Haridwar...

Dear River...


Saffron...


The girl in pink...


Ganga-mayyaa ki jai ho!...


Haridwar. Another place i fleetingly dipped in, in transit. There are so many places like that. That i managed to pause, take a look, before moving on (When you are on a highway, and you see these narrow lefts with jaded signboards announcing obscure names, do you wonder about that place and the people there, and have the urge to take that turn?). And almost all of them have left indelible marks behind. Because of the brevity, maybe. Had a day to kill and i had to choose between Taj Mahal and Haridwar. Laziness and the Delhi-heat helped me settle for Haridwar.

I wanted to take a dip in the Ganges(Har-ki-paudi) and witness the Ganga-aarathi. When i go to a place of prominence for the first time, i always do the things people typically go there for. Explorations of 'beynond the typical' would happen on future trips. So i took a Rickshaw to Har-ki-paudi. I would've normally walked.But walking was all i had done for an entire month. So decided to pamper myself a bit.

I got off at Har-ki-paudi. Saw the Ganges rushing by. Wandered around aimlessly. A 'Sadhu' walked upto me, put a Tilak on my forehead, chanted something in Sanskrit. Then he asked me for money. I smiled at him in response. He had a very serene face. He smiled back and walked on. I regretted not having parted with some money. But i wouldn't have liked it if i had paid him either. So it was alright. Then i decided to take a dip. The water was quite cold. But not unbearably cold. What hit me was the speed, the swiftness of the flow. Was in the waters for a while, letting the Ganges cleanse me(for me, only in the literal sense)...

And then it was time for Ganga-aarathi. Happens twice a day. At 7 am and 7 pm. It was a frenzied affair. I was unprepared for the kindof collective energy being vented out. It was impossible to keep myself from feeling one with the things around me. There was a moment's envy when i saw people whose faith was so nakedly visible. There were uniformed guys hawking wishes from Ganga-Mayya, 100 bucks per wish. There were quite a lot of buyers. There were a couple of firangs capturing Indian mysticism for other firangs. And then there was this little girl in pink, holding a pink and green camera. She was a darling. She befriended me with an array of curious questions. And then she asked the firang about his camera. And for every response of his, she claimed her camera could do that too. I actually felt paternal. Took me by surprise. The actual aarathi was a visual treat. The darkness and the fire. It ended with the entire crowd singing a Bhajan on Ganga-mayyaa in chorus (the tune was that of the Bhajan 'Om Jai Jagadeeshahare', which i love). I got a high.

I sat by the river for some more time. I walked back to my hotel room rather slowly. Original plan was to go to a bar, get a drink and then crash. But i wanted to stay in a totally conscious state. Didn't want the blur of alcohol at that point. So i went to a restaurant instead, ate, spoke to M (who was on vacation in Delhi), and got back to 'English August'...

This experience increased my resolve to see Allahabad's Kumbh Mela atleast once...

Unrequited...

He wants her so bad that his entire life centres around her. Or so he thinks. For her, he is a very dear friend. But she can never return his love, on equal terms. He wants to hug her so tight that they be one. That no air pass between them. At times, she suffocates around him. And is too nice and polite to speak her mind.

They sit huddled. Under a thin ice shelter. In blazing sunlight. She feels miserably lonely. He feels lonely too. But just being around her is enough for him. To hang on and hope. She cant bring herself to hurt him. She cant get up and walk. Though a voice inside her head is screaming at her. Asking her to flee. Some day she will.

But why dont they sit at a table and talk. And not pretend. Why cant he confront her with what he truly wants. Why cant she tell him the truth. In honest unabridged terms. And bring his world crashing down. So that he can grow up. So that he can pick up the pieces and move on. Nobody totally moves on. But the process would've atleast begun. And maybe, a semblance of the friendship they used to share can be salvaged.

...Certified...

Our rope with our rope-instructor at the base camp(2nd from left would be me)..



The NIM basic course certificate arrives at work. Had given the office address. Mom is away in sister-land and I am never home. Did not want this to be lost like the innumerable phone bills and credit card bills. Ashwani (the guy who sits next to me and to whom most letters/calls meant for me go...sometimes they call him Avinash too…and of course sometimes I am called Ashwani…is it too difficult to tell the difference?) had collected the cover. He hands it over to me. I take it from him saying that the grade would mostly be a ‘B’. My usual defense mechanism against prospective disappointments. If you want something pretty badly, start by assuming you wouldn’t get it. I ought to change this aspect of myself. It prepares me better for disappointments. But I think at some level it makes me less of a fighter. Of course not everything can be fought for and won. But still…So I open the cover. I have butterflies in my stomach. A voice in my head is crying out aloud ‘Please please be A!’. I have the kind of anxiety I had while looking up semester results in college. May be a little more. Much more actually. I fish out the certificate. There, among other things, it is mentioned “Grading Awarded: A”, “Recommended for Advanced Mountaineering course”. I am thrilled to bits. I think the last time I was this thrilled was when I saw my registration number when PEC entrance exams results were announced. I bask in the glory for a few moments. Someone has a work related query. I answer it. I get on with real life. But a corner of my mind is still smiling…And wondering if I should be doing the Advanced…If I should be subjecting my back to one more stress test…And if I do, should I be going back to NIM or try out HMI Darjeeling (and set feet on Kanchenjunga:)…

Of Pigeons, Sex and looking out the window...

Outside my office window there sits a pigeon. It sits there all day. Looking at the buildings around. Looking at the traffic below. Scratching itself. Making noises. Once in a while another pigeon comes by. They fool around. One sits on top of the other and flaps its wings mad. I think they’ve sex. It is too brief though, so I cant be sure. I am not sure if it is the same pigeon that comes in every time. Are pigeons monogamous? NGC covers only outlandish beings like Polar-bears and Penguins. Has anyone ever seen a program on Crows or Sparrows or Pigeons on NGC or Animal Planet? Aroon in one of his sketches has a boy looking at a fish-tank and wondering “All fishes do is eat, sleep and reproduce. Why do people have to do more?”. The pigeons remind me of this.

Recently, a clichéd (but not insignificant) question floated around at work, about what one would do if he/she had only a day left to live. Most guys said they wanted to attain Moksha (which is an euphemism for ‘having sex’, yea considering how old we guys were theres no need for euphemisms...but it adds to the fun while discussing such stuff). The only girl who said something, said she’d meet all her friends, take them to her hometown, be with her parents etc. I am just assuming she wasn’t being absolutely honest. I am a bundle of contradictions in the Moksha department. There is this (pseudo?)morality hardwired that prevents me from committing the act unless I am sure I want to commit myself to that person. But i find it ok for people to be in a full blown mutually non-commital relationship (that's a contradiction in so many levels :). I can't be them, but i can't fault them either. I am a fan of grey. But was dipped in black and white very young, and for too long, to fully embrace grey. And it is not about marriage or any such technicality (I don’t find the need to legalize relationships), it is just about the state of mind and what one feels towards another. Maybe some day I’ll wriggle out of this state of mind and agree with a friend who says “What the heck, it is just entertainment…why attach so much weight to it?” (though i dont realistically see myself trivializing the act to this extent), or maybe, though not as ‘liberated’ in thought, take a middle ground, or maybe someday tread the ideal path.

Hedonistic Hobo (a random blog that I am a fan of) writes “Look sex is a biological need, not a moral question. If you've entered in to adolescence and are now careening in to elderliness and are still a virgin then you're fucked but not in the way evolution intended.” I smile. I agree. I disagree. I’ve been standing on this border eternally and time has been passing by…

Uttarkashi..

I like small towns. Touristy ones. Quaint ones. Rameshwaram, Hampi, Mahabalipuram, Pondicherry, Gokarna, Yaelagiri, Manali... They're filled with people from far and wide. People of different kinds. Some, energitically running around to squeeze in all the places they had read about, in a 2 day span. Some, sitting back sipping tea and drinking words out of a book. The hippie kind. Without a fixed agenda. Sitting in exotically named eateries that prefer white-skinned customers to brown-skinned ones. You could walk around. Taking in all this. Putting stories to faces. Wondering if India is the only place where the natives are racist against the natives. Wondering a lot of other things. But the air is very holidayee and it is generally nice. The obvious reason is probably that you would be there on a break, and you are predisposed to feel holidayee...but still..

Happened to spend some time in Uttarkashi recently. While at NIM hostel, we were allowed two 3 hour slots in Uttarkashi town for 'shopping'. The objective was to buy essentials before going to the higher altitudes. I was not inclined to shop. So generally walked around town. Ate veg momos in multiple shops. Drank multiple teas. Took random pictures. Sat by the Bhagirathi. Gaped at beautifully arranged coconut slices, arranged against a bright red plastic sheet. Did not take a picture cos i thought i might offend the shop-keeper (i dint want him to go, 'here comes another fkin tourist taking pictures of ppl trying to make a living!'). Bought a slice of coconut and ate though. Then there was this long suspension bridge across Bhagirathi. And the omnipresent Sadhus. Quite a few of them smoking what i beleive is ganja, on a terrace by the river. Pseudo-nirvana. Temporary suspension of reality. Not that it is bad. Quantum smokes of heaven? Tried it once in a far away land. Gives a weird kindof high. Then there was this small temple by the river. Sat there watching faces. Faces earnest in prayer. It is nice to watch people pray no. Whatever they're they'll probably be more inclined to be vice-less at that point in time. Not sure though. At length, my 3 hours got over and i reluctantly walked back to our bus, to resume the brief regimental life. Not before Uttarkashi firmly added itself to the list of small towns i would gladly go back to.

On the way back from Uttarkashi to Chennai, managed to spend a day in Haridwar..will keep that for some other time...

Survived...

28 days. 18 days of it above 11500 feet. 4 baths. 2 T-shirts. 2 pants. 4 underwears. No washing of clothes of any category (unless you are a DIG or some decorated Army officer, in which case you could get special treatment). A place where UK is an acronym for Uttarkashi and RC for Rock climbing (i am yet to come to terms with RC being Rock climbing and not Royal challenge:). Where tea is typically had at 4:45 am. Where you carry ice axes when you go to shit (to make pits), and you wave to batchmates while you're at it (beleive me, after a point, it is not embarassing, and shitting with a view of the Himalayas is no longer surreal)! Where you figure out if your socks is wet or just cold by checking if it is half-solid cos of frozen sweat. Where you're ordered to do knuckle push-ups or frog jumps, depending on the instructor's mood, for acts of indiscipline (like being late for a fall-in). You camp on snow and there is just snow all around. And it is not like being in a dream sequence...it is so fucking cold that you put your hand in your crotch or arm-pits for warmth (i found the former more effective). Along the way you are taught Rock craft, Ice craft, Snow craft, Crevace crossing, Crevace rescue, Map reading and navigation techniques, among other things, and you're taken to a height of ~16500 feet as part of the height-gain exercise. You're made to do things that are so demanding physically that you wish that the course gets over soon. And when it does get over, you hug your rope-mates (the batch is divided into sub-groups of 8, called ropes, and each rope is assigned an instructor), you hug other friends you've made, you hug your instructor, and you think the course was a pretty good thing to go through after all. And when the jeep rolls out of NIM, you look back at the campus fondly, and wonder if you would go back to do the 'Advance' course. (Ofcourse, for that you need an 'A' in Basic, and the inclination).

NIM, here I come, (to get creamed?)

I saw the Himalayas for the first time in 2003. Knew instantly that that wouldnt be the last. I had gone on a 9 day trek in the Himachal region (near Solang Nala). That was my first real trek. And the real reason for my going on that trip was neither Himalayas nor trekking. But i am glad i did that. It got me totally hooked. All around you, things are beautiful. You are heading to a peak or a glacier that has an exotic name. You exert yourself crazy doing so. A bunch of people tag along. Some swear. Some want to kick themselves for having gotten into such a predicament. Some want to kick others for getting them into such a predicament. Some are way too tired to complain or to see the beauty around. And then the destination is reached. All ills are forgotten. The entire exercise gives an illusion of purpose. It is truly amazing. And there is something surreal about defecating at 15000 ft. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Moon rays reflecting off the icy slopes. It offers such a profound contradiction. The beauty and the shit. And you anxiously keep looking over your shoulders. Someone from the camp could walk by. Or worse, a bear from the forests could walk by (thats far-fetched, but your mind can think up any crap). I got totally taken in by the idea of carrying a heavy bag and walking on trails for no specific purpose. Went there again in 2004. This time Himalayas was the real reason. After that I've been doing random treks in random places whenever possible, always wanting to do something more serious, like they show in Adventure-One and stuff. I sent a request to join some expedition in the Himalayas by a group called Stikage in Delhi last year. They politely turned me down saying i didnt have enough high altitude experience.

Anyways, shook off lethargy this year and enrolled for the Basic mountaineering course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering at Uttarkashi. But could not shake off lethargy enough to train myself for it adequately. So here i am, 10 days away from the course. Awfully underprepared. Quite anxious. Blessed with a back that is not the best in the world. But still, looking forward to the 28-day slog-fest that is in store. Hoping to pull through. And hoping that my body does not have other plans...

Regret trigger...

What would be your biggest regret if you knew you had very little time left? Would you wish you were nicer to your parents. Nicer to your partner. Nicer to your friends and siblings. Would you regret not having had a companion you could die for, you could kill for. Knowing he/show would do the same for you without batting an eyelid. A relationship that defies the native human self-preservative instincts. Would you regret not having stepped off the safety-net onto the relatively unknown, cos it did not confirm to the series of check-boxes you had planned for yourself. Would you regret not having achieved enough, not having made a difference. Or would you look back with a sense of satisfaction, a sense of achievement, and a pinch of regret (can't be all rosy, whoever you are), and embrace the moment?

To borrow what Ethan Hawke says in 'Reality bites', I would have a planet of regrets sitting on my shoulders. But i have a sizeable amount of time left (you cant be sure about such things, but still..). And a will to do something about it. And a potent combination of laziness and cynicism to prevent me from doing something about it.

On an unrelated note, the song 'BC Sutta' has been playing on my comp forever since yesterday and in my head whenever i leave my comp. The 'sutta' in the song is supposedly a metaphor for abandoned dreams. Thanks to Solilowkey (you could find the link for the song there) for making me cast my ears on this. Be forewarned that this song has a liberal dose of bad-mouthing and is not meant for fragile ears and moral science teachers.

Mindfucked in Madras

I did not expect life to come to this. But i've timed out in chennai. The ocean and the heat(which i like) notwithstanding. I thought i would generally live on here without any complaints, until i grow old and senile. And when the time comes, step into the Bay of Bengal and drown peacefully. But the mind seeks change now. Working towards changing geographies in the foreseeable future.

Someone who reads my blog(who i do not know personally) had asked a friend if i was a depressed alcoholic with 'woman' problems!!..Was i dishing out such sad tales?:). Some 4 years or so back, when i was younger naiver stupider happier, a friend kept telling me that i lived in a bubble (what she did not tell me was that it would break in time). Break, it did. But then, i am nowhere in the vicinity of such description. Just a regular 28 year old. Not-too-happy. Not-too-sad. A bit lost. A bit cynical. The problem is, once food and shelter are taken care of, the mind has a knack for churning out random concerns to screw up your existence. Mine does that too. But you just learn to fight your fights, laugh your laughs, crib your cribs and snatch your moments...

Thadiyendamol

Peak-a-boo


Pooja (Mani's wife) minutes before she fell off the edge!..

The trip didn't get jinxed as i had feared in the previous post. But if you head up to the Thadiyendamol peak assuming that you'll find water in the forests close by you're fucked. Myself and Mani had to do go down half the way to fetch pails of water (for vodka, noodles/soup, plain consumption, in that order of priority). Should've listened to Aroon (http://www.arunwho.com/). He had asked us to fill water supplies on the way up...Anyways alls well that ends well (assuming that the nagging pain in my knee would go away in time!)..

Went with friends from college and some others they knew. The crowd had people that covered the entire gamut of the 'talking' spectrum...one extremely garrulous kind...one extremely silent kind...and others somewhere in between. Was good fun...Camped at the peak, ate, drank and made merry...Spoke late into the night...conversation strewn with 'profound' statements like "Hinduism is a way of life"(contributor - Gaurav, if you know him you'll also know that only alcohol can make him say things like this), "Evolution is bullshit. Someone should've created all these things" (contributor - Aroon, i know he'll say this even now)...

On the way back, Aroon helped the cause of future trekkers by making the huge boulder beside the trail to the stream, conspicously spell out (a little wrongly) the magic word "WATR". The meticulous Mani, in his blog (http://freevudu.blogspot.com/), as expected, has written a checklist for future Thadiyendamol visitors.

My camera ran out of batteries, so couldnt take too many pictures. Aroon has posted some pics he took here

Thamasoma jyothirgamayam

A pic taken at Thungabadra dam during a recent trip...

The good thing about alone trips is...you could stop your bike somewhere along the way to take a picture of a tree that could be any tree in Chennai (except that this one grew it's roots in Hampi) and nobody would stop to ask what's wrong with you. You are totally at your own disposal.

But, at the end of the day, when you settle down for 2 beers, 3 cigarrettes and a banana-honey-pancake (only because they did not have parotta or dosai!), you wish there was someone sitting on the other side of the table sharing her (yes, preferably female) spoils for the day. Or a bunch of old friends around, discussing stuff that has been discussed a million times before. Instead, i was deciphering words from 'Inheritence of loss' with tipsy eyes until i was absolutely ready to crash.

Ofcourse the fun part of going places with juntha you know is unparallelled...

Finally managed to upload some pics... (http://www.flickr.com/photos/frissko/).

Going to Thadiyendamol (near coorg) with some friends from college next weekend. During the last trip with this crowd (to Kumaraparvatha), we were drinking RC late into the night, on a hill-top, pouring petrol and tomato-soup onto a struggling bon-fire...Hope good times are in store this time around too... (typically, if you think this aloud, the trip gets jinxed...lets see)...

Temporary teetotaler?

It is tough to pull it off when you are in the vicinity of a bar called 'Whiskey Dicks'!. That too after a 5 hour drive through clogged roads. (a fast 5 hour journey on an empty road is less tiresome than a 5 hour journey inhibited by traffic, even if you're just a passenger..wonder why...anyways thats besides the point). I had gone to Lake Tahoe with Jai(my bro-in-law) a couple of weekends back. The journey, longer than expected...the destination, colder than expected...i was awfully underclothed in the bottoms dept. In any case we decided to go to a bar. I had recently decided be a teetotaler until April, to meet some agenda of mine. Primarily because i smoke whenever i drink and my resolve to not smoke may not hold water after a couple of rounds of water. So i thought i'll let Jai drink and i would have lemonade or some such inconsequential fluid, not fully beleiving it.

So we went to 'Whiskey dicks'. A small poster announced "Tip, you bastard!". Another more conspicuous one politely requested "Help our bartenders get ugly people laid". Now, if you enter a place like this, and you like the idea of drinking, the drinkers' rule book says you ought not to come out without a drink or two. So i readily agreed when Jai suggested Beer. There was this nerdy guy in the bar who had a Rubic's cube and solved it under a minute for you if you bought him a shot. He was rather good at it...and in the slight tipsy state i felt sorry for him...not sure why...maybe because i thought some one as smart as that should be able to buy his own drink, shouldn't he? But then, he pawns what he knows for a drink, just the way i pawn what i know for a monthly pay cheque. Now that the drink's effect has long worn off i am less sorry for him. Somewhere along the way we saw two women kissing. Thats a first. Jai went 'That was hot man!'. I continued to concentrate on the beer. For me, to be turned on, if i am not directly involved in the act, the act has to be 2-dimensional and i should be alone. I am a pile of contradictions in this department (i hope everyone is), so lets leave it at it. After the drink, we went to an Italian restaurant close by. As we entered, a mom-daughter pair was leaving with the daughter telling her mom "Mom, you're drunk...walk carefully...you shouldn't be drinking so much at 80". For some reason, that had a vague feel good factor.

Back in chennai and heading to Bangalore. Meeting a bunch of seasoned glass holders in bangalore tonight. When we enter a bar tonight, i'll tell myself that i'll drink a lemonade or some such inconsequential fluid...

Postscript: Over the weekend in Bangalore, my resolve to not drink drowned in Beer, Margarita, Vodka and Baang and went up in tobacco smoke (To my defence, 5 cigarettes only).

How stuff doesn't work.

When you are two timing you are faithful to neither. In work. And in relationships (the non-platonic kind). I am currently in such a predicament, at work. The advantage here is that one can always be an alibi for the other, and you can cool off a little, writing a post at the start of a work day. The downside is, almost always, you're so torn between two opposing forces of deeds to be done, that you freeze and end up doing neither.

Of late, i find the idea of even one timing (now, not work) pretty exerting. Sometimes i feel that having a companion, physical intimacy etc are obscenely overrated. It'll be good to have someone available, a phone call away, a bus ride away, or a loud shout away. Just to keep you from dying of solitude or repressed sexuality. But then, after talking the talk, or doing the deed, or both, the two people have to return back to their respective real lives. There should be no encroachment of personal space beyond that. There shouldnt be a need for realignment or reprioritisation of what you want to do with your life, to accomodate someone else. Once you start doing that, resentment will start setting in. Sooner or later, your urge to live life the way you want to, will overweigh the desire to continue to be with whoever you are with, and the relationship will start dying a slow silent death in the background (or sometimes a noisy quarrelsome death in the foreground). And there is no way that two people will have the same wants out of life. Peope are pretty much like their fingerprints. Unique.

A road taken...

I was at crossroads for a while, till a while ago. I either had to sit in the same place i've been sitting for the past couple of years, and try a kind of work i have not tried before, and have been meaning to try for a while. Something that would involve dressing up well, carrying yourself properly, talking a lot, being nice and phony to people over the phone(cos they'll mostly be customers), and some more stuff that have been foreign to me. Or, i would have to move to a different place, a different organization (my customer for the past couple of years), and do the same kindof work i've been doing since i finished college. Decided on the latter. All big decisions take only a couple of minutes, i guess. Just that i took 3 weeks to spend those two minutes on thinking about it. If i didnt take the latter i would be leaving something half baked, unfinished. For good or bad, did not have the heart to not stick around till that piece is taken to completion. Stick around till we know that the product'll bring in rotten tomatoes or revenue.

This is probably insignificant in the grander scheme of things. At some point, when i was working late night and my sis had called up, she said, 'Ten years down the line, you would not look back and say, 'Yes I fixed that bug ten years ago!''. I shut down after the call and went to bed. I guess, like so many others, i suffer from a borderline syndrome. Being good at work, the idea of a shipped product for which i've done my part etc, excite me nearly as much as a hike in the himalayas. One without the other will proabably be meaningless...

About to crash...

A beer. A good dinner. A glass of wine (am not a wine fan..just that it has alcohol and hence is functional). A pretty decent movie. And the company of a couple of people you like hanging out with. At the end of it, you are supposed to feel good about a well spent saturday and put yourself to sleep feeling good about life in general. Only problem is, i cant go to sleep unless the clock says 2 am. So i am generally sitting, thinking/typing inane stuff. I realize that the high point of the day was when i made 802.1x work with EAP_TLS. I am not going to explain what that means. Over time i guess i've become a workaholic. My sis says i'd get withdrawal symptoms if i quit this line of work and try something else and i am beginning to wonder if she is right(one life and a single line ofwork sounds so limiting!).

Came to the bay area around a month back on a short trip..and am just about beginning to miss the 'thiruvanmiyur beach' and Satyam Theatres and the raw chennai heat, in that order...

This trip has had some weird eye-openers. Keeping your room neat and washing clothes are not bad uncool acts. It has a cathartic effect on the clothes, room and you. I hate to admit it though. These acts shall be reassessed and dropped if i realize that its just aflash in the pan.

And I am kindof convinced that life should be a seriesof monogamous relationships..for some it may be strong enough to last a lifetime..good for them...but we should do away with the paper work of marriage, divorce, alimony and other such stuff...there shouldnt be an external body policing how a bunch of ppl go abt their lives..

An aside. 'That 70's show' rocks...it has knocked off everyother tv show on my favourites' list...or i am so starved and this is the only half-decent meal i got and i am finding it much better than it actually is...Dona (the tall one with weird parents) is my pickof the characters...and at some level i wonder if it is because she reminds me of someone i dont mind being reminded of...

Seven year itch

A lil drunk. Again. Seven years gone since i started work. Dint notice the date when it passed. (Aug 16th). Realized it a lil later. Not that it matters. Making serious plans to take a break. Atleast for 3 to 6 months. From Jan or April next year. Will go to Uttarkashi, Varanasi, some parts of NE India and a few sanctuaries i want to go to. Want to do a few things before i hit 30. Dont trust my back to be good enuf to do the things i want to do beyond a certain age. The sooner i do those stuff, the better. If i dont get such a long vacation i'll quit.

 

Drank with Binu at good old Casablanca. Booze trips with him have reduced after his marriage. He keeps telling me good things about being married and eggs me on to do something about my singularity. I might grow to become this 40 year old morose, irritable, single guy (well, i dont think life wud come to that, but the 'single' part might come true). But i cant bring myself to seek company in unnatural ways just to avoid regrets i might have in a hypothetical future. For now it is just work, books, booze and the faithful beach in my backyard.

That perfect combination of bits...

In Sanjay's (a collegue) words, thats what most people in my industry are working towards. A cool thought. I write code for a living. It is compiled, linked and blah-blahed and what eventually comes out is a series of bits which represent instructions or data. A bunch of testers try and break it, report problems, and i fix them, by indirectly modifying that bit pattern a little. In essence, we are all working towards that perfect combination of bits.
In one of the many time-pass office discussions, we ended up wondering if we shud try and write buggy code to start with(which we do anyways) and thereon automate the modification of the bit-pattern iteratively, load it on the hardware and have automated regression scripts validate it till we hit upon that perfect combination. The assumption here is that the starting bit-pattern is somewhere in the vicinity of the ideal bit-pattern and we would converge in finite time. Well, once the coffee got consumed we got back to work. But i liked the idea, and might want to try it on a simple problem sometime. And Sanjay continues to deserve the name we gave him (Sanjay Mokkasamy....Mokka vaguely means the act of talking incessantly about random things).

Tea, Cigarettes and a series of conversations

I was supposed to leave for Peru from Mumbai on a specific day a few weeks back. Eventually went three days later than scheduled. I was travelling with my brother-in-law's sister (We had a tough time explaining what we were to each other, to a random set of people. Eventually Kripa(thats my bil's sis' name) settled for co-brother. Neither of us knew if that was right, but that was the briefest thing she could come up with!!). Anyways, we had some trouble with emigration and were holed out in Mumbai for three days. We stayed in the TIFR[Tata Institute of Fundamental Research] hostel (Kripa had friends there). I kindof fell in love with the place and was contemplating applying for a PhD there. With time, reason(and money) prevailed and i wudnt think of giving up my job for something related and less paying (it is still ok to leave it all for something tangential, if you want to that is).

 

Met a few amazing people there (Sanjeev, his wife Amritha - these two were our official hosts; and Gautham - i stayed in his room). I kindof like the scientific community. The few people i met were extremely broadminded and reasonable and didnt live inside pseudo-boundaries. I kindof found it refreshing and different and relateable. These 3 would probably rank among the laziest days in my life. All i did was smoke, drink (tea/alcohol), talk, eat, sleep, read, in varying orders for three days, besides a couple of runs relating to our emigration. I did have to live through some major physics discussions about why two bacteria cant manage to walk in parallell for too long because of the nature of their flagellar motion and other heavier stuff which went above of my head (Gautham is a Physics PhD, Kripa and Sanjeev are in the 6th year of the PhD effort in smething related to Theoritical Physics). It still felt good to be witness to animated discussions of things i didnt totally understand (confession - i could not comprehend Resnick&Halliday in 11th standard and realized i wasnt IIT material, could not comprehend Milman&Halkeas in Engineering and had to settle for Gaur&Gupta and a mere pass in Engineering physics).

 

When we left mumbai, i was kindof thankful for the emigration delay and the brief stay in TIFR.

 

We did manage to go to Peru, catch up wth Sis, bil and his parents, and do the Inca trail to Maachu Picchu. Was good fun, and a good break from a fairly mad work schedule i had subjected myself to. Except that instead of getting recharged, my batteries are all discharged:), gotta pull up my socks and get back to proper work.

 

Will post some pics from the trip sometime...

 

 

The Mosquito Knows

This gives some perspective...Yea, there are no mosquito doctors to whom mosquitoes take their sick loved mosquitoes or themselves to get treated...they need not save up for such eventualities. If a mosquito wants to go to Delhi or see the Himalayas or go to Peru, it just has to figure out who is going where and perch itself discreetly on their shoulders...the ride is free...Nevertheless, this gives some perspective...a poem from 'The wondering Minstrels'...

 

"The Mosquito Knows"

 The mosquito knows full well, small as he is
 he's a beast of prey.
 But after all
 he only takes his bellyful,
 he doesn't put my blood in the bank.

-- D. H. Lawrence

Something else...

You always want to do something else....when you are in school you look enviously at the independence college goers enjoy...you think your dad is so lucky, he need not go to school...When you are in college you look back fondly at your days at school...you long for the friends lost until their memories fade away and new ones take their place...You look at your seniors landing jobs and think "20k per month; life cant be bad then"...Then you start working...A few weeks into work you look back at college like it happened ages ago...you wish engineering had been a 5 year course...As the years roll by, work ceases to interest you as much as it did in the beginning (for some this happens much more quickly, some never reach a stage where their work fascinates them). You wish you'd rather be on a ship headed to the Arctic, or take pictures of Nilgiri Langurs hanging off trees in the forests of Kerala, or just go off and live in a shack by the beach in Goa, swimming whenever you want, just laying back drinking beer and reading whenever you want. You prepare yourself for such an eventuality...you do random courses which you think will give you credibility when you set out to do something besides technology. But you dont take the plunge...You wait.. You build a safety net beneath you...You think you need multiple zeros in your bank account before you can experiment. You put life on hold. Time passes by. Real fast. You tell yourself, "Next year, i'll definetely take a sabbatical and try a different line of work." And the "next years" pass by.

But this time, 'next year' is going to be 'the' year. You know technology is your bread and butter. Not just that, there were times, rather years, when work was the single most important thing in life, not out of necassity, but out of choice and inclination. Its been nearly 7 years now. You ought to go out, take a look at other things, play out some other pages in life, and come back with the kindof zeal you had a few years back...or, maybe, discover something else that excites you more...and do that until that loses its charm (yea, with time, everything loses its charm, and you cant be non-cynical even when you are discussing a fantastic virtual future for yourself).

And late next year you may come back and read this while uploading pictures of the elusive big cats in Perambikulam wildlife sanctuary, or read it with a wry, sad smile on your face, from your office, after having succumbed to a really bright carrot that offered itself as a virtual bait to strengthen the 'all-too-important' safety net beneath you.