Gullible Between Names..

A usual conversation when you are slightly gullible…

A friend: “DUDE!! Indrosarena?? Sounds like a Boxing Competition.”
Me: “Dude! Go away!!”
“Its better then your blog name”
Friend: “Its feels like a Mike Tyson popup will come up anytime when I click on your blog link.”
Me: “Ah right!!! What’s next? My blogs sound like Tyson tearing off Holyfield’s ears”
Friend: “I rather not comment on that.”
Me: “Oh shut up!!”
Friend: “Anyways forget it.”


(After some conversation on some other banal topic)

Me: “Dude! Seriously tell me. Is it that funny??”

And the fable continues…

Passion's Fruit..

How passionate are you about the work you do? Ask this question and you might end up getting some extreme answers. Some say, “I just love the challenges and the hurdles I face everyday in my work”. While some lesser fortunate guys would say, “I just switch off my mind when I come to work.”

I went to this local rock concert last Sunday. The bands were mostly local and were being massively criticized for their performance. But what really overwhelmed me was seeing these guys keep on playing their music so single-mindedly. I am sure they had their own doubts on the music they are making. Yet they had the enthusiasm to come on the stage and have a good time. That kind of passion and conviction is something I myself lack in life and obviously crave for.

I must admit the one thing which drew me to places like Barcamp or any local concert is to see these people who are so avidly engrossed in their work of interest. The fact that they are more interested in the process rather than the end results has always amazed me. These people are always enjoying the moment rather than bothering about the future.

It’s funny that while we are wasting our time judging them, these guys got the entire stage for them and are having the most amazing time of their lives.

The Advisory Mishap...

“It’s just not affordable to go by someone’s advice now days”, said a friend few days back.

The guy does have a point. There are some of us around who can’t decide anything on their own and always looking for counselors. But the problem is there are just too many people with too many advices. Whom to follow to and who to disregard has become a chore in itself. What’s more perilous is the fact that people have somehow learnt the art of pretending to be an expert when they actually still are the same old letdowns. A few days back another friend proclaimed himself to be a “genuine” geek. When asked the reason behind his observation he self-assuredly replied, “Because I still read Comics!!!” How can just reading comics make someone a geek I fail to understand? Anyways that’s just a “not damaging” instance of these breed of glory hunters. Then there are some who go around saying “Those who can’t do, teach.” thinking that will get them some credibility. Nice way of glorifying being a jack!@#!!!

Coming back to the point. Staying clear of such people is an important aspect of the eternally confused man’s life. To even hear the ubiquitously wrong advice which, he will definitely follow is a straight road to the gallows. Now what’s worse is the fact that even he wants to learn the art of pretending to be the ever confident man. Here comes the main drawback of being the confused man. When he gets an advice he can do two things. He will reject them to show the world that he’s not gullible. Else he can accept them because, well he always has an unbearable need of the advices. But how does he decide which to take and which to reject.

Does he need to be advised even on that?

Well, Life certainly is full of ugly loop holes.

The Barcamp Experience..

It’s been ages since I met guys who sat together and discussed technology and emerging concepts, passionately. That’s what I used to crib about before I went to Barcamp yesterday. It was the 2nd day of the 8th edition of the “unconference”. The place is a Mecca for geeks to meet up, highlight and exchange ideas with like minded people.

Nice thing about the whole idea is that it is very informally organized, yet amazingly managed. One doesn’t have to fill up long forms and go through tens of other formalities to get their session registered. You just turn up that day and scribe down your session name on any of the available slots and you are ready for the show. You want to cancel your session, just don’t turn up. It’s that simple. The sessions varied from specific concepts like “Natural Language Processing” to entrepreneurial stuffs like personal branding and starting one’s own company to yoga and ancient wisdom in modern times. You can go and attend any session, discuss or even keep quiet. And that doesn’t stop there. It’s not like one has to attend all the sessions and not sit idle. You can just sit around and have your own discussions and no one from the organizing team will stop you.

The main idea behind the format is to ensure that there is a free flow of ideas. People are exposed to new concepts and also get to meet the groups responsible for these ideas. These groups in return For guys like us it’s also a good way to get past a usual banal weekend.

Judge The Book, Always...

It’s funny that to really know one’s colleagues, the first thing one has to do is take them out of the office. It’s a fact I realized on last Saturday’s team excursion to a resort. Well for all lonely travelers out there, it was a kind of a place you would hate to go without a set of good friends. The food was good though. But more of that later.

Anyways, coming back to the surprises of the day. I could hardly imagine the usual reserved and “always sticking their nose on the monitor” colleagues of mine will turn out to be so brilliant and funny. It was fascinating to see that the usually serious Lead is also a nice actor and director when I saw his performance in Mad-ads or to find that this usual coy girl is also an amazing gracious dancer. Oh! Give them beer and see them dance. These guys could give any professional a run for their money with their ground-breaking moves. All through the day, some turned out to be painters, some guitarists, some mimics, some just absolutely crazy and some unusually nice when a bit tipsy.

It’s weird how easily we create an impression of the people around us. We hardly consider fact that not knowing about their lives doesn’t mean they don’t have any. This is true especially for our seniors who have to be more serious and responsible in the office. After seeing them in a more informal occasion, one does tend to see them with more admiration. It just validates an old saying that we all have different facades in our individuality. They just come out in different situations, never at the same time. To bring out these hidden fronts of someone we just to put these people in the right place, among the right people and maybe give them a bit of the right dose of good beer :P.

Tipsy? That’s not me..

A subtle mist, golden brown
Thinned by the earthy babble,
Of the world going down.
I give them a smile they can’t see
Are they smashed or is it just me?

I stare at the other side, it
Looks blue, it looks yellow
Reminds me of memories that
Make me feel mellow.
Life hardly makes sense. I hope
That’s the way it will always be.
‘Cause what’s the fun in it if
It’s not crazy, tardy and tipsy.

P.S.: A work of fiction written in a sober state. Seriously....

Blues and symptoms of “The Trooper”..

We screamed, we jumped, we got sloshed and we were blessed. But what about the morning which creeps in?

An amazing rock concert hangover symptoms:

• A soothing strain engulfs the back of the neck to the end of the spine.
• An excruciating cramp is felt in the heels where every step brings out a snapshot of last night.
• Ears and mind still buzz with guitar riffs.
• People have to speak a decilbel louder to make themselves heard.
• The heart still beats in the same rhythm of the woofer.
• A mocking smile appears on your face every time an ignorant life form comes across.
• You just can’t get rid off the smile.
• Somewhere in you, a crazier plan for the next concert creeps in.
  

Even better than the real thing..

Phew!! At last, Hope arrives after 5 years of listening to the sham of wannabe Alt Rock bands. Will No Line on the Horizon bring back the glory days of rock?

Well, the gods of Dublin do have their mysterious ways and I am nobody to question them.

Benares's Romantics

After reading “The Romantics” by Pankaj Mishra I have been wondering how this book managed to stay away from the best-sellers' shelves and from the pirated book-stalls.

It’s a wonderfully written tale of the narrator “Samar” who comes to the city of Benares and is pushed into the world of some foreigners who have come there to spiritually enlighten themselves. The book shows a beautiful and ironic picture of the confusions and realizations of the expatriates in the country mixed with the Samar’s curiosity and awkwardness towards these aliens and their life. The book proceeds, taking Samar to Pondicherry for a while where he meets his father who then sends him to Dharamshala. All this while he tries to come to terms with the past and make a sense of his life. The story ends in Benares again where he comes one last time to face the past he had left behind. The very nature of the three places played an important role in Samar's life. The hustle bustle of Benares represent the restlessness Samar felt in the new world. Pondicherry made him realize what he had left behind and sort of help him in his transition to everything which came later. During the seven years, the silence and serenity of Dharamshala makes him lose himself in the memories of the past and the realities of life's expectations.

I believe this book puts Pankaj Mishra in same league with Amitav Ghosh and Jhumpa Lahiri not because of how good they write but because of their capacity to take a part of one ordinary man’s journey through life and make it look extra ordinary and truly beautiful. Being his first novel he doesn’t gives any signs of immaturity, the credit of which goes to the fact that he has written two travellogues and is also a regular writer in Nytimes Opinion columns. He is very lyrical in his narration and gives a beautiful picture of Benares. It’s so good that one can’t help imagining being in the city himself. I would say the story ends up provoking a thought that we all go through these similar extra-ordinary situations and gradually morph into what we truly are today just like Samar did. It also made me realize that there is an amazing story in all of us, it just looks deceptively ordinary.

A ride with Floyd...

There is a fascination I have for traveling long distances in a bus which I hardly find in any other transport. I generally find flights to be fast to enjoy the journey and trains too crowded that I end up spending my entire time fighting for the space to enjoy the trip. Surprisingly the very small and confined seats in the bus which people are so fussy about give the opportunity to create the wonderful parallel universe to quietly slide away.

I end up spending hours watching the distant hills, the orange glimmer of the far away factories, the audacity of the overtaking cars, occasional empty petrol pumps, the sparsely-lit shops in the dark and every small amusing piece constituting the vast expanse. The pleasant shiver of the cold wind and Floyd in the ears makes sure to keep me in this reverie undisturbed by the blare of the movie being played occasionally in the bus. Every journey I take reminds of the distant imaginary lands we used to read about in our childhood and were so captivated to. The mood created helps to put my belief and thoughts together. The questions which bother day and night get replaced by ideas to solve or the desire just to let them go.

Even the world seems to be much clearer. Turns out, it’s easier to see the washed face of the world left behind from a distance and at a speed where it won’t be able to catch up, at least for a while.