Thursday, October 27, 2005

UG!!

I have been reading up on UG for sometime now,i got to know of his presence from a cousin of mine and it was reinforced by a guy called Frank in Landmark.These are some of his quotes which have really intrigued me.

The plain fact is that if you don't have a problem, you create one. If you don't have a problem you don't feel that you are living.

That messy thing called 'mind' has created many destructive things. By far the most destructive of them all is God.

The so called self-realization is the discovery for yourself and by yourself that there is no self to discover.

Unless you are free from the desire of all desires, Moksha, liberation, or self-realisation, you will be miserable

Why should life have any meaning? Why should there be any purpose to living? Living itself is all that is there. Your search for spiritual meaning has made a problem out of living.

In nature there is no death or destruction at all. What occurs is the reshuffling of atoms.

All experiences, spiritual or otherwise, are the basic cause of our suffering.

God is the figment of man's fertile imagination.

There is no such thing as truth. The only thing that is actually there is your 'logically' ascertained premise, which you call truth.

You mistakenly believe that by pursuing the spiritual goal you will somehow miraculously make your material goals simple and manageable.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

I am writing after a reallylong time and iwas forced to write because i just had to get these feelings out of my system,otherwise i would burst. Though the whole world might remember september 11 for the world trade centre attacks,from 2005 on it will be more significant for me in the sense that my grandpa died on this day.It was the most ironic day in my life and the saddest day as far as i can remember. I felt as if a part of me died that day. I am not of the expressive type,i am the kind of guy who keeps his deepest feelings inside. All i can say is there are very few people in this world who i really love and care about a lot and my grandpa was one among them,and i never expressed it to anyone ,not even my grandpa himself on his last days. My heart feels really heavy just to know that he does not exist anymore. Its sort of surreal,after all these years its so hard to believe that he does not exist,i can not see him,feel him,hear him anymore. I had taken it for granted that whenever i go to Harihar i will see grandpa,but now its hard to digest it won't be so anymore.

Its so ironic that he was in the hospital for 1 week and kept asking for me and the day i met him and left,hours later he died,it was as if he was just holding on to see me before he left.
Also the last words we exchanged added to the irony.
Though i try to console myself with some philosphy it doesn't last long,the pain of loosing something close to you resurfaces.I will miss you a lot,grandpa,i will miss you ....

Saturday, May 28, 2005

My musings!

Human beings are essentially meaning making machines! They ought to attach a meaning or interpretation to everything in life..Their reality is governed by very simple rules-Stories,Interpretations,Decisions.And what are these based on? Expectations,should be/shouldn't be,fantasies,romantic notions,looking good,not looking bad,being wanted,the feeling of importance,not being rejected,fear of failure. If you look very closely,all our actions and thoughts is a subset of this superset in some way or the other.You make some decision,u become that decision,u make an interpretation,u live with that interpretation,u make a story u live in that story. Its so surprising that the lives of majority of the humans are governed by so few rules. And the amazing thing is they are sucked into these so much that they cant get out and it becomes the reality or life for them.All their lives they are trying to fix it to adhere to these rules . I am not saying this is wrong or right,because i inherently i believe there is nothing called right and wrong in this world.Each person customises his/her life to his/her own needs,desires,ideals and beliefs.But a deep introspection into this makes you wonder,thats all!

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Nice Week!

This has been a pretty eventful week. Firstly bought three books."Chaos" by james glieck,"surely u r joking,Mr.feynman" ,"road less travelled" by scott peck. Completed two P.G.Wodehouse novels Right Ho!Jeeves and A Pelican at blandings .Thoroughly enjoyed them .Schumi came second!Something to cheer for,AC milan win their match and liverpool hold chelsea in champions league semis(worth watching both the matches staying up till late in the night).A string of parties and treats. A colleague going to US on work gave a party,another guy getting married next week gave a party,A friends birthday treat. At this rate It wouldnt surprise me if i start searching for a career in sumo wrestling in a few months time. Have been quite productful in my work compared to the last few weeks,been more busy.On the flip side missed a cousins marraige because of work,have not spoken to many of friends and cousins.Didnt get to meet grandparents who had descended to bangalore.Have been off phone(Phone dead actually) and yahoo messenger all week long!(am surprised by my own will power).My comp conked out! So had to suffer without music for nearly 2 days before i took over my Dad's comp and am back in business.Have to get my comp up and going. Had a couple of cat fights with my brother though everything has cooled down now!


Next week is going to be real heavy at work.6 days! Hope to catch up on sleep and books this weekend!

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Blogging is sure difficult!

I couldn't help getting this feeling for the past few days. I don't know what to write on! My brain has gone into a state of stupor and grogginess,!!!

Friday, April 22, 2005

ROSSI in Bangalore!

Well though the title seems a bit dramatic and incongruous ,i am not lying,but i am not alluding to the actual Valentino Rossi of MotoGp fame but to a certain friend of mine who will give rossi a run for his money on any day.Unfortunately as fate would have had it he is holed up in bangalore with a bally friend like me instead of being in some GP with some glamorous babes .Well coming to the point,this dude has a bike and he rides like the devil himself. He has no pity whatsoever on the poor bike.He zips through bangalore traffic as if he is playing some MOTOGP or NFS game wherein u can turn like anything u want and still come out unscathed.

Infact i have had some scary expereinces with him on his bike as a pillon rider.The first time ,being the credulous unsuspecting rider, i climbed on his bike with a new nike cap just bought the previous day.I thought he was a decent driver,but I had summed up my opinions too soon.He revved the accelerator and the bike lunged forward like the horses which lunge in a derby race and in about 0-4 seconds had reached some 60 odd KM/hr(this comes from my being a F1 fan) and he went over a hump as if in a bike rally and the poor me was desperately clinging for its life.At that time i had completely forgotten about my new cap and was wondering something was amiss,then i suddenly realised that my cap was no longer on my head ,it had flown off . I desperately tried to tell him what went wrong but i couldn't take off my hands from my life support bars for fear of flying off myself.Somehow he got to realise something was amiss and wrong and he just applied the brakes.So back from 60-0 Km/Hr in about 1 sec.My nose slammed into his helmet.I said my cap had flown off ,rubbing my nose.By the time i reached my cap i saw that it had met it's demise even before it had opened its eyes to the world. It was ruthlessly run over by several vehicles.As i stood looking a big heavy BMTC bus went over it. I just couldn't help getting philosophical at that moment like u always do when u witness somebody's death. Well the experience wasn't over yet.After picking the remains of whatever was leftover of the cap and thinking of a proper burial for it later i climbed onto his bike thinking about my own life,i had this strange premonition that that day was going to be the last day and felt this ride would be my last. Well i clung myself desperately to the side bars while this devil or the phantom rider sped across the roads of bangalore.I had always thought the stretch from mekhri circle to the governor's raj bhavan was a long stretch,but he proved it otherwise.He covered it in a amazingly short span of time.Now comes the really scary part.His overtaking maneuver's.They were like the james bond chase sequences.If he felt there was enough room to squeeze his bike through thats it,he just squeezed it and to my horror he loathed using brakes, he wanted to do the maneuver without slowing down.I couldn't close my eyes with my hands for they were clinging to my only hope of life.My eyes were tearing due to the speed.My own tears hit me like bullets. He has a strange idea of taking a turn.Suppose he wants to take a left,he goes to the extreme right and takes a lunging sweeping turn to the left with the bike almost parallel to the road.The first time i thought he had forgotten the direction but later on i realised that was his esoteric passion.I really loathe that turning near raj bhavan and CAIR.As he approaches it he gets into this high of making the whole turn in one swooping curve at constant speed and at a dangerous angle, my jeans almost scrapped the road and my heart leaped into my mouth.(I had read such phrases only in story books,now i know what they mean and am including them as no mere exaggerations).Another strange passion of his is at the traffic lights ,he feels as if he is in a grand prix race and the moment the light turns green.Vrooom!!!After this scary ride and when we reached our destination i couldn't make my numb hands to release their grip on the side bars.I thanked god for getting me through this(i hardly remember god,but i remembered him that day) and felt like kneeling on the ground and kissing it(though i didn't do it).

But funnily enough he said he has never commited any accidents in his entire driving experience.I guess people who drive like that have the highest of concentrations while driving and are obvious to every movement around them.I have christened him "the phantom rider" cos i felt no human being could drive like him.He laughs at this and claims there are far more scarier drivers.Huh?Did i hear right?

So now his rides have been listed in my list of exciting and thrilling experiences to go and do. I always recommend our common friends to take the experience with him if they felt strong at heart.A definite caution to all those heart patients and weak hearted.But it is definitely worth going on a ride with him. So now u see why i named this article "Rossi in bangalore",so the next time u see a biker zooming past at incredibly high speeds,its in all probability my friend. God bless his soul,his guardian angels do indeed work full time 24/7.As a last signing off advice to our common friends dont ever go to any amusement park or go-karting on his bike because they seem bland after the ride.


P:S- I didnt have the patience to error check after writing this long blog,so please bear with me for any grammatical mistakes.

Sapna Book Stall Sucks!!

I know its bad to be derogatory about somebody or something.But this was the feeling i was left with when i left sapna book stalls last monday. I was on a high that day,and when u r on a high u naturally get into a splurging mood(atleast that happens with me.) So i contemplated what to spend my money on ?clothes,books,Cd's ?I finally decided to upgrade my bookshelf which hasn't seen a new book cover for ages. I had a couple of books in mind and went in fully enthusiastic to make myself a mega customer to sapna.

So I went in and directly went to a bloke in a sapna uniform and asked for "The way of the peaceful warrior" by Dan Milliman,that was the first book in my list. He gave me an incredulous look,i didn't know whether that look meant "is this guy from earth,whoever reads such books?" or "is that a book?" or "is there a guy by that name who writes books?" .He grudgingly directed me to another guy who had a computer at his disposal and he put in the names to do a search and the computer being the fantastic invention it is promptly displayed no entries for both the book and the author.Sigh.. There goes my first book in the list.But i still had enough to plow through so i cheerily went in search of the next book. "The road less travelled" by Scott Peck, i asked perkily, "no stock" came the prompt reply.Another stumble.i already began to feel the initial high ebbing. Ok,I said "all is not lost"-i still had that last ounce of energy left and asked for the edward de bono section.After being directed there i was dismayed to see it didn't contain the books i wanted. I pointed this out to a staff to which he promply brought a book and took down the names of the book i wanted as if emphasising they will deliver the book to my house itself and customer satisfaction was their utost priority. I was completely crestfallen by that time. So as a last passing shot asked for "Surely,u r joking ,Mr.feynman" as i wanted to own a copy of that book. After a few searches came the reply "no stock,sir". Thats it! I left sapna cursing and deciding never to come there again and if a MR.ANYONE asks me if sapna is good.Pat will come my reply "SURELY,U R JOKING,MR.ANYONE".(Wow,i am commending myself over the last sentence).