Techi-Talk

I have always thought of writing this post. This is somewhere voicing my concern over the issue.

When I was in my BE Final Year, studying in one of the premier institutes in India, I was still a novice in matters of computer. I remember the first time my friend gave me a CD of songs to copy from .As I started copying I could see envelopes “flying” from one end to other(I was laughed at a lot for this observation :)). And that was the beginning.

500 million active users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. And this is just Facebook. If we put together Facebook and others, more than a Trillion minutes are spent on social networking sites every month.Not only have computers changed the computing and software world, have been a core part of our profession but they have changed our relationships also. And this happens mainly because of the networking we do. Each day the way we peek into the facebook or twitter sites and wait for some jazzy comments to make our day. We want people to “like” our status, we want birthdays to flash on facebook, and we want comments on everything. Whether be it “I have travelled by a cab today” or “I have cough and cold”. It feels to me as if we are starved to get information and dying to give information, given the fact that this is an age of information burst. And as soon as even a lesser known friend “Likes” our comments we are pleased. Is this because we want listeners to our stories, struggles, triumphs ?But is it worthwhile to broadcast every single news ,however trivial it may be to a bunch of 500-1000 people of whom merely a few know us well!! This makes me feel that somehow we are losing sensitivities to divulge right information to right person at right time. When we want to tell others that we have travelled to a foreign land (which till date remains a great pat on the back!!!) we simply change our country. When we want to broadcast how happy we are, we upload our photographs. Excerpts from a research conducted by the New York University show:" hundred students, 50 male and 50 female, between the ages of 18 and 25 participated in the study. One of the biggest findings, according to the study, is that Facebook users who update their profiles frequently are more likely to be narcissistic. On the other hand, those who check the site often throughout the day are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem. Furthermore, researchers determined that women to carefully select “self-promoting” images when it came to profile photos, but men tended to brag more about themselves throughout their profiles". And I am not surely being sadistic to oppose all these. All these are good, but what my concern is, isn’t all this taking us far apart from our friends? We are becoming too much web dependant and losing the human touch. One of my friends would always ping me in Gtalk, be it I am ill, depressed, broken, happy, ecstatic or whatever. Sometimes I would be waiting just to hear her voice but alas...again those Gtalk messages!!!I felt like talking to some ghostly entity, after all, none of us are Shakespeares to be able to put down in writing every single nuance of human behavior! Yes I want to hear people, I want to meet people. Web, networking sites are only a tool to me to get in touch and not to “Stay” in touch.

Or is it a broadened phenomenon? That we are becoming more sensitive and receptive to far away, not so tangible entities than our immediate environment? While in hostel I found people talking incessantly over phone, so engrossed in those relentless encounters that they become completely unaware of even taking timely food, or knowing someone in their surroundings might get disturbed too .And I have also gone through these things, talked over phone for hours simply because I found the people on the other side of phone more close to me than people in my immediate vicinity. Guess this is the reason applicable to all. I used to try not to slip myself to that mode where I don’t care for others nearby or I don’t disturb others while in calls. And yes calls are certainly richer in humane flavor than gtalk messages. Now a days every time while I commute to office or while coming back from office I see people engrossed with their mobile phones paying no attention to crossing roads. Recent incidents of “mobile” deaths in Kolkata and other places can only second my opinion.

Yes we feel insecure without our mobile or our laptop. Once I lost my mobile and with that all the numbers. It was a matter of hardly one night when I had to be out of touch with my family and friends. And I panicked. I felt as if I was forced to live with aliens. And surely it was not because I thought I will stay with strangers because actually I would have stayed with friends, but just the inability to connect gave me hiccups. And the question still pops up. Where are we heading towards? In future will there be nothing called personal touch? No “remembering” of birthdays? Don’t we want to jam our little brains with such useless information anymore?

Will hope that my apprehensions prove to be wrong and still we can find solace in enjoying little things with friends rather than becoming web-friends.

Changing Distances

Well...we do not notice so many things and so much is around us!!!This is perhaps so much clichéd dialogue .One of my friends who knew me very well, used to tell that almost all the times I am in an almost lost state and that I should see the different colours around when I walk through. And this I realized so much few months back, while taking a tour in Pune. Why I am writing this post now, after so many months, bears a special significance. The fact that post my surgery, I am not able to commute on my own by public transport like bus or rickshaw and the fact that I was almost in house arrest for about 3 months, this journey becomes so important to me.

Pune is the city where I had stayed for the last two years, made new friends, lost some newly made friends and gained some lifetime friends .So about this city, I should have known every detail. That day I decided that instead of taking an auto, I should walk. Not only I had this vested interest of regaining some of my lost gyming activities but also I didn’t have any proper company, so had to think of some healthy way of spending more time. So FC Road, JM road, SB Road...I walked for almost four hours. Surprisingly the roads appeared much broader....my perception or reality??I could see every small thing- the TOI office, the various big and small restaurants, the old beggar sitting by the corner, the middle aged barber, I could see all. Attention, is something which only if you want to pay, you pay. The same reason I can never pay attention in any of my classes (of course with the exception of few intellectual ones).So I never paid attention to all these things...may be they appeared too trivial for me or because I had visited these places always with a bunch of friends who were enough to drag my "bechari" mind into more chit-chat .But that particular day I was not into all these. I could leverage on my loneliness perhaps!!But this was not all...I had more take aways...the most important being..as I travelled the roads..I could feel the effort that went into it..my legs paining..and as I reached my destination, with every small milestone achieved...the satisfaction of achievement was perhaps much more..the satisfaction of getting something by my own...and then I realized that where our life takes us..that’s why every work that I do by myself makes me feel important, my existence reasonable.

The last few months I have not been doing much of physical work because of health limitations and that really hurts. Every instant when I have to ask for help to lift my laptop or get a bucket of water or pick up something from the ground, I want time to pass more quickly. It is true that now I don’t have that excruciating pain which I used to have because of my illness nor do I have that much of weakness and I am recovering. But I always tend to ask to some unknown entity that how much more time to get back to my own self? I know 5-6 months in life is not much of dependence, but it gives you lifetime perspective. So may be in next 2-3 months I will be again able to venture in the streets of Kolkata, enjoy the mouth watering Phuchkas and as I walk through, bargain with each bangle and ear rings shop.

Random

Every day I wake up to to see a green pasture
Every day I wake up and while the alarm keeps ringing
I wish for the day to begin a little more late
First I consider to set it again
Then comes a desire to quit my job
Just to see the green pasture...

Every day while I travel to my office
The speed breakers talk to me
Slow down, think a bit, they say
Every day I forget their voices...
And I keep on waiting...
For the endless ocean, for the sky touching mountains

When I reach my office
And start my work
I realize that nothing can suffice
How I want to leave all this and be a wanderer
The day passes by
Some work some leisure,
Some learning, some knowledge
Still the desire persists
Sometimes overwhelmed with joy
Sometimes depressed with ardour
By the time I come back home
I fail to witness the dusk
Moon shines over my car’s bonnet
My heart beats so hard
Break free break free it says
Sail through sail through it shouts
Still I bring myself back
Still I eat my dinner
Still I get a full night’s sleep
Because I have to rush
I can’t waste time
Because today was just another day

My days with Durga

It has been about six years since I have been at Kolkata during Durga Puja.The last I was here, however was a different Kolkata, with no multiplexes, no hi-tech shopping malls, no Newtown .To say in short, a not so happening city. Although this city has never stopped giving me surprises, not when I first came here in 1992 and neither now. Any city is how its people are.Kolakata as city is too crowded; sometimes the crowd actually frightens people. But the crowd also implies how the city has thrived, even after accepting people from all its surrounding states and countries. And most of this passion comes out during Durga Puja. To an outsider and sometimes to people like me, who have stayed for many years away from the city, this passion is sometimes invisible. We are more concerned about the inevitable traffic jam during Puja, the sound pollution, the infinite outpour of almost the entire population on road, frustrating no parking zones, almost hearing impaired people who would not listen to the car horn and many more. Yes all these are true for Kolkata and would be true for any city that has limited resources and uncontrolled need for resources.

Sometimes all these frustrate me. I think, how does it matter? Whether I go for shopping and buy some 10-20 dresses before Durga Puja or not!!Or whether I even wear them on the days of Puja. How does it matter whether I go for Pandal hopping, taking my night’s sleep for a toss? Such thoughts always come to mind. And now that we can claim ourselves to be the “intellectual”, wastage of time and money is a strict “no no”. But then, what about those unknown faces that I would be able to see if I go for Pandal hopping? What about those men, women, children, elderly whom I could have had glanced upon, who come from remote villages irrespective of their caste, religion just to have a look on Devi Durga? There are people who wait all the year for these few days to show case their cultural talents and craftsmanship. There are people who would work overtime just to buy their little ones a new dress at the last moment..so that Puja happiness for them doesn’t go for a miss. The rickshawalas,the panipuriwalas,jhalmuri,biryani,5star delicacies, well dressed babus with their obese bibis,the college going people with hands together,Hilsa,Sindoor,Alta ..What other occasion can bring them all together!!

In every other deity worship, the devotees take a task to visit the temple. But it is during Durga Puja that Devi Durga with her four children,Lakshmi,Saraswati,Ganesh and kartik comes to visit her parents place from Kailasha.Yes that’s how the story goes in Bengal,howmuch ever disconnected it may be with Puranas, but certainly this is one festival where the Goddess of victory,love,success,power herself visits her devotees. And she is so humane. While we visit the various pandals, we realize how the goddess has emerged in every corner of each locality, in different styles and forms. Yes, the mushrooming number of Durga Pujas in Kolkata are definitely a threat to the city’s congestion and traffic problems, but a little compromise for these few days just makes us feel the essence.
And just like every good story has to end, every human feeling has to be both good and bad, and as time must pass on, Durga too has to leave and go back to her husband. And thus Durga Puja brings with itself the cycle of love and deprivation, happiness and sadness. But as always hope thrives to say Good bye to “Maa Dugga” and that she will come back again next year.....same time...same way... just like a TV commercial that last for a year time...

Little contrast

Are you still there?
With your innocent smile and little silly things?
I could see you no more in front of me,
Sometimes singing,dancing, sleeping..


Yesterday I know you were here
And yet I didn't realize your presence
Now a days I feel no mirth
When I see you loitering around

And does it actually matter to you
That your presence no more is visible to me?
I cannot hear your laughter,
Your cold vibes do not reach me any more


Was all that innocence just a matter of time?
I don't have words to ask you questions,
To let you know how much I care for you,
Some things may be ,are just destined to be silent between us.

Transience Restructured

We have known many things for ages and all of our knowledge pertains to what we are today. From the times when man used to believe in the supremacy of nature and demean his own abilities to understand or change nature, society and himself to the current world where everything is questionable. We have moved a long way. We all are reasonable human beings who try to legitimate each and every work we do by means of reason. But here lies the crux.
Most of the times the reasons we abide by are different from other individuals. Sometimes different reasons of different individuals reach the same conclusion and sometimes same reasons of different individuals lead to different conclusions. Power also plays a very important role here. So even in the very simple things of your friend circle, power may give rise to different reasons and hence different viewpoints. As we may know that in the age of modernity every group or so called every community used to have what is called as meta narratives which used to define what is right. So how much ever different that "right thing" may be from what is truth you ought to believe that. Simply speaking this kind of meta narratives still exist in each society, culture,country,state and even in the smallest units of groups. So consider a small group of friends. Invariably within that group too, there will be different ideas, viewpoint and hence power centres. When these power centres operate their results a shift of the fulcrum. But who decides where that fulcrum would be? Again this may be decided by the meta narrative or the so called discourse that the group pertains to. This discourse is very difficult to identify how it has been formed. Perhaps that may depend on the initial days of the formation of the group, necessicities and expectations of each group member during those days, and how much "valued" is each one in other's eyes. We know that we hardly value people unless they are valued by other people. So a kind of chain effect continues. Say suppose you have a person who is very much valued by others, you are bound to give that person more importance and thus that person emerges as a power centre and the fulcrum will tend to shift in that direction. But two things need to be considered here. One, what is the "time" when that particular person is being valued high. If that time is inherently favourable because of some other reason, needless to say, the actual value depreciates.Secondly, who are the "other" people who are evaluating the person. They may have some interests of their own, they may not be the right audience to valuate or else they may simply not be that serious about valuation. So once the group centre point gets decided based on the above, it becomes very difficult to change that discourse.
Now the question is, isn’t it all a matter of relativity? Is it at all possible to define the meta narrative so easily? And while once it has been formed does it not change? This is where post modernist ideologies may come in even in the smallest of group dynamics. This questions the authenticity of reasons and logic. So whatever is "good" or "bad" has been actually "made" that way by the power centres whose formation is again dubious and who do not have any credulity. So suddenly if everyone starts admiring someone, they will have their own reasons, but certainly there will be other dimensions to the very presence of those very reasons. Every valuation of every person, thing, incident we do keeps on changing in both time and space frames. So most of the times we fail to take into account this transience. And even if we believe that things are changing, we cannot identify that there are changes to the method of change also, just like the acceleration also changes. This transience gets restructured every moment; however the changes are visible and realizable only after a certain period of time. Going a bit far, suppose we have loved and cared for someone at some point of time, and that is because that person was a "valued" one at that particular point of time. But because of this transience, after sometime, on a revaluation, there may seem to be a reduced "value” and we may not find that care present. So if we continue pondering over the fact that we do not find that friendship being present anymore, that only hurts!!But understanding that the person is no more that important makes us "value “those times that we may have spent together in past instead of cribbing for something impossible at present. However having said this, logic doesn’t apply everywhere, and where ever it does, it can be highly biased too. We tend to give answers to questions we have ourselves formulated in the way we get our expected replies. Hence though I have quoted the example of human relationships, there still exists something’s which are beyond the scope of our logic and are governed by the heart and are forever, beyond the scope of time , space and other unknown, unrealized dimensions.

What Matters

Well I am at home..finally.. 2 yrs of MBA is going to end and finally I will be MBA!!! Hopefully no backlogs in the last sem..but then as we draw to a close..some questions inevitably rise..and may be my next few posts will try to address them.So
today's question..how much does lifestyle of a person contribute to the way the person actually is??
Let me elaborate on this..so if one is unorganized in terms of stuff..does that necessarily translate into the fact the person is not well composed?or if a person is too much into reading books, does it mean he/she is very prudent?The other day I was watching "A Beautiful Mind" and it just made me think a few things..which I guess comes to every other sensible person's mind who has watched this movie.And that's how much of reality, actually, does surround us..and how much of it is something called our own world..the way we want the world to be.So when we see a person who is helping out others..there may be two ways..we may think that the person is extremely good or else..is looking for some hidden reason..again the way we want.Whatever we see, is the lifestyle of a person, the outer crust,the way he/she reacts to certain triggers, certain inputs.So its actually a black box!!Everyone around us are black boxes and hence what we see, what we think can be extremely biased. We should remember that the actual personality is a function of many other factors apart from how basically the person is..factors can be external factors like the person being ill, disturbed, family reasons,socio economic reasons,and what not!!Even internal fcators like temporary depression, mood offs,different ways of perceiving reality and non-reality can be there.
We constantly evaluate everything around us..opportunists, non opportunists everybody does that..the moment we meet someone we start forming an idea about him/her depending on how he/she looks, dresses,speaks,lives,walks,eats.We must not forget that all these are superficial things and must not be considered as the "only" criteria about forming an opinion.Someone's eyes may be , by design so clear..but that doesnt make that person a saint...else Osama would have been one!!
So to be very clear,what I mean to say is one's lifestyle DOES NOT translate into KNOWING that person which inevitably many of us do..constantly do.I somehow cannot give that importance to lifestyle issues...so if a person is very unorganized yet caring, nurturing, I will probably remember the later ones..-