My Life, A Cocktail

A lot of times in life we come across problems, thoughts, processes, protocols that we don’t quite agree with. At the same time, the society abides by them, and you are firmly asked to comply. The mind offers resistance, and we either succumb to our resistance or to the external pressure. Whichever path we choose, the resistance continues to remain. Resistance, a lot of times, hinders learning. Not all things in life are as straight forward as object oriented programming or E-R diagrams. Not a lot of people see sense in objects and classes when they first begin to learn OOPs. But they are forced through the learning process, whether they agree with the concepts or not. It is when the learning gets much deeper that you start recognizing the finer aspects, understand and appreciate objects and their attributes and their functionality. What I am trying to say here is, the basic components in any theory may not be attractive, may not be convincing, but where they fit in the whole model is ...

Yes, I am learning music. Again. Finally. Some interesting conversations that happened in yesterday’s class. I asked, “How can anyone identify the Sur involved in a piece of music, when the concept of Sur is totally relative?” He told me it is one of the most difficult problems in music. People consider the Tanpura as some sort of standard, but it isn’t completely accurate. The solution is being researched, but he said he believed it was one of those non-computable problems. Reminded me of the good great Halting Problem. We were trying to sing different surs in random order. Ofcourse, we faltered. He said, “Understand the problem statement. And then strategize.” We saw we could easily break down the random order into pieces we had already learnt and that made it so much easier to sing. Association and Disassociation. I have always believed, Science, Religion, Spirituality, Art, Music, all these weren’t created to individually exist. They all support each other in some way or the other.

It’s not a movie that people would flock to watch. No, it has no glitz, no glamour. It is possibly the kind of movie you pick up, when you’ve roamed the aisles of the video shop for too long, and are angry and frustrated with the illusion of too much choice. You don’t want to return empty handed after having spent so long, so you just pick up ‘some’ damn movie. The movie times back to the early 19th century and is about this man who waits for the girl he loves. No big deal, huh? Well, he falls in love in his twenties, and waits till about the time he is 70 years old, he waits for her husband to die to be with her again. Come on, no one can be that stupid, isn’t it a plain waste of one’s life, you may want to ask. Yes, it seemed stupid at first to me too. And then from that secret corner of my brain, a thought long thought about, cast aside only coz it never completely made sense, presented itself, this time with a new dress of reason, in a new form. It said to me, “People are different...

All day, I sensed this feeling inside me, like I had a news, a news that I wanted to share with my boss. Only, I didn’t know what the news was. Something inside me kept urging me to scrape my brain to try and remember that piece of news. I tried and tried, but nothing came to mind. Eventually, I concluded that it probably was in a dream where I had heard some news that I thought I would go and share with my boss. That happened many days before. Sometimes, even today, I want to remember that news. Dreams can feel more real than you can imagine. I remember back in school when I had this dream, where I meet this friend of mine in a bookstore, dressed in a navy blue fur coat. I had touched the coat in my dream, and till today, can sense its softness. And when you dream such dreams, you start to question. Your concept of reality, your concept of illusions. And somewhere down the line, you come to the conclusion that all that is, is perception. Nothing’s real, nothing’s an illusion. The powe...

My hubby was fresh when he got up after his afternoon nap. I asked, “Do you want to go for a movie?” He replied, “What time is the Bank Job?” We were off. We reached there just in time, about 8 minutes before the movie started. We bought tickets, nachos and a large drink. All set. It was a good movie. Based on a true story, it uncovers some dirty secrets as a handful of smart thieves go about looting the safe deposits of a bank. I will not go more into the details. We came out. My hubby said, “How about another movie?” I say, “Ok!” We grab a quick subway sandwich, and are back to the theatre for the next show. For the movie “21”. With a pack of M & Ms. It was a nice movie too. Its about a bunch of MIT students counting cards to make money in the casinos of Las Vegas. It was 1 am. There weren’t any more shows for the night. So we came back home.

Some things you just know. I don’t believe people when they say reason your life out. I think there is more to life that can’t be explained or justified by reasons alone. Like a dear friend used to say, “Man is a meaning-making machine.” Quite so. When I asked another dear friend if he knew what that one gift would be that I would want to get him, he knew the answer right away. When something reminded him of me months later, I knew exactly what it was. When a friend wanted to say something to me, I dreamt about him. When I dreamt about a co-worker quitting, he quit. The day I mentioned to a friend how much I loved macademia covered chocolates, two huge boxes of those chocolates were laid on my office kitchen table. The day I suggested a friend to pursue higher studies, two other friends suggested to him the same. I like to believe it is that power that unites us all. Some call it vibes, some telepathy, others coincidences. I like to think there are things that can be influenced by the ...

It was not about a week back that we heard about this amusement park from a relative. Hazy descriptions of some of the rides were enough to get me all charged up and bug my hubby to plan a trip. It was going to be Saturday. It is called the Great America Parkway and is located in Santa Clara, off 101. Simply put, our backyard. We reached at about 11 and it took us a while to get our tickets and go through the security checks. We had no clue what laid ahead. Invertigo ‘Thrilling’ is not the word. It takes you up to a reasonable height, and in no time you have descended the slant at a head spinning speed, and are now twisting and turning through the glistening yellow rails you had looked at wonderstruck while you waited in the queue. At that speed, you turn a whole 360 degrees and you don’t realize it until after a while, you try to keep your head still, you have no clue whatever happened to your arms and legs. And then it suddenly stops. Before the world comes dawning upon you, the coas...