Applying calculus to Relationships

Recently I was wondering, what is the cause for unhappiness? What can't one be ever happy? The answer to that was simple. Its the value we attach to people ,the things we own and our surroundings. We might lose the things we own, the surroundings may change, but "most of the time" its simple to comfort us with new ones. Now, the people, that's the hard part. Some we care about, some we love, we may pride our acquaintances, but the bottom line is its all about relationships. And these are too complicated.

Marriage is a pinnacle of such relationships, it has reached a level of sanctity that is hard to contaminate. The older the relationship gets, the more it tends to be like a marriage. You know all the things that you love and hate about the other person. You compromise when you can, more than that you need not shy away from talking about most things. The farthest are the acquaintances. After a certain age, I personally feel our screening process will have gotten so tough that its almost impossible any such new acquaintances/ friendships are allowed to blossom.

The basic fact however is, relationships are fragile. I had assumed that the breaking point is inversely proportional the length of relationships. But I was proved wrong in a number of instances. Then I had to rethink, its not just the length, but also the foundation. The lesser materialistic it is the stronger it gets.

So back to where I started, Is happiness in nothingness? Yes it is. But I have come to realize that you need to lose something to get to know its value. I think the same applies to happiness too. The human greed is in us after all. Sometimes I dream what if John Lennon's Imagine song comes to life. How ever I try to process it, I feel it is an impossible model to sustain.

Introspection

Its been a long time since I was last here. I am out of the hangover now and no longer excited about US, the dust finally settled! Oh by the way I got a new degree (Kudos to me!), started working again, this time as a developer which I am enjoying very much. As I started at Cisco, my aim was not to repeat the mistakes which i did during my last tenure, hence my first task was self development. I thought a lot about it, and the mistake i did again was I assumed self development equals career development and so it started.

Initially it was just my love towards the new kernel development book by Robert Love; then I don't know when I entered a whirlpool that brought so many changes in my life. It began by asking questions to myself, questions regarding my fears, my addictions, my lifestyle. It was high time, I answer them. First I had to work on the first two. It was the hardest last couple of months that I ever experienced, needed utmost dedication, but as I stand now I accomplished what I set myself for. One of the best things that my friend told me was about "closure". I remember in one of the friend's episodes, Rachel tells Ross that she needs closure. That term had always eluded me, but now i know what she meant. It is needed in life, infact very much. Now I feel good that, although I admired many but never fell in love, I don't think i could have handled it very well! Then my lifestyle, the third, started out with small workouts, but soon realized workout benefits can be seen only by tuning my eating habits. It was challenging at first, but you would be surprised to know I haven't missed a healthy breakfast at 7, in last three months.

Last month I got a new car, a new Mazda 3 i Touring. I am loving it! Got my Hubli home renovated, one of my proudest moments! Although so many things changed, I realized I am not content. I mean truly content. When I got a new car, I thought I would be extremely happy since it would be the first car in my family, but truth is I was not. I needed to buy that laptop, that smartphone and so on. I mean is life all about running behind something or the other all the time? Its like you get married, then you need to buy a house, then kids, then their school, college, their marriage and the list goes on. I had a hour long talk with my mom last night about the same. She had some very good suggestions actually.

Yes, Life means running behind something, it never stops. At any age it does not, we always want something new, something different, something exciting, something more, may be its all a part of being human but one thing we should never forget is after accomplishing something take a little time to sit down, pat yourself, share it with others. Success is important but make sure your feet stick to the ground, don't lose hold of yourself. Competition and success are important but make sure never gain happiness at the expense of others sadness. It will never make you content, truly content I mean!

Oh its 12 already! Have to go to Target, Ross, valley fair mall, Indian store where the hell is my list! And it starts all over again :)

Oxymoronic Songs

Some interesting observations about songs I made recently. These are songs with lyrics in which, in each line the poet uses completely opposite phrases to express the feelings. Although it sounds impossible, well poets have done a marvelous job in creating some unforgettable lyrics.

I dont know what these kind of songs are called. I just coined the term "oxymoronic songs". I would love to know if you know more such songs.

First one is "She", written by Charles Aznavour. I particularly liked its rendition by Elvis Castello,
Below is a glimpse of it (Here is complete lyrics)

She may be the beauty or the beast 
May be the famine or the feast 
May turn each day into a Heaven or a Hell 
She may be the mirror of my dreams 
A smile reflected in a stream 
She may not be what she may seem 
Inside her shell....

Second is the song from Mungaru Male, Ivanu Geleyanalla, written by Jayanth Kaikini,
Below is a glimpse of the lyrics, (Here is the complete lyrics)

olava haadiyalli, ivanu nanage hoovu mullu
manada kadalinalli, ivanuu aleyoo bheekara suliyo
ariyadantha hosa kampanavo, yaakoo kaanenu
arita mareta jeeva, vaaladante ivana kadege
sooladante kaaye manave, ulisu nannanu

Third is a title track of the Tamil movie "Kannathil Muthamittal".
Below is a glimpse of the lyrics and its translation, (Here is the complete lyrics)

yenadhu sondham nee, yenadhu pagaiyum nee
kadhal malarum nee karuvil muLLum nee
cheLLa mazhaiyum nee, chiNNa idiyum nee
pirandha udalum nee, piriyum uyirum nee


You are my akin as well as my foe,
the flower of love and a thorn in the womb,
the cherished rain and the clouting thunder,
a neonate body as well as an aching death

Two Minds...

Only some of the opinions in this post are mine most are general.
Apologies for those who feel the opinions are narrow/shallow, I would surely be interested to read more in your post.
And this is not a post to state people in India are not happy. I was there, and was happy :)

Life is fascinating when it comes with surprises. But the most important part is how does one define surprises. An analogy; an interesting movie when you least expected it, a bright sunny day amidst a biting winter, an impromptu trip or family reunion can be enthralling surprises. What about a sudden power cut, a sudden meet up with corrupt government officials, unexpected traffic, self/stranger property woes, an unforeseen riot, chain of government scandals that make our morning tea interesting. Although at that point in time we detest these situations, later we do laugh about these. So does it mean we forcing ourselves to enjoy them because we can't fight them?

Lately I have been pondering over the common question of why people choose US over India. So did i digress earlier? I don't think so. Everybody loves India and they must, not just because it their motherland but so many emotions, memories are tied to it. Growing up in India most of them learnt how to struggle for almost anything and everything. With the government adding more woes than reliefs in the name of reservations, corruption, illiteracy, nepotism, lack of infrastructure etc etc. But being a young Indian one is not supposed to just talk but stand up and fight for a change to usher an new era. Because we are tuned to think nothing is impossible. Its not that nobody does anything about it, we do take steps/support in our own and unique ways to bring that change. The size of involvement however is left to the person. Time is also a factor, as it may take multiple decades to achieve the impossible. But seriously talking how many are ready to give up a considerable portion of their lives to stand up for what in actual is their duty?

Every one has their own family and so many dreams of their parents that have kept on piling, they all need their share of happiness, they need their money and their space. I think at a certain point one begins to think why can't I live a better life when it is possible. The primary reason for this is the greedy mindset of the people there. Its not a wrong thing, probably it one of the things that make us so competitive and it may be attributed to our early struggles in life that I was talking about earlier. They realize that they have worked extremely hard to reach a point in life and of a little sacrifice can take them to a better place where they could live in peace, everyone would certainly like that . Don't they? The problems that the nation is facing are so deep rooted that the probability of one becoming a sacrifice rather than a hero is too high. I do want to make myself think in an optimistic way here but even a hard try could not make me think otherwise.

Greet USA. Life is truly speaking comfortable here. People mind their own business. The government has created such a ecosystem that people are just content all the time. Even I was puzzled when I got the internet/electricity/water connections the same day. Not to forget the fact that it was my third day in a foreign country. The number of problems in any other place would run in thousands. Its not just this, the surprises kept pouring in, their marvelous education system, merciless use of technology in everything and the pace at which anything gets done, the impeccable organization of things, the amount of perfection in which they maintain even the smallest of the tourist place, and not to forget the nicety of the people. More than any of this as I have seen one fact that it true that many of my colleagues/friends/strangers will agree. 'If you have money, you are the king here'. Yes, everything is just so easily affordable.

Things here are just simplified to the core, they are made beautiful to the point at which everything seems artificial, without life. This is the time when the second set of surprises(the dark ones) seem to feel more life like. This can be attributed to a simple fact that "without pain one can never understand the meaning of happiness". And here it is just too much of happiness. I have seen a lot of people here who miss these dark surprises. But do they really? is a matter of perspective. After this slowly things start becoming more clearer, they start seeing the sacrifices they have made w.r.t may be family, relatives, friends etc and they realize that their whole life was all about running after money and materialistic comforts. These and many more such factors speeds up the return to the country of birth.

So what is the right thing to do? Who are the people who made the ethical choice? Frankly, I have no idea. The debate is endless. Lets just assume everyone is right and lets all be content.

The Three Musketeers

It was 5 PM ,Aramis was yet to arrive. Athos and Porthos were waiting for him as always. They had planned to go to GD just minutes before; as they always believed in impromptu plans. All of'em loved the Dosas there, it was lip smacking good. Finally Aramis arrives with a reasoning, What to do? Some work at home. Athos and Porthos did'nt want to waste time in another meaningless discussion and also because Beega hoodree beegaa barbahudu. They quietly start walking towards the busstop. Aramis puts up another offer "Shall we take an auto,it almost works out the same?". The other two walk as though they did not hear anything, while Aramis is busy with his calculations. They reach the busstop, the bus is late, although Athos was considered lucky, the combined unluck of Aramis and Porthos worked the other way. As they board the bus sudden change of plans; lets hit KM first, the arabic grape juice is just too good, and Athos gets a good reason to have some amazing chicken shaurma rolls.

As they are sipping the grape juice, Porthos reminds Aramis that he has to return him the scissors. This was because certain events that are classified as unlucky according to the three were happening with Porthos, and they strongly believed the scissors were the reason. Unlucky events such as: He is getting lot of calls from Rogi and Kris, his 10 year old cell suddenly stops working, the mall he goes to is not open yet as in at 10 AM, he went to the bus-stop at 6PM and the bus had not arrived (The bus was at 9PM and not that he had misread). So well what do you say? He was unlucky ain't he ? Yes, the scissors were magical!

All three were hardcore movie buffs. Matrix, LOTR, Bommarilu, JWM and DCH. Well lets hope one of them has watched one of these movies today (BTW Do you know what hope means? Hope... It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness). Guess what!!! the probability is 1.
Then while on their way to GD, some things they discussed were:
Do you know Mikhail Jackson is dead?
Big Bang theory for sure. Penny must feature in one of those.
DMG and MJHT of are top priority.
XKCD, quiz questions, C&H, FRIENDS.
Although Aramis would bring up some esoteric topics other two would make sure to give a blind nod.

While eating dosas at GD, one thing to keep deeply rooted in mind is the faster you eat the major portion you get, from your plate and also others plate.
Then all three headed to "show off" usually. Most of the clothes there fitted Aramis well and he would always go for more gaudy stuff. The whole point of the store was it is good entertainment. Not just good but fantabulous I might add. Coming out of the store, did anyone spot a corn shop on the roadside? Well its out of the world, if the one your ordered is the most delayed, but more important than that is you must not forget to run like a mad man on the road, once you get your order.

Oh well, now what street are they on? Does it have to happen every time that they get lost in the Jayanagar maze? Well some how it does. All one needs to do is trace back to Cool Joint. Softee there is just 5 bucks and how can one miss the Canola just beside. Did someone say something about the hitting the book store on the way. Oops sorry that came out of the other ear.

Life's just good, too good they thought. Atleast, once a month let Jayanagar happen, they wished. I don't know how but just roaming around can get them high. Or if they are so wasted to walk, they would get in long queue to get some butter dosas at Maiya's.
Well, now that its been almost an year, its time to plan one more soon. What say a hangover at Vegas around August 2012. Lets hit it guys!

-Ateeunmeelithanetraananda

Why do we judge people..?

It is in our nature to judge the people around us. We judge the way our friends act in public. If they ignore our wishes, we think they are disrespectful. If a friend misses a few social occasions, we deem him a miser or a loner. Choices of a person are considered distasteful if his suggested book, movie, song or play do not align with "our thinking at that point of time". If a child commits a crime we deem their parents unfit. A hard working person is labeled as anti-cool. A thoughtful person is assumed boring. If someone deviates from a suggested path he is registered as acting-too-smart/he-is-making-a-wrong-decision. We make these judgments all the time – never thinking that one day we may be judged ourselves.

The most terrible thing about this is we never realize we are judging others on the surface, but the impact of this is so hardcoded in our brain that we almost become opinionated about them. But what happens when we finally stop for a moment and judge our own lives. It can be painful to step back and see what we have been doing. And even more painful to realize that we have no intentions of stopping.

New New year ...

Last year went like a breeze. With so many surprises, so many wonderful things, it was a great year. Some moments off the top of my head,

Last Cisco trip; My bro-in-law completing his MS and into a new job; Visited my sister after 2 years; my first flight journey; my cousin got engaged; I quit my first job (a pretty big step actually); Moved to a new country; enjoying my studies; getting better at cooking; made lot of new friends; A surprise letter from my mom;

One of the major steps I may say is I am "completely" independent now. While in Bangalore I had some dependency, but here its me for everything. For every right I have to pat my back, and for every wrong its me to blame. Its quite an experience.

Let the surprises of 2010 begin..

Some of my new resolutions..
1] I will not start watching any new US TV series. Will follow only the ones i have watched till now. Because I am up to date with the ones I am watching.
2] Read history and geography more. (I have started this one actually)
3] Will continue to remain updated on new technology.
4] Will open my Facebook and Orkut page only once per day.
5] Will focus more on looking culture from a scientific perspective. And i have started reading Mahabharath back.
6]This semester will work harder.
7]Will continue updating my english song collection.
8] Will add to this list..