What does it mean?

"An inevitable logical course because constructivism was the alternative emerged opposing and replacing both the old positivist and neo-positivist approaches based on realism and determinism of quasi-laws adapted from physical sciences."

Though sentences never convey much in these classes, words when taken separately were meaningful. Now even that is becoming an uphill task.

Positivism makes me depressed, realism makes me yawn and determinism makes me confused...Every week, for these three hours, I feel utterly, completely hopeless.

Common sense tells us that people will make the best use of resources unless told otherwise, that it’s rare that having a chance to do that, people will willfully turn away. However, reality is completely opposite. People keep their minds imprisoned within four walls. They hate, or worse still, are afraid to dream, to imagine, assessing the possible universe, to claim the world that could have been theirs…

People blame lack of this ability on either history (200 years of British rule!) or their upbringing (parents, teachers, etc.). But the fact remains that that is, if at all it is, just one of the determinants, and a minor one at that. The major one is us, we who imprison ourselves, coz it’s easier to do nothing, to sit back and enjoy lethargy. Imprisonment can be addictive. I have no experience but I guess it’s so.

It has repercussions…you can never be a good scientist if you can’t dream…great discoveries won’t happen if people don’t have the courage to dream or to imagine things. One lady in some obscure corner thought that genes jump, leading to the discovery of jumping genes, though the whole world tried to persuade her otherwise!

We deny ourselves freedom all the time…freedom of thoughts, of action, of expression…but the worst denial will be freedom to imagine…

Eyes meet and the magic begins…in your soul, surface ripples of another soul…the mind tries to hold back, with a prudent vigilance into the unknown, coz there’s always the possibility of getting lost in the feeling rather than the actual being…

It says to the heart, common mate, you won’t be able to handle this, so why venture into that mysterious, unfamiliar zone?

The heart says, I realize love may not be as enlightening as sun’s rays are, but I’m not seeking that anyway…I am seeking someone whose presence is as illuminating as a full moon, who rather than dazzling daylights out of my eyes, is saying, I am not sure what lies ahead, but I’ll be with you as long as I exist…who like a starlit sky, assures you not that darkness will not exist, but that clusters of joys are enough to overcome them…

The mind persists and asks; do you mean without this person, you will remain incomplete? That you will be unable to find happiness by yourself? Is that the reason?

The heart says, you rational fool, no! Do not assign a tinge of weakness to the feeling of love…yes, we are all incomplete, we are all fractured…cracked somewhere or the other…love may eventually fill those gaps, but that’s not why we love…

We do coz we are destined to…

Everyone in our generation seems to be consumed by a huge lethargic diapause lately...I'm curious whether this has anything to do with the amount of time we spend in front of computers. Just give it a shot...don't use computers a day a week. It'll make you feel absolutely uneasy depending on the level of dependence on computers for entertainment, but give it a shot...The best way is to not carry the laptop home on the weekend...I assure you, you'll discover new ways of amusing yourself. Plus a lot clearer in mind. Somehow, use of computers for a long time makes me feel drugged and absolutely zombie and tired. And if it becomes a habit, as it had, one doesn’t even realize it till one makes a conscious effort to break away from that addiction and dependence. I assure you: it’s difficult, but achievable and once achieved, starving for some great ways of fun and pleasure.

Woodstock VIla...and Few Resolutions

Just back from a show of Woodstock Villa. Good ideas do not always translate into great movies and this is a classic example of that. High on the shock value like several of the recent bollywood thrillers…there have been so many of them lately…Race, Naqaab, Raqeeb, Yakeen…One more addition to the thriller bandwagon. Mr. Director, shocking us with high octane music resembling a horror movie is no marks to you…if anything, you agree to the fact that you have to resort to such gimmicks. Yakeen was good, Raqeeb was good too, Naqaab’s end spoiled it for me…Race, less we talk, better it is…and they’re hauling it as the biggest blockbuster of the year already!!! But WV…it is worse than all these.

It is the latest in the list of high on style, low on substance flicks…What’s with the continuously moving camera? As if the Parkinson’s afflicted DOP was let loose on a rampage holding the cam in hands…And the eardrum piercing and headache inducing high-pitched background music? And what the hell is this fascination with Sepia hues throughout? To make matters worse, Mr. Sanjay Gupta it’s so, so obvious that you are not out of your Kaante hang up (BTW, all those Kaante admirers, it was a remake of Reservoir Dogs if you haven’t guessed already…Quentin Tarantino commented he liked this Indianized version…and grudgingly, I’ve to agree to that - grudgingly coz however Indianized and well-made it might be, it was still a blatant act of plagiariasm).

Wanna learn style Mr. Gupta and Mr. Mehta? Check 24. Shoddy, substandard and fake stylized techniques are so not done dammit, especially when we have the best of the world a fingertip away.

Lessons learnt:

1. Don’t ever let anyone emotionally blackmail you to accompanying them to movies. You waste money…more importantly, you waste time.

2. Learn to get out of the theatre halfway through or even earlier if you dislike the movie. A movie which can’t sustain your interests in first 15 minutes is just not worth it. There can be exceptions like the amazingly stupid and not-needed beginning of Agni Sakshi, but the chances that you’ll let go of an interesting movie coz of a dull beginning are one in million.

3. Try to convince your friends that there can be more active and intimate ways of spending time together. Watching a movie for entertainment is great…for spending time together, no…coz it’s one of the most passive activities I’ve known. They may take you for a nerd, but that’s where your ability to convince people comes into play.

Exceptions to all the above mentioned points are acceptable once in 3 months, when you just can’t say no to someone close. Ok, make it once in 4 months. That anyway takes the count to 3 rubbish movies a year.

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

Whack, whack.

My knuckles still hurt.

For My Canine Buddies...

Guys, I miss you…I miss the playtime every evening. I miss your coat odour... miss your playful tugging at the toes...wagging tails when you spot me…the mothers’ careful watch when I hover nearby the pups, but never ever making it obvious…you treated me as one of you…I miss leaning against you and studying my botany…your ardent love, your trust in me, I miss your shining fur, I miss the unquestionable devotion in your eyes…the snarling nostrils and anger in your eyes when someone you don’t know tries to come too near, like the time when all you guys encircled the cobra and didn’t let it come near us…and then how we rushed 3 of you to the hospital…miss those Sundays when I would not allow servants to tie you down just so that you can accompany me wherever I go, I miss your constantly flickering tongue ready to lick, I miss those paws which have torn innumerable shirts, I miss teasing you from the terrace…your hatred towards monkeys and boars…your terror for heights…your love for water…miss those vainful and painful sessions where I tried to teach you tricks straight from the dog(gone) books…and teaching the first-time mothers how to take care of the pups without sitting on them… the papaya and mango feasts…and the vaccination ouch’s …those water sessions in the monsoons where it would be just impossible for you to trace me to my hiding place, and you putting your nose under water to find the way anyway (once, one of you tried to sniff under-water, choked and I gave myself away by laughing aloud)…and those long walks to the neighbour’s fields and ragging and mocking his dogs… …I have not forgotten anything babies…

I'm gonna come soon, very soon...And we're gonna have a blast...

There are quite a few people here who eat my patience thin. However, I have learnt no situation, no person is un-deal-able. Every tough nut has a thin skin somewhere, and every situation has a door for you to open. So, that's the starting point if it gets out of hand. I am not saying you gotta manipulate it, I'm saying you gotta understand it and learn to deal amiably with it/her/him. It's important for me to avoid conflict. And it's important to arrive at an amiable solution. At times, people take this trait as being a chicken, but so be it. Unless of course, someone starts treating me like one. If someone does that, I'll throw the principles of brotherhood out of the window, start with biting the person's head off and eating her/him then and there.

It's raining here...Absolute bliss.

The Sound of Music

One of the things that give me immense joy in life is music. Music fills all the gaps, cements the crevices and gives a smoother and filled appearance - and it’s fun to get misled every single time. It’s sheer fun coz when I’m listening to a good piece, I’m unaware of anything else, happy or sad, beautiful or ugly, fair or dark…all those things that catch my attention seem to carry no meaning at all. In that sense, when people say, music brings you nearer to god, I agree coz music helps me uplift myself over all these engaging follies. It becomes necessary to detach oneself from all the highs and lows of life here and treat them with objective scrutiny. Music helps me do that by concocting it’s own web and giving me a glimpse of some alternate reality, which is different from my routine life. But more importantly, it also teaches me to be attached to reality. It’s a delusional raft as well as a reality anchor.

Music has the power of enslaving; belittling all other aspects of my personality…I lose myself in it. That’s the magic of music. These moments, they are rare. In these 25 odd years, I have had hardly 2-3 such self-free moments but I’ll never ever forget them coz that is a phase of transcendence. You are no longer a form, an entity. You are just a spirit, a ghost of your sense of self. I transcend myself in company of music. Being a scientist, it reminds me of a chemical reaction. What goes in is you, dry and raw…what comes out is someone else, bathing in a musical ballad.

Music is my life…When I am dissatisfied and want more from life, when my voice is cracking with all the unfulfilled desires, music comes, soothes the cracks like the first rain, fills them up, and my cup of happiness starts overflowing again. I am not exaggerating. Do you have such a thing in your life? Where you can take refuge when you are not feeling alright with life, take one shot at it, and everything becomes alright again? If you do, you’ll understand what I mean.

‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, hai hai hai'

LOL :) This is hilarious!

http://in.sports.yahoo.com/080210/251/6qp88.html

Beginning of Spring...

I haven’t experienced snow or ice on a landscape bigger than our refrigerator, but I’m sure the best times in snow-caped backdrops are immediately before the spring when the ice starts melting and makes you understand that for all the roughness and coldness, there’s an exciting flow below the surface that’s just waiting to be discovered. The white-blue icicles on tree branches slowly awaken and instead of dropping directly below, take a detour to the tip of the branch pointing towards the ground and trickle across the ice-sheet drop-by-drop…this drop-by-drop thawing always reminds me of fingers hitting the piano keys…Don’t know why that reminds me of piano. Funny. Maybe coz the sound of a piano key is similar to a drop hitting water surface. ‘Plock’ goes a piano key too, creating an echoing clunk. The nature would soon start fishing out jewels from its potley, but its this scene of pure, spotless white beauty that appeals to me…like a girl stepping out of shower, sans any make up…strands of wet hair, onto the forehead…and the water droplets slowly trickling down to the ground…

How Green Was My Valley...

The first thing that struck me when I reached the top of the hill was the utterly mesmerizing landscape…and various shades of green splattered across it.

It was a clear day and apart from clouts of white cotton clouds overhead and bluish black hill-ranges on the horizon, everything was green, and different tones and hues of green.

There were grassy savannas yellowish green in colour, covered with partly dried, partly grassy green expanse with white, pink and purple blooms. The hill’s downslope was fully covered in this foliage and at the bottom slowly gave way to the forest. I had never seen such dark, dense forests till then. The trees were intertwined and created a dark green sunscreen for the earth. It started at the bottom of the hill on which I was standing and went to cover the whole of another hill. I would venture inside it some day, I thought. There was a third departure where the landscape slowly graduated to shrubby delights of wild plumage so typical of those transition zones. Slowly these shrubs gave way to cultivated lands, interspersed with electric poles and randomly placed small jhuggis and cement slabs. They were looking out of the place or maybe I was just envious of the people living in this beautiful countryside. The fields were not uniformly spaced or demarcated. Every field was defined by a spate of trees and every field had its own character, some had paddy, some had some other unknown grains, and some were converted to meadowlands, and depending on what was growing in them, they had different greens.

For a person who grew up in a dry, deciduous landscape, a green cacophony like this was like an impossible allegory …my colour receptors were completely flooded with this green chamaleonesque bumper bonanza.

It was out of this world…

I would want my home here…

आदतें भी अजीब होती हैं...

साँस लेना भी कैसी आदत है
जिये जाना भी क्या रवायत है
कोई आहट नही बदन में कहीं
कोई साया नहीं है आंखोंमें
पाँव बेहिस हैं चलते जाते हैं
इक सफ़र है जो बहता रहता है
कितने बरसों से, कितनी सदियों से
साँस लेते हैं, जीते रहते हैं


आदतें भी अजीब होती हैं...

Lovers in the Café

She comes, conquers and announces, “Hello sweetheart, you look tired."

"Not anymore."

"Hmmm...Mere paas bas 15 minutes hain…don’t mind yaar…bossne tight leash pe rakkha hai.”

“Tell him to go to the pearly gates and disappear into the oblivion. Forever. You coloured your hair again?”

“Does it look nice? You didn’t much appreciate the last one.” She takes a chair finally.

“Yes I like this one…green tinge this time. It looks cool…suits your brown hair.”

“It’s burgundy. Anyways, kuchh shayari karo na mere baalon pe!”

"Hmmm..."

"Jaldi bolo...jaana hai."

"Sochane do...haan, listen...

Ikke pe ikka, dukki pe dukki, tikke pe tikka aur satte pe satta…”

“Ok boss, I got the message…it looks awful, no? I thought you would like it.”

“It looks great…you didn’t let me complete. Care to listen to the second line?”

“Nope, keep you shayari for your fans…………………………………………"

"..........."

"Don't sulk, sunaao…”

“dhyaan se suno…Irshaad…

Ikke pe ikka, dukki pe dukki, tikke pe tikka aur satte pe satta,

Ye julfen hain ke ghataon ke sannaton me khila ek ghaas ka patta…”

“hahaha…”

“Hey saw that lightening?”

“Where?”

“Struck my heart just moments ago…tere hansee ka baadal garja, followed by adaaon ki lightening.”

“Haaye…Kya baat hai B’saab, aaj mizaaj bade kaafir hain aapke…maar hi daaloge kya?”

“Maren hamare dushman…bass aur 15 minutes! Don’t go alone, I’ll drop you.”

“Ok…”

“So what’s like ultimately romantic for you?”

“Don’t bother…”

“Common…”

“You have seen that song from Taj Mahal? Hmmmmm…Jo Vaada Kiya…I wish I had a good voice…Remember how that ghastly hero creates a carpet of roses for the equally ghastly heroine to walk on? That’s like ultimately romantic for me, my feet against the velvety touch of the rose petals…”

“You mean Pradeep Kumar and Beena Roy? Hmm...but hey, what if the hidden honey bee gives a good sting on your delicate feet?”

“You unromantic bloke…get lost.”

“Point noted…you will definitely have that pleasure one day…”

“Of you getting lost or me treading on rose petals?”

“You trampling the rose petals…”

“Oh really? When? After our marriage?”

“Darling, jale pe namak nahi hi chhidko to achchha hai.”

“I am sorry re…it’s just that this comes from guilt…I feel responsible somehow…”

“Oye ye guilt wuilt chak…tainu time jyada hai jo inn baataame time waste kardi hai?”

“Punjabi? Noooo…not again…”

“……….”

“……….”

“That bullock has been staring at you for a long time now, since the moment you joined me. Do you know that guy?”

“No…honestly, do you blame him?”

“Yes……I mean, no.”

“What will happen to us after say, a year?”

“What do you mean?”

“You think you will be able to manage what I said before?”

“No…but I am confident you will do a turn-around.”

“I doubt. Why can’t we be just together?”

“Why don’t you marry me?”

“Ok…stop…”

“Ok…”

“But life is so beautiful when we’re together.”

“Beautiful? Sunsets are beautiful…but you, and our love…it’s spectacular…”

“Stop it stud, if you have forgotten, we saw Con Air together!"

".........."

"But honestly, I am afraid to look too far into the future.”

“Ok baby, listen, life’s too weird already without us looking into the future…Don’t you have a sneak peek of the future alone…we’ve got each other and we’ll sort it out somehow.”

“……….”

“What?”

“What what?”

“Why do you smile?”

“Coz I just realized how much I love you…”

Every single time I watch Lead India, I get excited. And much more actually. The leaders on this show come from backgrounds like us. They don't have larger-than-life persona. They have not donned the flamboyant and addictive leadership cap (yet), you can see the happiness on their faces when they complete a down-to-earth task that helps solve the day-to-day problems. And the best part is they are giving hope. To me. To people who have been following it. I have always thought hope is the feeling on which societies are sustained, if not built.

The show has it's glitches and cliche at times (like Ajay Devgan coming on the show...it was obvious that the actor came to promote his own movie which is releasing this weekend)...yet, I would recommend it. It's a welcome change from the usual overtly sappy/happy/crappy and controversial reality shows. Don't miss it. Every Saturday, 8 pm, Star One.

I am still good at science!!! So what if an 8th grade test serves as the evidence? :)

It's fun. Take it and check your score out:

Looking for payday loan?

Two things everyone remembers about me is 1. my height and 2. my nose. There have been people who have actually come up to me and identified me based on my nose’s size. As if I’m a museum specimen...

The first time I got derided about it was in FYJC when a senior year girl came up to me and asked, “So you’re Captain Cook?” I’m sure the smart-ass meant Hook!

I guess it must have shrunk in size during the BSc days and again regrown to original size during MSc. “You’re blocking the view Bang!!!” was the commonest joke in the class…If I’m staring straight, then coz of my length, and if I’m looking sideways, then coz of my nose…

The question I got asked in truth or dare the most number of times was whether I faced any problems while kissing!!! WTF man…

My nose is because I am…Or I’m coz of it?

Some identity crisis…

One more fucked up thing down the drain...I'm going up in the snake-and-ladder game but it's amazing the rate at which I'm losing out on people around me...I have screwed my social life completely for my professional one and I am not sure whether I am doing the right thing...Anyway, it's my decision and I'm going to stick to it. One, coz it's too late to go back now...and two, coz this is very important to me...may be more than anything else...

Starry Starry Night...

Starry, starry night.

Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue,
morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...