Censorship is bad, mmkay?

Free speech is not any different just because there's the internet involved. And any country attempting to close its internet borders in the name of censorship should be defeated, for the fear of setting a precedent. Censorship anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.

Otherwise very soon, the internet will turn into a series of █████ which will only be used by █████████████, unless ██ take action and stop the █████████.

So, visit ███████████████████ to learn more about what's going on.

posted at: 22:20 | path: /misc | permalink | Tags: public, conferences

I run. Out on the road, as each stride drags me ahead, my mind is truly free. Free of this world, free of troubles and free from everything else, but the next footfall. Distances blur out, time stretches out, pain becomes a companion and your body falls into a rhythm which you dare not break.

About three years ago, I started to run. I never really had a reason for it. I ran everywhere and ran back as well, if I could. But then people started to pop up in my life who couldn't keep up. And I stopped ... for a while.

But just like everything important, it came about from a random conversation over coffee. There we were, me & @teemus, sitting in Java city, checking out all the upcoming concerts. Right in the middle of everything from jazz to house, was a bright red poster telling us to run (and eat sunfeast biscuits).

For the good part of two weeks, I lived a very disciplined life. Ate right, slept right and spent an hour or more in the gym. Racing each other on the treadmill, steadily upping the distance, speed. Finally one morning, stretching up in Kanteerva stadium, drinking redbull mixed with orange juice, I knew I'd always wanted to run long distance.

10 Km: Ran the Sunfeast 10k. Running slowly became more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge. To actually cross the line of discomfort to actually hit the limit of pain was more of a mental barrier than I thought. It was just too easy to just quit, stop by the side and take a breather.

The physical barriers were there. They were definitely a huge challenge all by themselves. But even when I could run 5km without falling over, the urge to give up does not fade. To actually gag and silence that part of your mind which keeps whispering "quit now, there will be cake".

It was all in your head.

You could stop anytime you wanted. But it took all my vanity and ego, to keep me running. To see others vanish ahead, lit a fire that would burn me through the miles and miles ahead of me.

posted at: 00:09 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, life

Avatar is Pocahontas set in Fern Gully, except with Smurfs who are Thundercats. And hero's plugged in from somewhere, with a smattering of a messiah complex thrown in (and a pity, they'll never make any sequels ... *ssh*).

But now that I've got the cliched bits out of the way, let me rave about the visual beauty of the movie. The reason this movie takes so much flak about the plot is that the CG does not jarr the suspension of disbelief required. To watch Neytri wail and definitely do the damsel in distress routine does bypass the fact that she's a giant cat-alien, into my emotional awareness. Somehow that disrupts the dehumanization of the enemies that the Colonel is under (if he had a cigar on him, I'd have had Quake3 flashbacks). The fight sequences are hardly overdone and they haven't gone bullet-time or john woo freeze-frames on it. Perhaps the brain-stem connections all animals share is probably the only thing that really stretches the imagination. But the movie goes to great lengths to illustrate that it's not really a form of direct control. There's hardly anything wrong with the movie as such - as long as you're only watching it.

There's EPIC FAIL and some glimmers of brilliance in the fauna of Pandora. Most of the animals on the planet have six limbs. This is perfectly acceptable, but if only they'd kept it consistent and extended it to the Na'avi. A bipedal/tetrapod Na'avi co-existing in parallel with hexapodal large animals sort of suggests a really un-bottlenecked evolutionary history (think of the Cambrian explosion, followed by millenia without an extinction event). Which would almost make the nerve fibre connections into a miraculous act of convergent evolution. But not all of it is bad. The lung openings on the direhorses, on their chests with a large volume intake, would've been a brilliant evolutionary jump away from a narrow trachea and probably an easier jump from book lungs & gills. Somehow the fauna is vaguely reminiscent of Nemo Ramjet's Snaiad universe. Last but not least, Turok - the flying giant in butterfly colours. I just can't get over the fact that its name is "last shadow" and the import of that.

All in all, it's a mish-mash of the noble savage, the greed of man (ah, Rousseau vs Hobbes), the modern industrial military complex and an imperfect romance. The movie is watchable, though not by any means an instant classic.

posted at: 20:03 | path: /movies | permalink | Tags: public, movies

I've left too many things behind with 2009. And I'm better off for it.

It wasn't exactly a pleasant year to begin with. Betrayals seemed the theme from the start. Which I could've dealt with, except my inability to deal with betrayal was treated as some sort of personal failing on my end. As if my disappointment was some hint of immaturity I had to grow myself out of.

Anger boiled, seethed in my veins. But I held my hand, because I still believed that people would do the right thing, albeit eventually. Patience lasted exactly a month. Then it was time to blast off, blow everyone off, leave the liars and traitors behind, to cleanse myself of the grime and corruption of their world. Yes, I still don't think as my trust being misplaced ... it was betrayed.

But perhaps, adversity is a forge of character. I revved up my thunderbird, cruised along the hills and valleys of south india, in a quest for my soul, self and maybe something more. The wandering took me to places of my self where I've been loath to shine a light into, hardly tread.

20/20: Twenty meals alone. Once you're through that barrier, being alone hardly holds any terrors. Life flows around you, every face a stranger's, every smile an accident. And you're in no hurry, there's nowhere to be, no one to meet, nothing really left to do. Sitting there, as you watch the world rush about, you feel content to just be a spectator to the human race.

Rock bottom is a pretty productive place to be. Wrapping myself in a cocoon of solitude, I spent hours, nay days scribbling bits of myself into my little diary. An outpouring of self, a vignette of modern urban life, my only story, a fictional biography of someone I used to be.

Perhaps it was cathartic. Perhaps it was inspiring almost to examine myself through an honest mirror, instead of relying on the judgement of others. Brutal honesty cut through the threads of self pity tying me down. I may have had a crappy time for half a decade, but I've come out of it scarred, but smiling. And again.

Resurrection. Life's a little less serious now, I think I have most of it figured. Simple rules to live by - smile, don't give a damn about what "they" think and do what you really want. If you're good, you'll float ... else, you sink. But there's no room for pretending.

And that was 2009^[1].

[1] - Wait, that was only four months? The rest of the year? A blur of fun, parties, travel and stuff that'll eventually be a footnote to such a page.

posted at: 03:03 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, memories

eiπ + 1 = 0

Euler's Identity. 'tis a thing of pure beauty.

Three very suspicious numbers in a menage-trois, creating something real. How can two irrational numbers and an imaginary number work together to make a very real integer? It boggles the mind entirely. Somewhere in a past left behind, this was the first equation to make me sit up and consider imaginary numbers as something more than a trick.

posted at: 20:19 | path: /misc | permalink | Tags: public, maths

Inner beauty is overrated.

Perhaps the greatest handicap my parents ever provided for me was the concept of inner beauty. In their attempts to prevent me from turning into a flake, they emphasized that it was probably the most important thing to develop. Their efforts bore fruit. They taught me to look deep into the heart of others, judge them by their intentions and to know them by their actions.

But they also taught me to avoid the shallow. I learnt that the shallow, do not linger to explore another. Like butterflies, from flower to flower, they pass on from one to the other, having known no one, but calling all friends.

Slowly, but subtly, I started to wrap myself up in myself. Layer, by layer, everything that was good in me, was only there for those who lingered long enough to peel back enough. And I thought that only fair, that only those who cared enough to know me, got me. There was precious little of me to go around and I kept it for those special people.

But as it turns out, *that* was a very stupid thing to do.

Sometime over the last year, reading the Bible at some hotel room somewhere in the country, I ran into something that clicked. Something that made sense and shone a light on the errors of my ways (uhh... no, I'm not going Born Again on you folks ... keep reading).

Mathew 5:15

	Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, 
	but on a candlestick; and it gives light to all that are in the house. 
	
	Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.

There's a certain arrogance of self that is required to be an introvert. That it seems worthwhile for someone who's met you once to dig through all your issues, fears and eccentricities, to know the really awesome person you are. That the end result, i.e You, is something enticing enough for a stranger to actually embark on that quest. As if there is some secret sauce, essence of pure self, that makes you unique among all others. That it doesn't really matter how you appear to be, that all that matters is how you really are. Pfft, maybe in an Apatow World.

Perhaps it is humbling to know that what you are isn't worth someone's time - at first glance. Perhaps there are so many who are boring on the inside & outside, that the odds are against you, all the way. Perhaps they are indeed shallow people who judge others by appearances or by popular opinion/reputation. I don't exactly know why people don't bother to look twice, but they don't (actually, some do ... which is how I got by for years). But it's not their problem that they don't, it's yours.

So, pull the covers off the true You. Shovel out a path through the icy reaches of your outer surface, put a window on your soul. It'll change your life.

In short, SUIT UP!

posted at: 01:01 | path: /philosophy | permalink | Tags: public, me, philsophy

You get to say no last goodbyes.

One cold december evening, I walked into a house of wailing to see my dad in a casket, laid out in the living room. If I could call it a living room anymore. And I couldn't even cry. Not while things were left to be done, people left to be comforted and a pair of large shoes to be filled, before I could truly mourn.

I cried into my pillow all night. I told myself that I wouldn't. But as the waves of sorrow came crashing down, I just couldn't help myself. I told myself that I had to be brave, I had to be strong, that now more than ever, I am a man.

The years have passed but, every december 2nd, I turn into that weak kneed young boy. Feels like it was yesterday. And I cry.

And I cry. For all that I've left unsaid. Respect, love and my last goodbye.

posted at: 22:33 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: private, death, me

People don't make decisions. Decisions make people.

That can't be true. I know to the exact dot, dash and every crossed tee to why I made the decision to write this blog. Or am I just writing out a rational framework as an after-thought to a pithy cliche? Maybe it's because I picked up an Orwell book and read Shooting an Elephant again?

I will never know. Not for sure. The sequence of thoughts that precede and follow an action are often so mixed up in retrospect. They get even more muddled up when I introspect deeper. I can't use my mind to understand itself. Going third-person collective on this stuff!

We strive to maintain a certain rational self-integrity as a survival trait. In some sense, our self images involve a picture of a conscious, self-evolved and rational person. We cling to it, however transparently false it might be to everyone else around. We are proud of it.

Impulsive decisions prompt a certain cognitive dissonance in deep dark of your sub-conscious. You know you aren't that kind of a person, but the act is behind you and there's no rewriting your actions. But perhaps there's other things you can change to make it all fit. Most of us fight it by becoming a new self, to whom the actions are a natural consequence of who they are. I understand, even have grown to respect that it's inevitable. But rather than admit that the change of heart was after the action, we'd rather revise our history a bit to recover a bit of internal coherence. Because in the disordered and confused world they live in, the coherence of self is perhaps the only thing they've got left to hold onto.

You've become a different person and it surprises everyone around you. The most convenient lie to trot out to mask all this internal turmoil is the ever cliched "I've always been like this, you didn't know me well enough!". I can't really read minds, but I've learnt to read people. Observing people will themselves into believing this - that they haven't changed due to their decisions and that causality flowed the other way around - has brought me some insight into the ways change has creeped into me.

I've come to embrace it. My decisions have changed me, some for better & some for worse. I'm a product of my decisions, not of my dreams or desires - of my decisions & actions. I live out my own punctuated equilibrium of personal evolution. And not everything that changed me came from within. I'm not taking anything away from myself with that admission. It's the truth.

But I've come to despise the impulsive pretenders of later rationality.

Perhaps despise is too strong a word. But it'll do for now.

posted at: 06:01 | path: /observations | permalink | Tags: public, philosophy,

Inglourious Basterds. I almost had to be dragged to this movie. I'd like to thank that person before I actually put down anything here.

Now, I'm not a big fan of gore. I mean, superflous, gratuitous gore that Tarantino has almost made into an art. I'm not against realistic, in-context gore, but the sauce and ketchup show that was the restaurant scene in Kill Bill is exactly the kind of scene I never want to see again. I shouldn't have worried about that. I really shouldn't have, because I was in for a treat.

Tarantino had it spot-on with the Basterds. For what, from a quick glance, promises to be a jewish cowboy Western mashed into a World War II universe, the movie really revolves round the brilliant performances of two characters. It turns into a drama of unexpected events and odd coincidences, instead of the grit & gumption of the war hero. The script really winds around them and are perhaps the most real characters I've ever encountered in a Tarantino movie. So, move over Brad Pitt and the rest of the Basterds off the posters and let Shoshanna & Landa take their well deserved privileges. They're the real deal. It's their movie.

posted at: 01:32 | path: /movies | permalink | Tags: public, movies

Occasionally, as I flip back the pages of my life, I find myself in conversation with a younger me from a much older time. As if caught in a flipbook time machine, I see myself change, grow and in some sense, stay the same. Once in a while though, I turn up a page with which I disagree with enough to need revisiting.

In the mid-summer of 2007, out of my frustrations with work was born an unadulterated rant of pure cynicism.

There's some sort of misplaced humility that is injected into us by our educational system. Or maybe it is some sort social stigma attached to the braggart or overacheiver. Must've been what was going through Lennon's mind as he penned down "they'll hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool". Eventually, the struggle to stand out and the pressures to blend in, find some sort of balance in your inner selves. You'll be happy to be the best at something everybody is doing. And even if you aren't, it's somewhat a partially ordered set. Life makes sense and the years roll on.

So you are the real deal, the bee's knees. To start off your career, you dive in and start pulling your weight. Even a moron in a hurry can see that what you're doing valuable, nay essential to the company. Your management wants to know that, it's exactly the kind of information they crave. When it's handed to them in a platter, they love it. But, you keep working, in your little corner. Nobody notices anything and if they do, it's when you fail. You complain about not being noticed to your peers, you write out long rants on your blog about how your life sucks.

Most people at this point in their careers blame the management for everything that's wrong at their job. And treat every peer who chooses to move into management as a blood traitor. I'm not denying that there are bad managers, just the same as there are bad people. But most managers promoted out of rank & file end up being good people with a job which looks like herding cats, except without any catnip. The people working under ordinary managers go passive agressive in their rebellion, complicating the situation further. Eventhough 'tis a betrayal every which way, it happens because nobody trusts anybody.

You are doing something very important and valuable to the company. Then why don't they trust you? Because they have had people work under them in past who were poor communicators because they weren't getting anything done. They even had good people work under them who secretly didn't like the plans, but kept their traps shut and worked towards a fait accompli. So if you communicate poorly, they are not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. No matter how many poor communicators actually end up getting work done, the managers will always remember the times they've been burned.

You don't need to be a 'Yes Man' or a atrocious sychophant to get your manager to treat you well. All you need to do is to make his job easier ... after all, managing you is pretty hard work. Though, there's such a thing as overdoing it. But that's yet another story altogether.

Watching your future with much interest,
  — future me.

posted at: 22:01 | path: /observations | permalink | Tags: public, philosophy, work

This was the trip that almost didn't happen. Decided to go to Africa on the 24th of August. The complications were everything from ICICI causing a fuss about a wire transfer, the yellow fever vaccines, to just plain bad timing of a bank holiday tying up my local funds & foreign exchange.

But it all came together in the end and it was AWESOME!

This trip was a goldmine of interesting sights (and interesting stories). I'm slowly going through the pics and uploading them to flickr .

posted at: 01:45 | path: /travels | permalink | Tags: public, travels, africa, tanzania

Occasionally in life, I have a blinding flash of the obvious. An idea which has been hiding out there in plain sight, just jumps out and catches my attention. I don't even claim to be original about this, but at least I hope that here's the first time you've seen this in writing. Here's one of those ideas I had when I was 14... looking back at the all the years.

The world has a plan for you. The day you were born, you've watched it unroll in front of you. The system tries to coerce you to its plan with its checks, balances, pains and rewards. The system is all around us in our culture, environment and upbringing. It's implemented by the powers that be, to turn you into a well oiled cog in society.

If you're reading this, you've probably already dismissed the plan. You, the individualist, is determined to make your own way in this world. You've already recognized its shortcomings, pitfalls, weaknesses and in fact, you know you're cut out for bigger things. You are the person you are because you chose to branch out from it, rather than conform to any expected norm.

posted at: 16:03 | path: /philosophy | permalink | Tags: public, life, observations, philosophy

In memoriam - Monday, August 11th 2003.

They said that time heals all wounds - they didn't know me at all.

posted at: 17:30 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, experiences

We are haunted by our mistakes.

Our successes, they will leave us while we're dulled by that afterglow of satisfaction. Your mistakes, however - they follow you around, as you drag your feet through the journey of your life. Like a shadow in the darkness, but their footfalls ever so muffled for you to suspect your sanity. They linger on, to provide that tinge of regret, which unfortunately is the mark of a life lived, instead of slept through.

As I headed out to watch Dev D for a second time, I wasn't expecting to feel any different from what I felt the first time. But I was to be surprised at what I felt for the protagonist - the disdain I had felt for him vanished into thin air, to be replaced with a sense of despair if only by empathy. I felt for his dillemma, the internal conflict that is the core of it all. Maybe it's a twist of perspective, but the experience was different.

To anyone who's made a mistake, there's an irrational urge to run away from everything that's headed your way - to leave consequences to others and withdraw. That the solution to everything was just to be not there. Not like it hasn't worked before, it just wont work this time - because you didn't wrong someone else, you wronged yourself.

But as you watch Dev and Chanda both go through their lives running away from the consequences of their actions - the realization hits home that you can run, but then that's all you'll ever do in life. Run and run. Run into the arms of drugs, alcohol or any other crutch that could make your mind just stop. Saving you from the monsters that inhabit you, dulling the pain and make you smile, all in ignorance. Anything to stop thinking, stop everything and keep running.

Consequences are strange beasts. They give chase when you run, but wait for you when take your time to walk to them. No one else can make you walk upto your consequences and introduce you to them. The last mile is yours alone to walk. It's not an easy one to walk back, knowing what awaits you at the end. But there comes a point when you're tired of running. When running away is not getting you where you want to be.

There was that moment of epiphany for Dev, standing next to that phone booth picking up the coins. The moment when you realize that this life is just too short to take the long way around. In perhaps what's the most unappreciated twist in the movie, you see the protagonist actually stop and walk back. Back to Delhi, back to Chanda and back to the police station.

On his own feet, to meet his past & make way for his future.

posted at: 01:12 | path: /movies | permalink | Tags: public, movies, philosophy

I hate Slumdog Millionaire.

I don't hate it for artistic or aesthetic reasons. I hate it out of principle - because it is an act of third world emotional blackmail for anyone who's seen it for real - meant to repel and disgust. And it turns me off, pushes me into denial and just turns me into someone numb about reality. Freeze over my emotions when I saw the child being blinded with red hot irons. Maybe there are those who seek numbness over pain.

I've had one too many conversations with people from elsewhere about this movie. In response to their curiousity about whether this is how India is, I can only answer "Some parts of it, yes". It's almost like they want to believe what they see and won't settle for an India where people go to work at 8 and drive autorickshaws everyday.

To draw an analogy, when you think of Paris, the image that pops into your head immediately is the lit skyline with the Eiffel Tower. But imagine a quintessential paree movie of your preference and throw in all the moroccan ghettos which have sprung up around. That stark, depressing but real face of the city wouldn't be something I'd enjoy.

Art is about selecting what to represent and what is irrelevant. And the movie makers made a choice, that was completely theirs to make. Now that I think about it, what I'm hating is not the movie. It's the condescension that the movie invites on my bit of the world. Not because it's dishonest or that I'm patriotic, but the intentions behind it are suspect. It's pandering to the needs of someone filled with Schadenfreude.

What I'm hating is the tourist who says "I want to go see a slum".

posted at: 11:45 | path: /rants | permalink | Tags: public, rants, movies

Yet again, I find myself in a strange position. I observe, I learn and I contemplate. Spend much time on those, travel by thought and arrive at conclusions. Only to find out that I'm a century too late with them; That in fact, I was a century late when I started. Like once before, I'm not ashamed to borrow the unforgettable words of a soul long passed by.

No, we never sicken with love twice. Cupid spends no second arrow on the 
same heart. Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. Respect, and 
admiration, and affection, our doors may always be left open for, but 
their great celestial master, in his royal progress, pays but one visit 
and departs. We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of—but we never 
love again. 

Love is too pure a light to burn long among the noisome gases that we 
breathe, but before it is choked out we may use it as a torch to ignite 
the cozy fire of affection.

But of the fire we all know, but let him speak of the embers left behind - the death of love and the journey ahead.

I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you expect too much from love. You 
think there is enough of your little hearts to feed this fierce, devouring
passion for all your long lives. Ah, young folk! don't rely too much upon 
that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle and dwindle as the months roll on, 
and there is no replenishing the fuel. You will watch it die out in anger 
and disappointment. To each it will seem that it is the other who is growing
colder.

Both are astonished at the falling off in the other one, but neither sees 
their own change. If they did they would not suffer as they do. They would 
look for the cause in the right quarter—in the littleness of poor human 
nature—join hands over their common failing, and start building their 
house anew on a more earthly and enduring foundation. 

But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of 
others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person's fault.

It is a cheerless hour for you both when the lamp of love has gone out and 
the fire of affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope about in the 
cold, raw dawn of life to kindle it. God grant it catches light before the 
day is too far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead coals till night come.

And from a page penned more than a century ago, the man stabs at the heart of our modern lives - only to go unheard again & again. But reader, to you I repeat, words that will make sense of this world - the creed of its people, of self and nothing more.

Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and 
pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of 
truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noble longings 
and of noble strivings! 

And oh, these wise, clever days when we know that money is the only prize 
worth striving for, when we believe in nothing else but meanness and lies, 
when we care for no living creature but ourselves!

If you enjoyed reading the paragraphs above, this is all quoted verbatim from Jerome K Jerome's "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow". And at least in my ears, it rings absolutely true - scarily so, for something written in 1886 - a different era altogether. In some strange sense, for all the progress we've made, we haven't changed at all. And if you think so, read the whole thing.

posted at: 01:12 | path: /philosophy | permalink | Tags: public, books, relationships