Rebirth

Rebirth, a concept of mythical proportions. A concept with scientific impossibility. A concept of many a religion. The Phoenix, an epitome of Rebirth. Burns in flames to be born again from Ashes . Rebirth does challenge the concept of "ashes to dust".

But this is not about the life and death and..... life again story. This is about Rebirth of thoughts. Every now and then we need to rethink, reevaluate and rethank God for everything he has offered to us. I did, last week. I went to this bakery near my place. And I saw these three kids playing, all siblings , all girls. One probably about a year and a half old, the other about 3 and the other about 5. They were covered in dust, they hadn't washed their clothes for years probably because they had only one pair. And they were playing in the hot sun with a small red bottle cap. There were apparently no rules, but there was all fun. And I thought to myself about how lucky I am. And I also knew life is what you make of it. Here they are , nothing in their hands, no future and no past , and nightmarishsly scary, no present. But they were happy with what they had , a sole red bottle cap.

Someone was right when he said " Two men look out through the bars, one sees mud and the other the stars!".

Rebirth, Rethink, Reevaluate and Reprioritize what you want in life!

Today and God!

Everything that could go wrong. Did go wrong. Today. Long story short. I realised that there was one minor error in the job I was assigned. But that minor error which didn't effect the end result anyway made me spend a lot of time in finding it and correcting it. So, that isn't a problem isn't it? A mistake that didn't cost much was rectified. But here's the big picture. Today I was leaving for Hyderabad, and I took a holiday on Friday which also gave me the Saturday and the Sunday. But because I was delayed by this , I had to cancel my trip. So I went out in the rain on my "new" bike, got drenched all over, got the ticket cancelled, but couldn't get any money back, because if you don't cancel 24 hrs early , you don't get a refund.

So here I am, a mistake that was not a big problem atall, made me cancel my trip, which I could have gone on. Add to that I get wet all over, and don't even get any money back for my ticket for all the effort. Go figure! All the effort coming to nothing atall. Now I have a holiday on Friday, and I have nothing to do on Friday. I had planned a trip on Saturday with a bunch of old friends. That's off the menu now. Because I was wet and I had to get back to office, I decided to change my clothes. And take the bus. That took even longer to get back.

And add to that my manager was helping me doing something. He is a great guy, and he spent a lot of time with me, we were trying to get something done, but couldn't. After about 3 hours we found out that the software has a bug. See, all the effort for nothing again!

So Nothing takes a lot of effort and that's the lesson I learnt today. It drove me crazy but I am happy. I didn't want to say " Oh God! why me? " because I have so much more to be thankful about. It is just one bad day in my very lovely life. And I ask for God to give me more, but I shouldn't complain for "nothing". I am sure, God gave me these small obstacles to trip over , so that I don't fall into a pit that is lying further down that road.

Thanks God , thank you for this lovely day!

A dream , A bike, A victory

If you have read my previous posts ( out of some wierd coincidence!) you would know I been searching for a bike that I love. Sadly they don't make it anymore, it is Yamaha RX 135 , a 2 stroke bike that has the pleasantest of noise and a heart of a lion. After a lot of looking around for a bike that is absolutely good in condition I found one atlast. It is probably one of the last made and it is the newest I could buy. A 2005 , March made model.

I could write a thousand lines of poetry on it, but then nothing can surpass the pure rhyme of this bike. I hope God gives me plenty of nice memories on it. It did come a little expensive for a second hand bike but then it is worth it. For now I don't have much time, I need to go on a long drive again!

One fine day

Yesterday was a fine day indeed. A saturday , the first of the weekend, a perfect day to let yourself loose. So me and a couple of new guys ( from my office, they joined when I did) decided to go to The Forum ( in bangalore) . The Forum is a great place to be or so I was told, its hip , its cool, its got movie theatres and a shopping mall. Kind of enjoyed that. Didn't go for a movie though, I rather watch one in my home at my own leisure . So we came out and thought we would just sit around for a while. And this is what happened... spoilt the whole weekend. Don't get me wrong, I am not a kind of guy who is moody. I don't lose my temper nor do I have mood swings. Some people call me the Iceman, nothing really gets on my wrong side, almost nothing.

So we were sipping a nice Pepsi and it is fairly obvious we ain't blind. Right in front of us was a group of 2 guys and a girl. That was one nice TV series loved it a lot. But coming back to the incident, this girl is actually spoon feeding something to her boyfriend and the other guy is probably the boyfriend's friend or something. Well, it is all cute I know, kinda lovely too. Display of public affection... I probably wouldn't do that but I wouldn't ask anyone else to not do that either. So there they are, right? Right smack in front of my vision that just wandered to the front. Like everyone else's does. And all three look back at me ,It was just one of those times for no reason everyone's vision syncronises on each other. But then their gaze wasn't a gaze anymore , it was a stare. A stare that would make me feel guilty for a crime that I did not commit. But I didn't feel guilty , I did nothing wrong. But I hated that look that they gave me.

I have only one question, if you do something in public and you expect everyone else to turn blind, that would be an outrageous expectation. I wasn't judging those three, but why would they judge me? I wasn't the one who was publicly displaying my "love" for another. I wasn't even peeping, I was sitting right there, right infront of the mall where a hundred other people are hanging around. And then this didn't happen once , it happened twice. I was taking the escalator down and there is this young couple in an eternal hug. May I emphasize that they were right in front of me. And this guy is actually facing me. And he is looking at me, as if he means to kill me. And I am the one who is supposed to try to look away rather than make sure that I step off the escalator properly. So why do I need to look away? I will tell you why....because a lot of people are hypocrites.

India is growing and westernizing in someway. We see more and more young people displaying their love in open. And these people expect others to just mind their zone of vision and they usually stare back at you as if they would eat you up . But I say its got to stop. If you think that you are quite modern and you are quite comfortable with public display of affection , you can't blame someone whose line of vision accidently moves towards you. If they believe they can do this in public and they want the public to oblige , to be more patient towards them , because they are the open minded people, then they are wrong. They are not open minded. They are displaying this act of affection out there in the open because they can't do that in their homes, in front of the family. Are they willing to do that? No. Because they are just hypocrites who use the " modern openmindedness" to their own advantage and they wouldn't dare do that in their homes.

The Brain and the story behind it!

I have been through this wonderful TV documentary by BBC on the brain and it is aptly called " The Brain Story". It gives you an insight into how one's brain works and it is one of the most brilliant and comprehensive one's I have seen till date.

Seeing is believing , isn't it? But is what we really see, is indeed what is out there in the real world. Are we really seeing what is really there? A more contraversial view of the sense of visual world is it is just like a dream. We feel , we touch, we see, we also smell odours in our dreams. Then is the world really just like a dream. Is it just what our brain gives us, something that we want. Are we living in a matrix ?

Vision is one of the most complex processes that our brains work on. We receive millions of visual data bits in seconds, and our brain filters out and focuses on what we feel is important. Sight is just a slave to our brain. If we see something moving or something of interest , our brain orders our eyes to move into that area of interest. But to actually interpret what it really is that we are seeing, we need to direct both of our eyes and brain towards it. But then the brain is not just giving us bits to see from the real world, it is also interpolating these visions, it doesn't take in all data, it uses what it has in its memory to give us a whole picture. It adds information. How it does that can be seen from optical illusions like these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aJlX0AEWys . So when you see that one girl is larger than the other, you know that there is an optical trick in it. But your brain doesn't really let you see the reality of the situation. It has read some of that visual scenario from its hard drive and has overwritten the visual data , and there is no way can you escape from the illusion. That is how all the illusions work, that is how magicians use our brains to fool us.

And perceiving something that exists and imagining something are done by two different parts of the brain. The documentary talks about this interesting case of Kevin. He had an accident and it effected parts of his brain in a very peculiar fashion. He can recognise faces but he cannot recognise objects. He can see colours, but he just cannot say what that particular object is. So if you show him a picture of a scrubber, he cannot understand what it is. But if you ask him to draw one, he can draw one from his memory. But after a while, if you show him the picture of what he has drawn he wouldn't be able to recognise it. What is amazing is he can see, there is nothing wrong with his eyes, but his brain cannot perceive. But how does he recognise faces. He can do that becauses recognising faces is a function of a different part of a brain altogether. And there is a case of exactly the opposite of this going wrong after an accident. John can see and recognise objects, but he cannot recognise faces . Not even his own when he is shown a picture of himself with his kid. It is really hard for us to figure out how that really happens. Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with his vision. Do all faces look the same for him that he cannot distinguish among them? No, all faces are different for him, but he cannot really match them to his memory. Every face is different and it isn't a face he knows.

That's how amazing our brain is and I would love to write more on it!

A bike , a dream.

I am settled in now. Settled with my new job, settled in a newly rented 1BHK house. All I need now is a conveyance, a medium to travel from point A to B, for the world is shrinking but then my office isn't really at a walkable distance. In India, bikes are a very good option. Not only are they lighter on the pocket ( you should see how much we pay for a liter of petrol out here!) they get you around pretty fast, with all those narrow roads and variable terrains. All roads are dotted with obstructions. Obstructions for some but definitely an X Factor challenge for the adrenaline junkies.

For every man there is a bike. A bike that is his Avtar. A representation of what he is. And for me my bike would be a piece of engineering and a piece of fine art. But no , I don't like those new bikes with the borrowed sports look , you know, the Apaches , the Unicorns , the Pulsars or the Karizmas. I love the Yamaha RX 135. It is a great bike. It doesn't try to ape the superbikes, because it is not one. What it is , is a reliable no nonsense bike. No gizmos , or junk that would put weight on it. It is a proper bike. It was built to perform, and nothing can replace the beautiful engine noise it makes. So perfect, so in tune. No other Indian bike is so well designed, the weight distribution is perfect, the CG is low, and the gearbox ratios designed immaculately for indian conditions.

The Sad part is RX 135s are no longer built. The only go is to buy used ones which don't come really cheap for second hand bikes. But then I can't buy another one. Because everytime I hear a RX135 passing by, I would regret any other bike I buy. And that I can't let happen, or can I?

Colors of Life

I recently read this post on Colors. It was all technical, about colours the physics behind light , brightness, hue and intensity. But that is not all about colours, colours mean more. Colours make us see in more than black and white. Colours define us. The world has such a blue face now, things are not good everywhere. And all that because we do not appreciate our differences in colour , in race, religion or political preferences. I heard this lovely song by Loona once at my friend's place. It has so much to say. I don't need to post much to talk about it. I hope you listen to it, and here are its lyrics.


Summer, the leaves are green
winter, the naked trees
springtime a new age is born
in the fall there's an early dawn
and the colors embrace the sun

Tell me what is wrong
we all wanna be free in our homes
we all want to live
in peace and in harmony

Colors of the earth blue and green
colors, there's no differencebetween you and me
the color of your heart,U should be proud inside
a solution comes to mind
...Don't see the world in black and white

Flowers that smell so sweet
nectar of the honey bees
and the colors on the butterflys
there's a beauty within a cry
people dyin don't ask me why

Tell me what is wrong
we all wanna be free in our homes
we all want to live
in peace and in harmony

Colors of the earth blue and green
colors, there's no difference
between you and me
the color of your heart,U should be proud inside
a solution comes to mind
...Don't see the world in black and white

Why can't we see
that the beauty lays in U and me
if you'd just look around you
you know that it's wrong
before everything we have is gone

Colors of the earth blue and green
colors, there's no difference
between you and me
the color of your heart.....

Going back home

I been out for 3 years. I got my Master's degree and now I got a job back home, in India.

These 3 years I have enjoyed life to the fullest. Well, I have always lived my life to the fullest. Let us just say , I don't know why but undeservingly I am one of God's favourites. Let us just say, everyone around me thinks I got more than most and yes, I did.

Going back to India just feels nice. But leaving this place is not easy. This has been my home. I have friends here that are wonderful in everyway. But life has to move on, friends move out to better futures and so do we. I will miss the university, I will miss the volleyball tournaments . We had gotten better at volleyball, we lost only two games in the tourney and that was the finals and one in the preliminary. The team that won , didn't lose any, the only team we lost to and we lost to it twice.

I would miss my car a lot, my Nissan Altima GTS-R, the love of my life. I am glad though, that my friend bought it.

With all this moments of sad nostalgia , I am glad I am leaving for a better future. It is just that we don't want to let go of things we hold dear to. It is just human.

I am going back home

Death

I thought about death a lot of times, mostly when it affects someone I know. It is the only true thing in life, the surest thing that is going to happen to anyone living. It is to the stopping of this very beautiful gift from God , an end to it.

Is death an opposite of life? For some it might sound so. And for many it would feel like it is really the opposite of life. But is it really? Perusing through various literature of religious significance we would find it is not. Death is not the opposite of life, it is merely the absence of life in this world. In some religions death would be just be a step towards rebirth. People with atheistic tendencies would for all purpose believe Death is contrary to life. Things just stop to be.

From Christian, Jewish and Islamic perspective there is a time to be born, and a time to die. Eternal life of happiness and pleasures is a gift that is granted to all who accept their Lords and work to please him. Eternal Damnation for those who don’t. Jewish Traditionalists gave the name Gehenna to the place where souls were punished. Many Jewish thinkers noted that since, essentially, God is filled with mercy and love, punishment is not to be considered to be eternal
Dying and being reborn has been compared by some Buddhist as a candle flame. When the flame of one lit candle is touched to the wick of an unlighted candle, the light passes from one candle to another. The actual flame of the first candle does not pass over but is responsible for lighting the second candle. Death is merely a passage to rebirth in another realm such as the human world, a pure land or the flowering of the ultimate nature of the mind.
Hinduism believes in the rebirth and reincarnation of souls. Death is therefore not a great calamity, not an end of all, but a natural process in the existence of soul as a separate entity, by which it reassembles its resources, adjusts its course and returns again to the earth to continue its journey.

Whatever the truth is about death, one thing is true. It will surely come, and once it does, there is no stopping it. We have a life, we need to put it to good use, and when we go out we go out all guns blazing.