to create an ideal solution. But what I do realize is that there are multiple views and you cannot write them off just because someone said so.

Where do I go?

I look as the world goes by and I wonder what am I going to do? I feel trapped at times, dillusioned at others and  optimistic in others. Hanging on, giving it time are all too taxing on my self. Maybe I should think about myself and do What I want to do the most. Maybe the way forward is to take a complete break from the past. Maybe it is not. 

When your thoughts start leaving you

It is wonderful when your brain has one dominant logic, is'nt it? But does that really happen? I guess it must happen for a lot of people. For me my thoughts keep going all over the place I dream with eyes open. I do not think this is wrong. Humans are complex so let chaos reign. But the real problem is when my dreams are at two different ends of a spectrum what to do then. I am sometimes just not able to make a decision I am too scared, maybe I hate the feeling that I will regret it later. Maybe I am thinking too much into it right now. 

The World Cup and Things

With the World Cup almost coming to an end it is very important to see what Brazil as a nation has achieved from hosting the mega event. Given the protests that took place before the event started and also during the initial days of the world cup it is interesting that no newspaper is now talking about what is happening now. It was definitely one of the most interesting and absorbing world cup I have seen . That is the thing about perspective I guess. We always see only one side of the story and many a times we have information about only one side of the story. Can we then really pass judgement? India is hosting the under-19 world cup soon. I wonder if we will be prepared in time and I really do hope it will benefit the sport. 

Life goes on

Do you ever read your old emails? I do at times and I wonder.
I do not know how it came to pass
I do not know where I would be in times to come
I do not know how I got here from where I was
But I do understand that life goes on

Was I wrong? Was I right? these are questions that I fight
When I think in solitary I cannot help but dream of a world that came crashing in
Where would I be had I not gone that road
Where would I be if things were done differently
Would I have been me?

There are those who look back with pride some look back in anger
and there are others who look back and become sad
but I look back and get confused
I do not know where to begin and where to end
all I know is this is not the end 

I want to be a farmer

This was a thought long before the GM advert cam during super bowl. I wanted to be a farmer but one with a difference.

I am only sharing an idea. Where I grew up is an arid region with little or no rain the farmers often kill themselves because the so called benefits never reach them. This got me thinking what about drip irrigation. I have read that drip irrigation really helped many areas in the world then it struck it has to be the cost. Well so I had a brainwave as usual what if I became a farmer the plan would be to get in drip irrigation and grow only fruits and vegetables, raise cattle but sell only end products the bane of Indian agriculture is that the farmers do not sell the end product. They sell the rice to mills which sell them to the consumers. While the farmers in the US grow the wheat, husk it do whatever needs to be done and only then sell it to the bigger firms it gets them more money. Also the middle men who so easily ask for more commission have to be done away with.

Will it happen? I hope it does till then as the ad goes:

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.

"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So God made a farmer.

Give me hope

Music makes the world go round,
it is the rhythm of the heart,
Without it you are a mere ghost,
but where do i find it,
I find it in every sound on the street
in the wonder of nature
I find it during my sleep
I wish I was more like music
soft, gentle and mellow
harsh, strong and uplifting,
I wish to be it all

Day 2

Right I have decided to give up on the diet. To be very honest I did not feel pangs of hunger or anything of that sort. But you do feel light headed and also the low energy levels are a killer. It is difficult when you have to have high energy levels through the day. So I decided to modify it. Club the GM diet with the Israeli army diet lets see how it goes.

Day 1

Right so today is day 1.

The diet says I am supposed to eat only fruits so off I went to the supermarket and bought I bunch of fruits thinking about it I feel I bought a little too many anyways. I had 2 apples and one pear for breakfast and a mug of earl gray without milk of course. So lets see how the day goes on.

I have musk melon for lunch today :P

GM Diet

Right so tomorrow I start the fabled GM diet. I have decided that at the start of each day of the diet I will write about it. To be honest I don't know which is tougher the dieting part or the writing part.

Don't look at the scoreboard

At work, how many of us look forward to the scoreboard. I bet a lot of people do. I used to do the same thing. This was to ensure that I get some extra money. But then I started working in a hospital and although the same thing is often practiced in the "professional" hospitals around the world, I honestly believe we have lost the ethos somewhere.

The ethos of serving human beings who happen to have an illness seems to be lost somewhere. But that is not all Education has become scoreboard oriented. Where the intellect of a student depends on how many marks he / she scores and not on what they have learnt.

When we look for a job it is always about how heavy my resume is which college did you study, it is never about your ethos. This goes for all fields. Yep even I am guilty of this sin. It is not cardinal but I have looked at people from the top colleges as having a slight edge.

The thing is as a society that looks up at only scoreboards the statement by coach Wooden speaks a truth that many of us wish was true.

I need a remedy

Football and transfer rumors are quintessential to Summer in England. With the local Pub man becoming the expert on the happenings in your local football club. But the transfer is more than money it is more than ambition it belongs only to the marquee stars like in a Broadway show. The smaller fry are usually left out of the rumors. By the time the transfer season is over the majority of the transfers will be low key players changing hands between clubs.

Much like other fields of enterprise where the normal person is thought of my family and friends. I understand and appreciate talent, but have we gone to far with it. I mean we have talent shows on all TV channels with a wide spectrum of people participating.

We have even brought this quest for talent into education. Yes it is competitive but that does not mean you throw a young child in a coaching class and then another and make their life revolve around classes and entrance exams. It does not mean that you send them to so called coaching class heavens and make them learn by rote subjects that need to understood. I asked one such child what was his favorite subject and without thinking he said Physics. I asked him what in Physics did he like and his answer was the mathematical problems because he knows all the formulas by heart. Have you really learnt physics then? Have you really learnt why the we have those formulas? Have you really learnt where they can be applied and how we can see them in action in everyday life?

We blame the system. We blame the competition. We blame the colleges. But we are to blame. We are the ones who think the world will only be better if children only study.

Have you let your child develop today?

Dream, Defy and Destiny

One of artistically inclined friend once asked me from a small but indicative symbol that he could graffiti on walls. And I came up with 3 D. Well the D's stood for Dream, Defy and Destiny.

As the years rolled by I started believing in these 3 words resolutely. I believe in dreams, a life without dreams is a little too simplistic according to me. My dreams do not follow convention I often think differently from others at times maybe because I grew up with a lot of times to think and I utilized it a lot. Defy convention, defy norms that make no sense and do the right thing.

I have always maintained that there is nothing called destiny. We make our own and we should dream and defy norms to achieve are dream to make our own destiny

Say no to politics

Well I have blogged about politics and I don't think it is a good enough topic to talk about.

The change is in you is what I believe. We need to change to even expect change.

There was a young man who was fresh out of medical college. This was pre-independence this was a time when being a doctor and more specifically a surgeon would get you out of India pretty fast but he decided to leave the cultured big city and travel to the hinterlands. He worked for years in only serving the people.

He did go to Scotland but only for a short period of time that too to learn so that he could provide better medical services to his patients. He did all that a man could to help improve the hospital in this barren neglected land. He succeeded in saving lives.

He didn't die a rich man but he died a great man, A man for whom the whole town cried and mourned. A man who set the standard for others to be judged by. Who will not be put in the history books but who deserves a place in the history of society.

We all may not go into the history books but what have we done to ask for change. A lot of us don't even pay taxes properly. A lot of us would rather pay the traffic cop a bribe than pay the fine and not repeat the mistake. We look for loopholes and then we expect change. When we have not done anything to deserve it what right do we have to demand it?

Let me be free

Let me live

I want to breathe 

I don't want you to tell me how to live

I have played your game for too long

I don't want to be bogged down

Let me walk my own path

Let me do my thing

let me follow my heart 

and let me live within

Too many choices have been made my others

I want to make this one alone

I want to listen to the wind

and dance with the seas

Give me freedom not land not money

Give me equality

Let me live let me breathe

Stay Calm and Carry On

I watched RocknRolla for the nth time yesterday (Yes I have a thing for Brit gangster flicks). But it was brilliant to hear the Johnny Quid bamboozler on the packet of Virginia Smokies.

This whole Baba thing was anyways a little too much for me to handle. We cannot have a parallel government and NO fasting for a few days is not going to suddenly make us less corrupt.

We are not doing anything about it but we want the government to act. Have you stopped giving a bribe to the traffic constable that stops you. Have you stopped having a beer and driving on the road. Have you suddenly stopped giving "corporate gifts" and "power lunchs" to clients who you want a contract from?

Once you stop this and we are still corrupt go and overthrow the god damn government for all I care, but till then stop being wussy

Bowling for Dharavi

A few days back as I flipped through TV channels I merely chanced upon Bowling for Columbine. I find it a rather brilliant and thought-provoking story. Imagine if there was no arm control in India. It is difficult to know what would have happened but the results would definitely been absurd.

This got me thinking about something else, we need monitoring. We have a law against child labor. But walk around any slum not just Dharavi and you will see children working. We have NGO's trying their best to stop the rot but it is not going to change until 'WE' stop.

I recently decided to stop going to a shop because he had a small boy doing the work and I made it a point to tell him too. There are thousands of small and big establishments in our country that are no different. Bombay according to me is also the land of chai tapris. How many of these do you know that where there is no chotu working?

But lets be real. There are a number of children who are doing this for money. Yes the government is feeding them to go to school but have you eaten what they serve? These kids need to be taught a trade not history. Those who want to become scientists and engineers should obviously be taught and nobody should be denied an opportunity but helping them learn a trade and setting up someway in which they can monetize that trade opportunity is more important.

This is what I feel. Your turn champ!

Souffle

This is not a recipe this is a story that revolves around the mentioned savory.

Growing up in a small town and always surrounded by doctors dinner parties were a norm. The usual thing was everyone would get one dish and dinner was usually followed by a old fashioned game of scrabble or a few rounds of pictionary.

In this whole group of people there was one gem of a person who was extremely clever and brilliant in her work and good bless her soul an amazing human being but she would always decide to make the dessert which would invariably be souffle which passeth all understanding. But it developed something in me the curiosity and love for food that is not necessarily Indian.

Many years later I went to the US as an exchange student and only real reason I was happy there and was able to adapt was the food. I loved the smell of cheese burgers and the sizzle of a steak on the grill it helped me bond with people helped me in making friends this thing continued in the UK but was oriented a lot to non-curry food. The chips-cheese-beans still make me feel like opening a kebab van. The whole reason people feel not at home is food according to me. The global village that we live in today has made it possible to get the popular food anywhere in the world but it is just not the same. I mean fish and chips looking out of window in Pune and seeing other buildings is not the same as fish and chips looking out of a window in Portsmouth and watching the huge ships go by.