Seven Life Savers!

Life is getting stale... and I was wondering what seven things could breathe a bit of freshness into it!

Here is the list of seven path breaking inventions that I feel will have to be made sooner than later! ;-)

Invention 1: Metallic Bed sheets
Yes you heard that right! Poor Wifey spends half her little free time on setting up that bed! I wonder why she doesnt understand that there is actually no need for setting it up. It takes less than 2 minutes to get the creases all over again! If she understood she wouldnt yell at me that I am a pig wallowing on that bed! But instead of attempting the almost impossible task of convincing my wife that I am a homo-sapien, and that bed sheets are meant to be creased, I wish someone invented metal bedsheets - crease free .... no need to fold... just slide them on!


Invention 2: The flying broom!
Traffic? How I wish someone invented the flying broom on which you could perch on and fly over everyone! I can then also go back to TYS and tell him that you dont need to be necessarily short to get strategic angles of watching the pretty bangalore babes! :P

Invention 3: Keys with a tring-trong

I misplace my keys so often and its such a drain of my energy! I misplace my phone too... but my phone is more behaved and loyal to me! I just need to call and it will answer me back with a ring - "hey! You left me here! Pick me up!" - I wish keys also came up with a number and responded just like the phone!

Invention 4: Wireless Power

Wires! Just hate them! Look at my laptop in the office and you will know what I mean! And btw, I use lots of wireless gadgets...my router, my keyboard etc... Inspite of that you can see so many wires all over! All my USB ports are clogged! Yes I hear you .. bluetooth! But I want even electric power to be transmitted wireless! How about charging your mobile phone through a wireless mechanism?

Someone said that you might die of a shock if electricity got transmitted through the air! Well I would die of stress anyways when I see so many wires!

Invention 5: Diet Pizzas

I feel miserable and guilty everytime I hog on anything tasty! Some unwritten rule seems to be that everything tasty ought to have calories attached with it! Can someone make the same yummy pizzas with out the calories in that cheese? I wish I could eat them without counting how many hours of work-out has been negated?

Invention 6: Human Blinkers

It takes women centuries to decide what they need! Then it takes decades for them to select which make would be fine! And then a few years to finally the color! And then while they walk out to the billin section, God save you if they spot something else (which they always manage to) attractive! So how about blinkers for the mistress? Easy on pocket, time and effort!

Innovation 7: Cooking Geometry Box
Does the chapati have to be circular? Doesnt life get monotonous to eat the same round chapatis night after night?

Everytime I roll the dough I always end up getting better geometrical shapes! First of all that damn thing always sticks to the wooden slab that I roll it on! And when I do manage to get something out, its either a rectangle, sometimes it could be a pentagon, a hexagon or any polygon with n sides! :)

Or better still it could represent a perfect amoeba shape! Amoeba chapatis... yummy as they can be!

I know you will agree that it is boring and monotonous to eat the same round-round chapatis. But my wife doesnt seem to understand! Then I tell her it will just anyway end up in your tummy... round-round or amoeba-amoeba! But then I think it will be easier to buy a Cooking geometry box instead!

I can take the compass out and then make a perfect circle before I toast it! I can probably use the protractor and the set-squares to accurately measure and cut the vegetables in appropriate shapes and sizes!

There goes my wishlist! Whats yours?

IP Address please!

Why dont people just have unique names? It can surely save a few embarassing situations ... if only people had unique names!

I got a beautiful ecard from this guy called Kiran yesterday. Kiran Kumar? Who kiran? Which Kiran? Thota Kiran (my classmate?) or is K2 (my school mate?) or is it .... which Kiran Kumar... half a dozen names and I couldnt figure out which one actually sent me this card...

So I decided to be 'smart' and play it 'safe' - I just replied in a very casual tone ... "thanks... how r u ? where are you these days?" - as if to ask whether he is still in the USA or has he returned to India.

and my my .. here is the surprise! - this is the mail I get back from him!


-----Original Message-----
From: kiran kumar
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:51 AM
To: Raghu
Subject: Re: An anniversary wish from kiran kumar

Good morning Boss...
this is kiran....
i am one of the members in ur company.


On 11/27/07, Raghu <raghu@............> wrote:

Hey Thanks a lot!
Whats up with you? Where r u these days?



Now now ... tell me how am I going to guess that someone who sits in my office would actually send me an ecard and that too after wishing me in the morning? But yeah a very sweet gesture :)

I wish each of us had a unique number instead of names.. so there is no ambiguity! :P How about an IP address? ;-)

Or have a really *llllloooooonnnnnnnggggggg* name so that there is no chance of anyone else having it too! :P

Challenge here... anyone with a longer name than "Kanchustambham Srinivasa Raghavendra"? My parents were smart... werent they? :P Just that I used to find it impossible to fit that full name on OMR sheets for exams! :P

And then I met YVVS Siva Nagendra on the campus! Yellamanchili Veera Venkata Sathya Siva Nagendra! Oops... Siva... dont sue me if I got any part of this name wrong.... well, I wonder if he will get his own name right! :P

Perhaps IP addresses are better! ;-)

Hitch Hiker!

This is what I promised to pull out from my notes for TYS. My posts got deleted while I was experimenting a bit with the blog... Dont you ever trust an engineer to sit silent without fiddling around! :P

I did resurrect the posts with some effort, but the comments are lost! :( But one comment from TYS was quite moving, the way his brother voluntarily shared his ice cream with a poor kid.

For me, being nice to people never was gifted so naturally... I really have to work hard to fight my natural instincts of putting myself first! So here we go with a little notes of what happened a few months ago.


----

A school kid waved his hand while I was driving my car back from tennis court to my house. I pulled my car to the side. He said "Anna... can you drop me till the end of this road?" - I smiled and he hopped in. Few minutes with him, he was off and I continued driving towards home.

This kid reminded me of an incident that happened when I was very young. I was in my 3rd or 4th class back then. I used to walk to my school. At school we were expected to carry an extra set of shoes for sports. Sports were compulsary every evening and I started walking back after a game of football.

I crossed the rail track and then a kid (of my age or probably younger) was following me. I looked at him and said "what do you want?" - he stared at the transparent cover I was holding with my leather shoes in them. He said "I want to wear them once... I want to know how they feel". I said "Ok. Take it" - I stretched my hand as if I would allow him to wear them and while he was about to take them... I pulled it back! And I started laughing and mocking at him. I abused him, reminding him that he was a poor guy and he should never dream of such things in life!

I trotted back home, not realizing what I did. I went home, and while having evening snax, I called my mom ( I used to call her amma back then .. dont know when I switched to this stupid mummy ) and told her with my head held high - "you know what I did today?". She looked back as if to say "ok .. come on tell me".

"I had fun amma. This dirty beggar kid, he wanted to wear my shoes. I told him I will give it to him, but I did not and I enjoyed making fun of him". She did not know how to react.

She made me search for my old shoes and told me "he wanted to try your shoes... I want you to gift these to him and come". She shouted "Go, find him!" She made me realize that not everyone gets everything and you should respect people. She just said "its ok if you did not want to give him anything, but thats not the way you treat him!"

I went to a very affluent school (a recent survey says its ranked seventeenth in India and the best in south India) and when I never knew that a world of poverty existed outside. I think this one incident was a very big turning point in my life in terms of how I looked at the world around me.

I trotted back carrying my old pair of shoes, trying to locate this kid. I searched frantically, but I never found him. Dejected I returned back home. I was very moved by this incident. The fact that I remember it after 2 decades, tells me how important that incident was. It came at the cost of a little sweetheart, but it changed my world!

Not very far from this incident was when I thought I did the world's smartest thing. My school teacher was taking a spelling test in the class. I could commit to memory most of the spellings. This "charminar" somehow proved a little difficult. I wrote it on a piece of paper and slipped it into my 'pencilbox'.

The test was over, I scored well. I went home and showed the results to my dad. And I told him about the smart thing that I had just done. I said "everyone else was working hard to memorize, and I just wrote it on a piece of paper!" - at that time I did not even know that this process was called "cheating in the exam" - I thought I invented something 'cool'. Dad just got up, and I had a thrashing of my life that day. He said "if you ever cheat again, i will throw you out!".

I was very confused, because 2 minutes ago he was all smiles. And suddenly he became violent. And it was so rare that he ever beat me up. We were always the pampered kids! And I did not understand how that was "cheating". It took time and he explained to me later once he calmed down, that I should work hard for results. This is cheating because it was not fair to others!

Another incident which changed my life in the childhood - for good or bad - I stuck to the truth for a long time in my life. I never cheated in school again. There were others in my class who probably shared a 100% marks along with me in subjects like physics, maths and computers... but I openly used to say "my 100 is more valuable than yours...bcoz I earned it the right way!" Such statements made me unpopular sometimes, but I loved sticking to what I believed. To live an honest life!

Now somewhere down the lane, I know I lost all my principles. I have cheated. I have cheated and I have learnt the art of rationalization. I lied too - sometimes for the good and sometimes for my own selfish reasons.

I could not stop recalling these little incidents when I saw this hitch hiker. How I wish someone slapped me right on my face and tell me everytime I even dared to do anything wrong!

It is amazing that your minds are so impressionable at young ages. With in half hour, you could wipe out a wrong thought and replace it with such a noble feeling. It takes so much longer now though and probably sometimes you never learn too! Thats what 'growing up' does to you!

Diwali!

Diwali used to be my favorite festival as a kid. Somewhere in the process of "growing up", it appears that some indifference has crept in towards this festival of lights! So much so, that there have been a few instances of Diwali where I simply preferred to sleep all day and all night!

But this year was different. After a long gap, I was to celebrate this festival in HYDERABAD! The lights flickered and dazzled and permeated the darkness of the night. And then the sound energy refused to be left behind and the noise seemed to be in some kind of random symphony with the photons!

And we did a quick pooja - you cant get away from that in my inlaws place anyways! :)




Then we rushed downstairs and we were so eager to burst the crackers. Our neighbors had already started the fest! And while Niharika went upstairs for getting a few candles/deepas and agarbattis something caught my attention.

While the neighbors were merry making, I could not help but notice that a few young kids were sitting in a corner being spectators to the fun others were having. It was clear that they could not afford to buy crackers. They stared at the lights and were content being passively involved while everyone around them continued to burst the fanciest of crackers!

When Niharika came down I learnt that they were the watchman's kids. My first reaction was that of anger! Thank God there was no hammer in my hand at that time! I really wished one of the rockets I would light later was pointed straight into their house!

All my enthu was drained when I saw that the neighbor 'aunty' was so delighted every time her older daughter ignited a flower pot, and clapped when the younger one lit a bhoo-chakra! Now is she blind? Can't she see 4 kids sitting there with no crackers in their hands? Then the neighbor 'uncle' comes out and he makes sure 'aunty' and the kids had a great time! I kept staring at him and was almost on an impulse to say "you see these kids everyday! cant you spare 2 of those crackers for these little ones?" Something stopped me! Dont know what? May be I have been conditioned that "gentlemen do not question such things"?

When I walked upto the little kids and asked them if they wanted to join us I expected that they would just jump and grab things from me. But I was surprised with the discipline and self esteem they had. They smiled back so elegantly. While I gave them flower pots they continued smiling back and had perfect manners and courtesy to say "Thank you uncle!". This soft whisper simply overshadowed all the high decibel noise all around me! And for the first time I was not annoyed being reffered to as "UNCLE"! :P



Renuka, Monica, Parshu and Meena - having a little blast! :)


I was prepared to supervise one kid (read my wife!) but little did I realize that I would end up supervising four additional ones that night. These kids would get their sparklers to the corner where all our crackers were stacked! And one girl was so small that she was trying to light the sparkler at the wrong end!

We had a little fun, I bursted a lot of crackers myself, shared a few and watched a few more fireworks around me! It felt like a perfect diwali.

That is when I noticed this neighbor 'aunty' come forward and handover a 'pencil' each to the kids! I was happy that she finally realized that she neglected these kids who are the same age as her own little ones. Kids who happen to live right in front of her house. The same kids who would clear up all the trash the next day morning that comes out from bursting these crackers!

How I wish that I do not observe as closely as I do! I soon realized that the kids' mom was around at that time. It really hit me so hard... shame on us! We want all our actions to be acknowledged! Everything is so calculated! Now a small gesture of sharing a little piece with a kid had to be timed so well that their mother knows who has given them that little gift?

And back they went into their world. Uncle, aunty, the older daughter and their younger one! Thats all they care for! Suddenly the anger I had subsided and it was being replaced with a different feeling. Disgust may be ... and then it transformed to 'pity'!

Yes, I pity that they had lost a beautiful opportunity to teach their kids the importance of sharing what we have with the ones who are not so blessed! And then these are the same people who blame the next generation not being compassionate enough! Now... what are we teaching our kids? I walked out feeling sorry for these materially blessed but emotionally impoverished creatures!


Back to crackers and fireworks... it was a blast! Had loads of fun... and I guess all you people too had a wonderful Deepavali! :)

Catharsis!

Thoughts flow, and the words can not catch up!
Thoughts flow, and the analysis starts!
Thoughts flow, and the rational mind can not grasp!
Thoughts flow, and the rules do not accept!

Thoughts flow, Thoughts flow and Thoughts flow.
Till they break the shackles and break out to an unbridled empire!
And when they do break out, they bring a catastrophy!
A deluge so powerful and so deadly...neither it spares you nor others.

It spares not the kingdom you built.
It spares not the paradise you laid.
It spares not its own creation.
The deluge takes it all...

But dear friend,
fear not the inner thoughts,
curtail them not -for if you do,
there is no YOU anymore!

Dear friend,
Stem not the flow,
for after the savage,
a new kingdom will rise!

A kingdom superior in value systems,
A kingdom purged of all the evils,
A kingdom that will make you proud,
A kingdom built to last!

Darwin Misinterpreted!

Charles Darwin is arguably the most celebrated biologist that we know. I wonder if he would really have appreciated/realted to the theories he once enunciated and the way they are taught in school these days!

I was taught that man has shed his tail because he no longer needed it! Now, I wonder if tail was really that useless... if I had a tail I am sure I would have used it for a lot of innovative things! ;-)

Man could walk on two legs because that left his hands for other useful purposes! (now no double entendres intended there!)

Or for that matter, the peacock has 'evolved' a beautiful tail to attract the female peahen? (hmmm... and you thought I was kidding when I said a tail would be useful?)

Now... now... I remember walking along with my biology teacher to her home after school hours to 'discuss' this. I found it really hard to believe that you could 'evolve' because you 'wanted' it!

I would naively ask her "mam! I want to fly... does it mean if I want it strong enough, I actually would grow wings?" She used to smile back and say "well... evolution happens over millions of years! not in yor lifespan!"

Then my grandfather confused me even more. I guess it was his attempt to explain to me that a male dog is needed for a female dog to conceive its litter of puppies. He said "the female dog 'dreams' about her favorite male dog and the puppies are typically born like the one in her dreams!"

Well... does it mean biology happens based on what we think? Can we direct the path of its evolution?

Somehow something was missing. And I tried asking so many people... I was always such a troublesome child :P I had to question everything and I would not stop till I find a convincing answer.

Time passed. I think after a decade of hearing to those dissatisfied answers, it just dawned on me in my shower of what exactly darwin probably meant by his theory of evolution! Thank God! I was more sensible than Archimedes in reacting to this 'eureka moment' !

Things are afterall not as directed as they seem in nature. There is a great sense of comfort to the human brain in assuming and believing that things are ordered and directed. However, here is what Darwin probably proposed on how species have evolved.

Each species happily reproduces a copy of it. It is neither 'directed' nor thoughtful. Very small random mutations are bound to happen in this process. Read that carefully ... I said *random* - not 'directed' and not based on *wants/wishes*. Now of these, nature decides which of these survive and which perish!

Let me explain that with an example.. instead of taking the timeline to be millions of years, lets say a wolf in the wild hypothetically managed to have a litter of puppies with all randomly mutated genes. Lets say one had a super large tail, one makes too much noise, the other was born with 5 legs and one had super sensitive nose!

Now there is a good chance that the one with the large tail would probably perish because it is difficult to run with a large tail. And then so would be the cruel fate with the pup with 5 legs ... it can hardly move and is bound to die of hunger. The one which makes too much noise probably ends up in a predator's stomach! And the one with the super sensitive nose will probably survive and infact be able to manage more food for itself than the rest on the pack. So it not only survives and but spreads more of its mutated genes!

Now the mother wolf did not necessarily "direct" or "want" that its offspring should have sharp sensitivity to smells. It just happened randomly... absolutely random mutations and the nature then decided which one would survive!

Unfortunate that even the text books get this wrong. I had to really struggle to accept that they preach you can biologically evolve based on your wants as if its directed!

Its a random world... some survive and some dont!

Now... lets get back to the question I asked my biology teacher when I was fifteen. "Mam! Can I fly if I really want to?"

I think the answer to that is ... Yes you can! Not in the biological sense may be, but if you free your mind of all the evils and have courage in your heart...I think you can! Like they say, "some people buy crutches when in trouble, some just grow wings!"

The Silver!

Here is the medal that I received yesterday for the Tennis doubles. Silver? Content?

Well... Yes... very content and very happy.

Let me tell you why...

I started the tournament with a loss in the singles match - courtesy my dampened levels of concentration.

As the tournament progressed, I found myself in a position where I had only a very slim chance of making it to singles semis (again thanks to my repeated lapses in concentration on the court). It was not enough that I beat M, but I had to beat him with a huge margin (read that as win with out loosing a single game!!!).They had this funny scoring system for this tournament!

With three days of planning and perfect execution on the court, I somehow pulled that miracle off and I was in the mens singles semis! Wow! I was so happy about it.. I had done almost the impossible... If I were a woman, I probably would have screamed like the contestants in a beauty pageant do when they are crowned the winners! ;-) such was the ecstasy for pulling off the 'impossible'!

But this joy was to be shortlived. I had to fly to Rajasthan for 3 days and the wise men decided that they would give a walkover because I was not in Bangalore! And that meant my highway in the mens singles came to an abrupt dead end! I tried talking to them but none would listen to me. I felt it was very unfair ... specially after fighting so hard to be in the race.

For them it was a tournament. For various reasons, it was more than that for me. First, it meant a chance for me to state that I was not a rookie. I still remember when I first played in february, nobody wanted to play with me because I was a starter! And here, I had a chance to make a statement! I would learn from the web, I would see clips and tutorials on the correct way to play and I would practice the next day on the court.

But whatever... the decision was made... I was unceremoniously dropped - not because I lost, but because I wasn't in Bangalore (after informing them in advance). I was upset that day... I just walked back dejected... I have to be honest...I plotted all strategies all the way upto the finals! And I really felt quite down...

Now the doubles... I had that extra motivation to play well. We did not loose a single game till we sailed in to the finals. And when we did play finals, we lost. But suprisingly I wish to celebrate this loss. For, I knew I played my best tennis... and I gave it my best.

This tournament for me was not just about any other event. At the start of the tournament I was suffering from serious lapses in concentration... sharp drop in my focussing ability. Not just on the court, but somehow life in general seemed to have come to have been stuck in doldrums. And I was struggling to set sail... confidence was hit... self esteem had been dented and then when the winds did seem to flow, I soon realized they were blowing in the wrong direction!
I was trying to control my thoughts... I was trying to train my mind... and it wouldnt listen. It would stray everywhere ... to places where it ought not! And then, I declared... the day I can play my tennis back again with full intensity and concentration on the court, I would consider that as a litmus test that things are back on track again!

Yes... I lost... but I lost not because of my lack in focus. I lost not because I played with less vigour... but because I had a truely formidable attack from the other side of the court! And hence I believe my bigger battle in life seems to be moving on the right track.

The incidents also reminded me again that some 'random events' just happen and can rock you down if you are not careful! Sometimes people just decide "this is how we behave... no arguments!" and you could get perturbed by that. But I am happy with the way I put that 'unfair event' in singles behind me and moved on with the doubles match... giving it everything I had!

And then ... who are these guys after all? Arent these the guys I play and bump into every morning. Does it really matter who wins the gold?

Perhaps sometimes you get greater joy when you see people close to you win even if it means you have to settle for a silver! For you see, happiness is contagious!
Cheers to the spirit of the sport!

Richie Rich!

I was taken aback! when a girl in a luxury car from quite an affluent background once remarked that she was from a 'middle class' family!

What is this tendency with all of us to believe that we belong to the middle class? I think if you are reading this blog, in my world you are rich! It means you have money enough to buy a laptop, connect to the net and have the time to read this! And if you do that, I probably think you will be in the top 1% of the country in terms of being blessed with enough materialistic comforts!

So why do we complain we are not rich? Why do we crib about not enough opportunities for growth in India?

And here is my explanation... When I started working, all my friends had similar salaries. Now at that time I declared I will consider myself rich when I hit the 6 digit figure per month. And then sometime in my career when I did hit that figure I still thought that there is more scope to earn!

Why ? Because along with me my friends also started making similar money. And I made new friends on the way in the new strata - not necessarily intentionally. So you always benchmarking with the peer group you belong to. And every time you make more money, so is the peer group! And hence you eternally are thinking of making more money!

Now.. dont think that I do not like money! Money can buy a lot of things. It can buy you even life! Its been a shocking revelation to me that life is unequal and biased towards people who have money at their disposal. If something happens to me, I can afford to spend to save my life... and hence my chances of survival in this world increase compared to let us say so many other people who languish to death because they can't afford treatment!

When you realize that you should compare yourself with the average man of this country then you suddenly realized how blessedly rich you are! I proudly, gladly say that I am rich ...
While I am on my way to make a pitch to a customer, I am thinking in 7 digits and when I look out of the car and see the guy selling socks on the road... he is thinking of what he is going to eat the next 7 days! Its a matter of survival for him... is it a matter of just stacking more notes for me? Perhaps what I earn is a merely a symbol by which my success is measured... but for him it takes care of his hunger!

Why am I the lucky one to be in a position to afford good education and why not this guy on the roadside? Why does he have to address me 'sir'? I am sure he is as intelligent as I am, just that he did not have the right opportunities.

We are not the middle class... we are the rich ... the lucky rich ... now I think its time where I search myself and ask what I can do back for the society/nature who has chosen to pamper me at the expense of so many others!

I have been hibernating for years... but last few months have been propelling me into unknown thoughts and something tells me that when time knocks I shall walk a very different path. Till then I get myself equipped so that I shall be prepared to answer that call!

Expectations

Bhagwad Gita talks about attachment being the primary cause of all unhappiness. Be it attachment to materialistic assets or attachment to people, love, life... whatever the object of attachment, it is bound to cause unhappiness someday.

If expectations cause discontentment and unhappiness do we bar expectations from our lives? I have not fully read Bhagwad Gita yet and I do not know what the suggestion the Great Book has for us on this regard. But this is what I think I would follow for my life.

Do I stop expecting? Heck No! Because with out expectation there is no progress. Because with out expectation there is no goal. Goals and expectations go hand in hand. The minute you have a goal, to achieve it is nothing but an 'expectation'. With out goals, you would just end up vegetating - being useful neither to you nor to the society around you.

Parents expect their children to do well. Mother is expected to give her purest form of love to her kids. A husband is expected to act in the best interest of his family. A wife is expected to keep the family happy. A boss is expected to run the organization and live upto the expectations of the people who look upto him for professional guidance. A brother is expected to help his sister. A friend is expected to be there for you when you need him the most. Expectations.. expecations ... expectations.. everywhere! Nothing wrong with it at all!

Honestly, if people expect something from me, it would make me happier. They think I am capable of delivering it! And if I think someone is close enough to me, I wont mind even if that expectation morphs into a demand!

If people expect you to share your affection with them, again, it means they think you are important enough for them to seek that attention from you. So why is it that expectations seem to be treated with a negative connotation? As if its a burden?

But then dont expectations bring about disappointments? No they dont! Its not the expectations ... it is how we react when expectations are not lived up to! So the culprit is not the expectations... but the way we choose to react when those silent promises get broken!

My take on unconditional love is to continue to love the person for what he/she is - irrespective of whether he/she lives up to your expectations. Love the person for what he/she is - not for whether he/she could live upto your expectations. For if you start reacting only to how well he/she is measuring up to what you anticipated from him/her, you effectively are demeaning the whole relationship. As one of you beautifully said "its an encroachment of urself on others life".

When you attempt something in life, put your full heart into it. Do your best - expect the result... BUT do not react if the result does not go in your favor!

I expect only the best from the people I know... The more I admire them the more intense are my expectations... However, I have been learning to supress the hurt if those expectations are not met. This is one skill I was not gifted naturally! So its a lot of hardwork and is still work in progress. But I will continue to work on it.

I wish to have only the best and the most sincere feelings for all those people who matter to me... and they will always continue to matter to me irrespective of 'expectations mismatch'!

I am Hot!

8 pm - time for evening shower. Being a thursday, Niharika requested (read demanded) that I go to the temple with her. As we walked to the temple, I started my little practice of what I have been learning over the last three weeks!

The short walk to the temple, and I started focusing on the breeze that was hitting me. Cool and pleasant and soothing... it was a fantastic experience. I was focusing on how my skin was reacting to the gentle touch of the breeze - comparing with the experience my muscles reacted to the warm water caressing my body in the shower a few minutes ago. As we walked, I attempted to feel the fabric on my body ... I was trying to awaken all my senses. (I was practising that for weeks now!) ... Thanks to the patient, incessant followup by my Guru! :)

There were some bhajans happening in the temple... As I do not believe in prayers of that sort I sat down in the corner and started meditating. I was chanting the mantra, I was trying to watch my mind. The way thoughts were flowing in, and flowing out. I was feeling the way my shirt felt on my body. And simultaneously I could hear voices around me in such crystal clear effects... It was better than the Dolby effect at the Forum!

I am not kidding.. just the day before when I meditated at home, I could hear birds chirping (yes.. in bangalore!) and I could hear the water drops in such amplified levels.... I never realized that these were being filtered off on other days! :)

And then as a parallel lifestyle change, I am trying hard towards unconditional love. I must confess that I find the path difficult because I have to clear out so many cobwebs in my nervous system first. Lets just say that it is a 'work in progress'.

With the attempts I make, my mind seems to be finding peace.

And ... And... yesternight in the temple, while I sat down and was absorbed in meditation and observing my mind, I felt heat flowing in my body from the air around me. Suddenly I realized the number of thoughts flowing in were reducing drastically. I could sense that my energy levels were going up.Flat two minutes and my hands were warm... or so I felt. I hit the peak of focusing... or atleast I felt so.

After a few minutes I opened my eyes. I was seeing the world around me in different colors! The vision seemed to suddenly have become brighter and the shades seem to be more crisp! I was not too sure if I was dreaming...

For me .. for a techie ... for someone who loves to explain everything using science, chemicals, reactions - this was not something I would take without verifying and confirming. So instant reaction ... was to touch my cheeks... and yes .. my palms were HOT!

I almost dismissed it as a 'psychological' effect. I touched Niharika who was sitting next to me as if a gesture to "lets go"... and she exclaimed "why are your palms so hot?"

The definition!

We use the word 'random' so often, but it suddenly stuck me if such a thing exists? I tried to question what exactly do we mean by something being 'random'?

If a particle's next 'state' can be any one of the defined states with equal probability then do we say that such a particle is in random motion? It has to switch from its current state to the next one for sure... but which exact state can not be predicted! Not a bad start for a definitin I guess!

But here is my problem with this definition. You as an 'observer' are not capable of predicting the next state of the particle... doesn't mean that the particle/(forces around it) does not know where it is heading! Let me explain that...

Imagine the start of this Universe. It is widely believed that the Universe started with a Big Bang. There was nothing before Big Bang (in fact the concept of time started with Big Bang!). Even in Occidental thinking, the world seems to be born out of Sound (Om).

Let me simplify the situation and say that the big bang produced only two particles instead of this entire complex universe. Now these two particles are expected to obey all the laws of physics (well I always wondered why they should... but then ... we believe they do on a time invariant basis! - a ball dropped will bounce back today as it used to bounce back a 100 years ago and as it will bounce back 100 years from now!). In such a case, every particle's next move is predictable based on the laws of physics and their interaction with each other! This state of the particle will predict its next state and the new state should predict the next and so on.... So I wonder if anything in this Universe is truely Random! Everything can perhaps be dictated by its previous state (vis-a-vis the state of the system to which it belongs to).

Let me make that rant simpler... it is the inability of the observer to understand why certain things behave in a certain fashion that brings in the concept of randomness!

For example, to a lay-man on the street the stock exchange phenomena is a random up and down motion! For most of us economies up turn and down turns may be random phenomena! As you unravel and have more deeper insights into these systems, the degree of randomness seems to come down! There seems to be some directed movement and you seem to see trends in what you once felt were haphazard motions!

I was breaking my head when help came in from a friend. I asked him what he thought about randomness and pat came the reply - "There have been research thesis submitted for PhDs to define randomness in absolute terms! So just chill!"

Having said all this, try predicting human emotions and how people deal with you ... and thats where I wonder if 'randomness' does exist - or perhaps I dont understand the emotional landscape that well!