Hunting for a good pair of jeans that fits well can be traumatising. First of all, you realise that you are never going to fit in those incredibly stylish skinny jeans. Then, with great horror, you realise that your waist-line has expanded since you last went jeans-hunting. You silently curse all those moments you gave in to the temptation of those gigantic ice-cream sundaes, those extra helpings of pav bhaji and those sugar-loaded Diwali mithais. You silently curse yourself for not sticking to the morning walk routine just for a few more hours of sleep. And then you make resolutions to exercise more and eat healthy. Only to break them a few hours later when mom cooks up some delicious biryani.
Post-Diwali and post-vacations-in-Gujarat (where every meal has at least two sweets soaked in ghee), I’m contemplating starting the battle against the extra kilos. My plans include –
1) Going for walks twice a day
2) Eating less
3) Eating healthy
4) Stop munching on chocolate-coated almonds as I write this
To put this plan into action and to ensure that I stick to eat… oops, it, I have decided to take some very strict measures –
1) Setting the alarm clock night after night even if I ignore it day after day (One should never give up hope)
2) Not stocking the fridge with snacks (That means not visiting the neighbourhood supermarkets, because they have a way of enticing you to buy stuff you shouldn’t)
3) Not raiding the fridge every two minutes (As if, miraculously, a chocolate cake or something delicious would appear in it)
4) Posting stupid entries on the blog such as this one to take mind off food.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Questions, questions…
Are all men born equal?
Aren’t some born richer than others, more gifted than others, stronger than others, more fortunate than others?
Are all men really born equal?
Aren’t some born richer than others, more gifted than others, stronger than others, more fortunate than others?
Are all men really born equal?
More questions…
What is right and what is wrong?
Who decides what is right and what is wrong?
What is to sin?
Does the end justify the means?
Who decides what is right and what is wrong?
What is to sin?
Does the end justify the means?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Some questions…
Where have we come from?
Why are we here?
Where do we go to from here?
What is the meaning of our existence?
Is there a Power that controls our lives?
Is there God?
Is there a beginning and an end to Time and Space?
What happens to us after death?
Why are we here?
Where do we go to from here?
What is the meaning of our existence?
Is there a Power that controls our lives?
Is there God?
Is there a beginning and an end to Time and Space?
What happens to us after death?
About religion…
It was the rebellious teen in me that led me to question the existence of God and religion. Rebellious because as a family we were, and my parents still are, fervently religious. We visit temples frequently and have poojas performed from time to time.
It was in Benares, the holy city of the Hindus, that I first witnessed the ugly side of religion. The dying and the dead are brought to this ancient city in order to attain salvation. Consequently, it is a city of suffering and misery. Indeed death is a part of life, something all of us will eventually face. But the image of a dying man, lying almost naked on the street, one leg stretched upwards like rigor mortis had already set in, flies hovering about him, left me numb and has stayed with me after all these years. We passed him by like hundreds of others around us. We tried to ignore him, tried not to look at him. He might have attained the much-pursued salvation, but that could not change the fact that he had died and probably even lived in misery. Next, the attitude of the priests shocked me. They hustled us, screamed at us as we stood in the queue. They offered to help us jump the queue if we paid up a certain amount. We had gone looking for a spiritual experience and we left disturbed and shaken. My belief in religion and its goodness suffered a blow and put me on the path to question.
What is it that led men to form religion (including the ancient pagan ones)? Was it the fear of the unknown, of Nature, of those invisible powers that caused lightings and earthquakes and deluges? I have often wondered if religion has done more good to mankind than bad. It gave the society some rules to live by, but it also gave us wars and bloodshed that continue till date. At times, religion became the means to suppress women and a certain section of the society. It became the weapon of the rich, the educated and the powerful to be used against the poor, the illiterate and the powerless.
Not that I am against religion. It’s up to every individual to make his or her choice. But I sincerely wish that religion be kept out of our public lives. It’s a little to quixotic to say so but I hope religion ceases one day to be a dividing factor in our modern societies. I also believe that religion should not guide our actions and thoughts to such an extent that we lose our faculty of independent thinking. We should learn to question dogmas and let religion evolve with time because morals, values and concepts of good and bad change with time and religion should reflect those changes.
Gandhi used to say that there are as many religions as human beings. So probably it would be wrong to say I have no religion. Mine is that of questioning…
It was in Benares, the holy city of the Hindus, that I first witnessed the ugly side of religion. The dying and the dead are brought to this ancient city in order to attain salvation. Consequently, it is a city of suffering and misery. Indeed death is a part of life, something all of us will eventually face. But the image of a dying man, lying almost naked on the street, one leg stretched upwards like rigor mortis had already set in, flies hovering about him, left me numb and has stayed with me after all these years. We passed him by like hundreds of others around us. We tried to ignore him, tried not to look at him. He might have attained the much-pursued salvation, but that could not change the fact that he had died and probably even lived in misery. Next, the attitude of the priests shocked me. They hustled us, screamed at us as we stood in the queue. They offered to help us jump the queue if we paid up a certain amount. We had gone looking for a spiritual experience and we left disturbed and shaken. My belief in religion and its goodness suffered a blow and put me on the path to question.
What is it that led men to form religion (including the ancient pagan ones)? Was it the fear of the unknown, of Nature, of those invisible powers that caused lightings and earthquakes and deluges? I have often wondered if religion has done more good to mankind than bad. It gave the society some rules to live by, but it also gave us wars and bloodshed that continue till date. At times, religion became the means to suppress women and a certain section of the society. It became the weapon of the rich, the educated and the powerful to be used against the poor, the illiterate and the powerless.
Not that I am against religion. It’s up to every individual to make his or her choice. But I sincerely wish that religion be kept out of our public lives. It’s a little to quixotic to say so but I hope religion ceases one day to be a dividing factor in our modern societies. I also believe that religion should not guide our actions and thoughts to such an extent that we lose our faculty of independent thinking. We should learn to question dogmas and let religion evolve with time because morals, values and concepts of good and bad change with time and religion should reflect those changes.
Gandhi used to say that there are as many religions as human beings. So probably it would be wrong to say I have no religion. Mine is that of questioning…
Exam-time!!!
It’s exam time…
Textbooks long-lost and forgotten, found after several days of excavation in my cupboard.
Hundreds of study time-tables drafted, only to be torn and re-drafted.
(They are never meant to be followed anyway.)
Valiant attempts to study, thwarted by bouts of day-dreaming and telephone calls.
HBO decides to screen a movie I’ve always wanted to see.
Three hours straight down the drain.
Few days to go.
But I still haven’t got much done.
Every single day starts with a resolute determination to study.
And ends with a resolute determination to start over afresh tomorrow.
But as we all know, tomorrow never comes.
When I was in school, my mother gave me Ayurvedic medicines that were supposed to help me concentrate. They probably worked. If I were reading my favourite novel or watching a great movie and if you burst a fire-cracker right under my ear, I wouldn’t realise.
But when I’m studying, for example something thoroughly compelling like Business Regulatory Framework, even a pigeon on the window sill can be a huge distraction. Not to mention my grand-mother’s weepy and tacky TV soaps that she insists on playing full-volume.
Here I am typing away when my Economics textbook looks invitingly at me… Oh boy, am I turning schizophrenic?? (Wow, I spelt it right… I think…)
Must get back to work. Must not think about starting a revolution to ban exams that would put the French to shame. Must not think about pretending to be abducted by aliens on the first day of the exam to return later with my memory erased. Ahhh! Must stop before I reveal too many secrets…
Textbooks long-lost and forgotten, found after several days of excavation in my cupboard.
Hundreds of study time-tables drafted, only to be torn and re-drafted.
(They are never meant to be followed anyway.)
Valiant attempts to study, thwarted by bouts of day-dreaming and telephone calls.
HBO decides to screen a movie I’ve always wanted to see.
Three hours straight down the drain.
Few days to go.
But I still haven’t got much done.
Every single day starts with a resolute determination to study.
And ends with a resolute determination to start over afresh tomorrow.
But as we all know, tomorrow never comes.
When I was in school, my mother gave me Ayurvedic medicines that were supposed to help me concentrate. They probably worked. If I were reading my favourite novel or watching a great movie and if you burst a fire-cracker right under my ear, I wouldn’t realise.
But when I’m studying, for example something thoroughly compelling like Business Regulatory Framework, even a pigeon on the window sill can be a huge distraction. Not to mention my grand-mother’s weepy and tacky TV soaps that she insists on playing full-volume.
Here I am typing away when my Economics textbook looks invitingly at me… Oh boy, am I turning schizophrenic?? (Wow, I spelt it right… I think…)
Must get back to work. Must not think about starting a revolution to ban exams that would put the French to shame. Must not think about pretending to be abducted by aliens on the first day of the exam to return later with my memory erased. Ahhh! Must stop before I reveal too many secrets…
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
The Street-light Syndrome
As I pass under a street-light it flickers and then goes out. A few feet away, another flickers and dies. No, this is not a scene from a horror movie. It happens to me! And all the time!!
It all started back in the good old school days. I realised that street-lamps went out when I passed under them. I thought I was going crazy. Probably an overdose of Goosebumps and X-Files. Then I told my best friend, who lived across the street, about it. Being an X-Files fan too, she appeared to be as intrigued and shocked as me. Or maybe she was just being nice and didn’t want to tell me that I was perfectly qualified to enter a mental asylum...
I lived with this strange phenomenon for years, never once daring to tell anybody about it. And then one day, I read somewhere that this is called the “street-light syndrome”. On searching the net I found there are quite a few people who, the word is probably too strong, suffer from it. This phenomenon has no scientific explanation and it’s probably just a game that the mind plays on you. Maybe Mulder would know.
It all started back in the good old school days. I realised that street-lamps went out when I passed under them. I thought I was going crazy. Probably an overdose of Goosebumps and X-Files. Then I told my best friend, who lived across the street, about it. Being an X-Files fan too, she appeared to be as intrigued and shocked as me. Or maybe she was just being nice and didn’t want to tell me that I was perfectly qualified to enter a mental asylum...
I lived with this strange phenomenon for years, never once daring to tell anybody about it. And then one day, I read somewhere that this is called the “street-light syndrome”. On searching the net I found there are quite a few people who, the word is probably too strong, suffer from it. This phenomenon has no scientific explanation and it’s probably just a game that the mind plays on you. Maybe Mulder would know.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
What shall be the 11th art?
What shall be the 11th art?
(A translation of my French essay)
Note: In France, cinema is said to be the 7th art. I have no idea about the other nine. Our French professor asked us to imagine what shall be the 11th art and here’s what I wrote.
(A translation of my French essay)
Note: In France, cinema is said to be the 7th art. I have no idea about the other nine. Our French professor asked us to imagine what shall be the 11th art and here’s what I wrote.
0630: Mr. X wakes up. He showers while listening to the radio. As always, two road accidents, a report on Paris Hilton in jail and a bomb-blast in Palestine.
0730: He breakfasts. Along with decaffeinated coffee (since he’s real careful about his health)
Then he walks towards the station from where he will take the metro to work. His work doesn’t interest him. But since it pays well, he hangs on. He will return to work at eight with a pain in the back. He will go to bed, the television on, without eating his dinner but after having taken some anti-depressants.
Life goes on in this way. Of course, he goes on vacations sometimes. He goes to the beach, he has fun. He returns to work, with a tan and a hangover.
Life flies him by. At sixty, he’s rich, a ‘success’. After a stroke that almost killed him, he asks himself, “What did I do with my life?” It’s too late…
No one would like to end up like Mr. X. Yet, we let life pass us by, burying our dreams and doing what the society wants us to do. We forget that life is short and so one must rejoice every moment of it.
Considering this is a huge problem of the twenty-first century, I think the 11th art should be “the art of living”. And we must study and perfect this art which is dying.
Indeed, life has become too demanding. Or maybe we demand too much of life. We are like Alexander who wants to conquer the world. Here’s a little dialogue between him and Diogenes, the great philosopher.
Diogenes: What do you desire the most, your majesty?
Alexander: I wish to conquer Greece.
D: And then?
A: And then I wish to conquer the whole world.
D: And then?
A: And then I shall rest and enjoy myself.
D: But that, your majesty, you can do even now!
0730: He breakfasts. Along with decaffeinated coffee (since he’s real careful about his health)
Then he walks towards the station from where he will take the metro to work. His work doesn’t interest him. But since it pays well, he hangs on. He will return to work at eight with a pain in the back. He will go to bed, the television on, without eating his dinner but after having taken some anti-depressants.
Life goes on in this way. Of course, he goes on vacations sometimes. He goes to the beach, he has fun. He returns to work, with a tan and a hangover.
Life flies him by. At sixty, he’s rich, a ‘success’. After a stroke that almost killed him, he asks himself, “What did I do with my life?” It’s too late…
No one would like to end up like Mr. X. Yet, we let life pass us by, burying our dreams and doing what the society wants us to do. We forget that life is short and so one must rejoice every moment of it.
Considering this is a huge problem of the twenty-first century, I think the 11th art should be “the art of living”. And we must study and perfect this art which is dying.
Indeed, life has become too demanding. Or maybe we demand too much of life. We are like Alexander who wants to conquer the world. Here’s a little dialogue between him and Diogenes, the great philosopher.
Diogenes: What do you desire the most, your majesty?
Alexander: I wish to conquer Greece.
D: And then?
A: And then I wish to conquer the whole world.
D: And then?
A: And then I shall rest and enjoy myself.
D: But that, your majesty, you can do even now!
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