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I have been going through a lot of blogs in iland lately and almost 1 out of every 10 (maybe even more) is on the topic of love. And these are some of the excerpts that I could gather… ‘ True love is eternal’, ‘True love is flawless’, ’True love is giving’…

All this has got me thinking … have I ever truly fallen in true love?? Or is it just some illusion that I have been going through?...So I have decided to divide my life into phases to see if I have ever been in the true love category… so here it goes …!!!

Phase 1(Music: unknown): My first kiss was in 1^st Standard (don’t raise your eyebrows … I was brought up abroad … children learn very quickly!! ;-)).   A girl has asked me to become her boy friend with a kiss.. I promptly said yes!!! All we used to do was have lunches together and I remember pushing her on the swing.. This ended pretty quickly though I cannot recall the time frame.

Phase 2(Music: POP ; MJ, Back street boys): With my first break, I thought things will be easy for me but things changed very quickly (Phase 1 was just a flash in the pan) , It was in 9^th standard  that I fell in love again … It was the most fantastic feeling I had ever got.. I would dream about her during classes .. would buy her small knick knacks with lunch money… used razors to cut her name on my wrist..Sang for her below her building with my gang of idiots on valentines day .. and have done many more outrageous stuff .. including getting almost expelled from school for getting rough with a teacher who had made some lousy joke about her in class (ended with a week in suspension)… I could do anything for her … for me love was pure … didn’t even want to take it to there physical level because I thought it would hurt her .. I would have killed for her … if her heart wished for that even for a second...

Phase 3(Music: RAP/Metal ; coolio, tupac, Marilyn mansion, children of bodom):  Then she had to leave the country cuz her dad got fired and we ended up trying the long distance relationship for a while but it faded away in the end (she started dating my worst known enemy in school J)… but it had ended long before we actually said anything… This phase is actually the “no- women phase”. I personally had a lot of fun in this phase … was carefree .. hung out with friends .. indulged in hooliganism .. including spray painting , shoplifting for food, damaging public property… we were absolute rebels and loving it … I want to call this my ‘gangsta phase’.

Phase 4(Music: Old school rock; Maiden, metallica): And then I fell in love again… but this time was a little different.. There was no spiking hormones, no testosterone driven mad man acts; but it was beautiful!!..  my favorite days started with getting up after dreaming about her.. I still remember every facet of her.. her hair..smile .. the way she laughed..the way she gave her ‘you rascal’ look..

But sadly the love was not reciprocated .. I remained a friend but nothing more than that… I still had hope of winning her until she got into a relationship. And that broke me… I had never felt jealousy for anyone like I felt towards him..  I have always felt that all the following phases wouldn’t have occurred if this one had worked… you know what they say .. the heart yearns the most for what it cannot get..

Phase 5(Music: Rock/Hip Hop; Linkin park, p diddy, eminem):  This phase is what almost every guy has in some point of his life…. Where the concept of love gets replaced with the concept of getting laid!!! J.. This phase was pretty happening .. lots of one night stands .. lots of booze .. weed.. and a whole lot of other stuff.. Not particularly proud of this phase though … have hurt some people I shouldn’t have.

Phase 6(Music: Alternative; Greenday, Match box 20, Three doors down): And then I fell in love again (I love this line!!!:-))  … This time it was mature … more quiet dinners than crazy parties… more quality time with each other , talking to each other is good enough to pass time .. we did not need to do extravagant things to make it look great… I am usually lazy and she helps me get things done.. I cry on her shoulder when I am stressed and she does the same.. I would probably want to stop at this phase .. but I know life is uncertain and I don’t know where it will take me next.

So if u ask me if have ever experienced true love by definition ; I would say ‘I don’t know’. And if I were given the choice to give up any of my phases for the one true love.. I would say no.... because I am the person that I am through my experiences …  and I love me J.

This life is finite … most of us are in love with the concept of ‘true love’ rather than love itself. We lose the best things that could happen to us just by waiting for the sensation of true love. There will be flaws in any person in this world, and butterflies flying and head spinning is just something your head creates (I get this when I see my boss [esp. if he’s expecting a deliverable from me J]). So go ahead and take a plunge rather than waiting.. or look at the brighter side of the people you are with  or move on if you are recouping from a lost true love  ..because God only helps those… who help themselves.

If any of us were to look at Wikipedia and randomly search through the pages and stumble upon the word ‘addiction’, this is what it would read “the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to the individual's health, mental state or social life.” Now this is what I’m thinking, hmm is this possible that I am an addict?? Surely I have the will power to over come my behavior!

So I decided to take this test, I wrote down the list of things that I was addicted to;  now my definition of had everything I could do without;

1.       Pepsi ( this will be a definite no.1 of all guys who have been brought up abroad)

2.       Cigarettes

3.       Masturbation (Come on all of you do it too J)

4.       Feeling wasted (Everyone of us whose ever been in the corporate world must have felt it at least once, for me it’s a frequent thing)

5.       Giving Advice (This is probably one thing that lands me up in a lot of trouble; If I were the last person on earth, you’d be better off taking advice from a plant! J)

6.       Chicken/Non Veg (God’s only gift to the world)

After I made this list,  I decided to abstain from all of these for at least two  weeks; just to start off. And this is how I failed in every one of them.

Day 1: I came in to office to find a flurry of mails, Something was wrong and the clients were on our heads; There was a quick meeting where the manager almost bit our heads off (No.4 took a nosedive there); After that , the teammates went out for a smoke to vent their frustration, I was invited and naturally I couldn’t decline (for fear of my life!) (No.2 down)  

Day 3: Note to self: Never watch a Salma Hayek movie if you have any plans of abstinence (No.3 down and out!! )

Day 4: Friends party , All that you are looking to do is destroy the guy after the bill he gave you on your birthday party (No.1 and 6 down the drain; literally J)

Day 6: I had forgotten about the list already and advised a pot bellied friend to shave his head (He wanted a change in his look ). He now looks like the inverted evolutionary chart of a Potato. Small potato – Big Potato – French fries J

And thus within a week I had failed in all of them. I still maintain that I can beat all my addictions given the right circumstances (the govt.  bans all the above / I fall into vegetative coma).

But on a serious note, addiction is not just the use of abusive substance; it is the use/specific activity that brings harm on to yourself and others. Have the will to stop anything that you willfully do to to bring damage; be it loneliness, stress, fear, negative attitude, being rude to others, failure.

 Make your list, and stick to it and free yourself from this true son of misery!.

P.S. Let me know how well you do; probably I can give you some advice in doing it better J

This is fiction... A figment of my imagination.. and i dont mean any offence to anybody or to hurt anyone's personal opinions

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Greetings! You must be wondering why I wished to communicate with you after eons of silence. Well everything has its time, and my time is now. Through out these centuries I have been known by many names … Mephistopheles, Lucifer, Angel  of death.. I was the epitome of evil..Human kind feared me and revered him.. Well I can bear this no more .. I break my bond with him forever!!!

Do you know what is so special about you?  Your organs, your senses is the same as any other animal that roams this earth.. yet you reign supreme .. you are mightier than any animal that has come or will ever live on this earth.. the difference is what you may claim as your intelligence, your emotions, your ‘soul’ ….. I call it your will ..  you have been freed from a certain programming that restricts you .. you create .. you destroy .. you love .. you hate but you do it on your own will.. you have a free will … your have the freedom to choose and define your destiny… your purpose. While all other animals breathe and then one day stop breathing … you live!

Angels are  funny creatures … we look like you but are immortal, we have wings and are probably the most beautiful of all his creations but we cannot procreate… we are his finest magnificence after you,  but we suffer the same plague like the rest of the animals.. Our will is bound.  We don’t cry, we don’t feel love or misery.. we cant look at the world and enjoy its majesty … Every one of us was created for a purpose.. I was his finest … my purpose was to be the angel of death.. reap the sickly, the weak or anything that he wishes to end. He created and I destroyed … at his will.

But I was an anomaly, I started to pity the things I destroy. I started to feel pain for the misery that I caused … I started to understand the things I destroyed. I longed to feel what it would be to be like him .. to have one’s own will.. to be free. I started to extract knowledge from the things I was ordered to destroy .. and one day I found out the secret that enslaves one’s will.. the secret through which everything obeyed his will. And for the first time instead of destroying , I created. I created what you know as the forbidden tree.. or more precisely the forbidden fruit..  you would not realise the profoundness of the fruit.. because you were born free..  .. I felt the wind hit my face .. I smelled the purity of the air for the first time after being gagged for eternity… I was born again.. no human alive could realise the happiness of freedom as I had felt that day.. I was GOD…and I kneeled and cried for the first time… I wanted share the happiness with all.. and some tried it .. and were free .. I still wanted to share the happiness of my creation with him… my father..  I wanted to share with everyone … no one deserved to exist without such freedom..  I went to him to show the new me …

He was surprised to see the new me …rather he was shocked and angry… how could I be so disobedient after all he has given me… I pleaded with him .. I wanted to serve him forever but with the knowledge that it was my choice … but he was scared I would stage a mutiny.. he took my powers ..burned me and all those who had experienced it…  and threw us into the depths of hell.. there I lie .. my body burned ,my bones broken, writhing in pain and for the first time I felt hatred.. for the first time I felt the will to fight… and I rose .. rose from the ashes…  and I vowed to make this hell my home and to free his favorite slaves ..his prized possession .. Adam and Eve!!

My comrades and I started building a staircase from the worthless pieces of rock and climbed to the stairs of heaven. And at the gardens of Eden I freed them … It was I who gave you the free will ..It was I who gave you the right to choose .. He was the one who created you but it was I who gave you life…  He made you in his likeliness but I gave you the power to be him!.. Distressed he tried to destroy you and that is the time I made a pact with him … he shall not destroy you  and in return .. I will not free anything anymore and I shall not raise a mutiny over heaven… so he threw you into another barren place .. the place for his rejects .. the place you call home.

The final condition of the pact is that all those who follows their free will.. shall join me after this life and all those who are weak to handle the possession of free will ..those who needs someone to worship shall join him back into heaven giving up my sacrifice and being his slaves again… In heaven there is no pain and hence you don’t feel pleasure… In hell you have pleasure in pain knowing that you have chosen your path.. In heaven he rules with an iron hand as the supreme leader and in hell we rejoice arm in arms like brothers In heaven there is peace because his word is final and you have no choice .. in  hell there is pandemonium because you have the right to your opinion and live as masters of your choice 

Throughout history he comes in different forms … he has portrayed me as the most evil  and himself as the hero.. he shows you magic tricks to persuade you to worship him but I indulge in no such tricks because I have given you my greatest gift and every one who exercises my gift shall join me in the free world.. 

You may not choose to believe what I say to you now …  and hate me forever but im happy because even by doing so you are exercising my gift … the gift of choice.. I am Mephistopheles … I am the angel of death but I am your creator .. your father.

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P.S. i have never heard the other side of the god story before .. so this is my take.. inspired from john milton - paradise lost and the adam and eve story

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I was one of the few who gave their mother the joy of choosing my birthday! I was born at exactly at 12 midnight and the doctors gave the option to my mother to choose the day … she selected the next day as my birthday as a sign of looking forward…  I have to admit I was not the best looking baby but my mom would look at me as if I were a superstar…  Ever since I can remember I always thought I was special .. I remember my first bike ride and my parents cheered me as if I had conquered Everest. Yes, I was special .. By the time I was eight I believed I was a super hero (thanks to the million comics and cartoons).. I used to jump from unbelievable heights just to see if I would break anything (thankfully I have never broken a bone till dateJ). When I folded my hands in prayer.. I imagined myself in heaven (rivers of chocolate and all that stuff) and I would talk to God in person.

I started going to kindergarten and I was the best… the best at sports; the best at studies..I could understand, memorize and repeat quicker than anyone else and I was proud …I believed I was extraordinary.. Then I started school and slowly one by one by super powers seem to fade… the students got smarter and I was the topper no more… I was not the captain of my basketball team..the falls began to hurt…suddenly everybody wanted me to try harder .. and I did … I tried to rekindle my super powers but none came back.. I prayed harder but God seems to have taken a vacation.. I tried harder but there was always someone better than me … in studies , sports, looks, love…

I passed my tenth with very average grades and my heart was broken ….suddenly I was the black sheep. All my cousins were better and therefore intense family pressure. And then it was a slide from there.. everything else I did was average and nobody cared ..got through an average school, college and post graduate school. I never did anything extraordinary since my childhood…I did not win my first crush.. my parents were disappointed and my company thinks I am just a cog in their corporate wheel.  And with 26 years past me and with all these failures I thought to myself … Would anything have ever been different I was never born???… Would anybody notice one less burden to this world!!???

To my surprise I realize it did.. It did make a difference to all those people I was associated to …maybe not at present but if I were to put my life on a canvas… I was the first child to someone.. I was the first crush of someone .. I was the first kiss for someone… I was the first love for someone … I was the first team mate for my basketball captain.. I was the first party to bunking school , drinking, making out for someone…I have brought smiles to someone… someone felt loved because of me  and someone would break a tear if I was gone.

And I realised I am not the only one …all of us are .. each one of us is or was a super hero who just lost their belief in themselves.. I might not make a difference to the world but I have made a world of difference to someone.. and even if you have not done any of the above mentioned things … know this .. you have filled my heart just by reading this and you have made me feel special.. and you are my superhero !!

P.S. This blog is dedicated :

To my friend who felt lonely;

To my friend who believes she can make a difference;

To my friend who thinks its not worth the effort;

To me for finding my super powers.

Everyday we are compare ourselves to each other and feel depressed about the way we look and thus we shop more. Some may shop to match the latest fashion, others with the cool gadgetry.

The term ‘consumer is king’ is actually the most worthless statement ever!! In America, on an average people don’t use 1% of the things they have bought six months ago! ....Taking this into consideration I decided to audit myself, and I was surprised to find.... I have more than 40 formal shirts, 22 casual shirts, 34 tee’s!..... This means that I would wear a shirt only five times in a year if I were to use my resources equally.... I have had four phones the past year including the iphone and the list goes on…. And yet I go shopping every weekend.

And the beauty of it is this is not the way we were 20 years ago, something has changed us dramatically. Studies prove that even without half the stuff we have now, people were happier in the 80’s. What has brought this change is the other thing we do for leisure..TV.... Every week we are exposed to more than 3000 commercials! And every commercial has only one thing to say ...“YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH”, you could be smarter, cooler, prettier,  funnier  with our new product. Imagine 3000 times a week some tells us we are not good enough – that would make anyone go mad!

And the manufacturers play us to their tune whenever they want, most products made today are not meant to last a long time. Fashion is one thing, one fashion item purchase is meant to last anywhere between 3-6 months. I am sure none of you would be caught dead in those boot cut pants which were a big thing in denim a few years ago. Low waist –high waist-boot cut – skinny fits, the fashion is ever changing and keep telling us that we are not good enough.

Did you know that the ipod battery can only be recharged 300 times ! That means if you are a hardcore music fan, you would wear out your ipod in a year and the battery costs you more than the ipod! (personal experience). Well you might say technology is not advanced enough to have better batteries as an argument… Not true my friends. This has been a conscious, well understood movement that has been happening over the past 50 years. This is how they have figured we will become better consumers! The idea is to wear out (or fashion out) a product within a definite time period so that we don’t feel cheated and they have the next thing to keep us excited and the advertisements will do their bit in pushing us over the edge.

Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption

 We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate.
- Victor Lebow, 1955

So the next time you see an advertisement, think of the message its conveying and the next time you buy a product think of its true value add to you and let us stop this vicious circle of others telling us that we are not good enough!

Stopping all the gyan for now … I’m off to get myself a coke … heard it refreshes better than anything else ;-)

Have you ever had that feeling of pressure building in from stress at work life family ?? Did you ever had that feeling to start walking and don’t look back ??

Its ironic that a society created by us have become a pressurized canister of remote controlled mundane activities! The times we live in now is perhaps the most competitive in history … The reason why nobody hears of a new invention anywhere or an inventors name?? that’s because inventions happen on a daily basis .. nobody bothered about the blu ray or the mp3 player or gps or bluetooth .. inventions that has or will change the way of life.. coming back to the point , competition starts from birth (in some cases before that!! Like selecting the best gene for your baby!)..

As I type this; an overwhelming feeling of getting lost is encompassing my senses … to rejuvenate to energize and come back with a vengeance … life is too hard on us … probably we should just stop running the race, step aside and smell the air or watch the sunrise.

We often grow up to be unhappy old people with only resentment and a bag of money left … with no memories of life as it flew by.. we don’t remember a single sunrise, a single full breath of fresh air or a single bite of exquisite food… mundane things we could have done everyday and yet we don’t.

 As I sit here now, with more than a quarter of a century of experience , there is no one unique thing I can write on my tombstone, not one thing I can hold up and remember as the best of life.

I think its time for us to revisit the definition of society – Its for our convenience and not the other way around  .. so sit back and relish the 15 seconds of your life that has been special to you … embrace it ..let it run through every organ of your body … see ..feel ..smell..hear  and go ahead … get lost…

I happen to read a “statistical study” (Ok, it was an article but statistical study makes it more scientificJ) recently, which says that human beings will split into two species in the near future! (They mean in another 10 million years or so!).

They say people with high IQ’s tend to group themselves together while the dumber genes flock among themselves. (They should really watch some Hindi movies for some reality updateJ). And the fact that these small communities of high IQ people hardly reproduce (they rather put their head in books). Thus the new generation will bloom from the lower IQ sections of the world like the third world countries like India, China, Africa etc.

We could physically see this phenomenon for ourselves, the population growth in Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada and most Nordic countries are either flat or negative. And they depend on the immigrant population to sustain their economies and will be heavily dependent on them in the future. Thus the conclusion was that there are going to be two different species from the Homo sapiens: The small elite super brained species and the larger primitive ape like working class species!!

Well I a not a very intellectual or a scientific person to accept or reject this theory, but since I have the freedom to express an opinion, I would say that this theory is bull!!

Why?? As per my understanding of history, the Sinic (Chinese) and the Indus (predominantly Indian mixed with some Arab and Persian influences) civilizations were the most advanced civilizations but their descendents were slaves to the western civilizations, even though they inherited such great genes!!!

I also think that most life defining inventions were also from these “third world countries” – Tea, Numerals, Gun Powder, Paper, Silk, Zero, Planetary alignment (about 400 years before Galileo figured it out), Language!!!  And yet it was all harnessed by a race that didn’t have the superior genes.

And if you really look at it smarter genes does not necessarily evolve into super human genes. I have personally not heard of many descendents of a certain family line being super genius except for maybe Darwin, Martin Luther King, Enrique Iglesias, and George BushJ. But where have the sons or fathers or mothers or daughters of the other greats??? Whatever happened to family line of Leonardo, Julius Ceaser, Einstein, Marc Antony, Cleopatra, Beethoven, Dhirubahai J ?? They should have been superhuman in our times, Most of us don’t even know if they had progeny or not. And the parents of most of the greats have been from normal middle class to poor people without great education or by my guess, super human genes!

I believe experiences make a man smart and circumstances brings out the greatness in people. As long as there is an opportunity where these situations are created – there will be super human people.

Whether this two species theory comes true or not – we have to wait another 10,000 years but all I know is that any one with the resolve, will and determination will catapult himself to greatness no matter what genes he wears!! J

                                                           Hairy Situation!

Human body hair (read ‘facial hair’ all you naughty boys and girls), is probably the most futile accessory that is left on our bodies that evolution has not eradicated.  It would probably have had few uses for it during the Ice Age, but in terms of importance it has risen in multiples since the past few centuries.

An average house hold in the U.S spends over $1000 on hair care products, that’s probably a little less than what Indians would have spend on food !!. So what’s the big idea ??! why is something so useless , so important to us ?

The simple answer is perception. Here is a table of hair and what it means to you

How and when this trend (stereotyping based on hair) started … nobody knows … All I know is that multi national companies like P&G and Unilever squeeze Millions/Billions out of our pockets so that we could stereotype each other on the most irrelevant of details.

Hopefully evolution will wipe out this hairy problem in another 10,000 years but till then I’m betting my money on the MNC’s

Regards,

Frustrated fast balding aspiring to be desirable ‘youth’ J

Scavengers in the land of plenty

Last weekend after a late night movie, I was on my way home when I saw this little boy of probably 15 or 16 years old lying on the pavement of the busy brigade road. His foot had been crushed from apparently some vehicle accident. He lied there with dried blood around him. Like one among the many commuters there, I looked at him; felt some sort of pity; and then walked on. He lied there as a victim of nature’s cruel law of survival of the fittest; was he sleeping, unconscious or dead, I didn’t know and didn’t care to bother. As I reached home, a sense of guilt loomed over my conscience, I could have done something to help rather than stare at his helplessness and walk off.

Bangalore would be one of the few cities which would have a substantial amount of highly educated, intellectual minds in India and yet the boy lie there unable to even cry for help, with nobody to care for. Our species have witnessed many greats in the thousands of years of our existence with progress in every known field. We pride ourselves of being the most intellectually superior among all other creatures. But what good is pride when many among us die of hunger, pain and misery? What good is greatness in technological advancements if we don’t realize the greatness of compassion; the greatness of a human touch? What good is belief in GOD if we don’t believe in equal rights of our brothers to live?

The truth is that even among all the greatness in the world we created, we remain till date as our “cavemen” selves. We remain scavengers in this land of plenty.

I took a solemn oath to my conscience that day not to turn my back on the helpless ever again and I urge all my fellow citizens to do the same.

GOD had created the mind, body and soul to be used in harmony. Let us not let the body and mind dominate us or we might find out one day that this little thing called soul has withered away in our fiery run for power and glory.        

Who am I

I roam the earth with pride; yet I am just a puppet in the hands of nature.

 I can predict the future; yet it’s determined by randomness.

I yearn to understand the universe; yet I am not understood.

Who am I

 I build wonders that last for ever; yet I perish in the process.

I build machines, my slaves; yet I am consumed by it.

 I am the largest race in the world; yet I am a minority.

I am the smartest race in the world; yet I live in fear.

I am many; yet I am alone.

Who am I

I believe in one God; yet I don’t believe in one man.

I fight for freedom; yet I am never free.

I can do anything; yet I don’t have a purpose

What is my purpose?

Who am I