ExpertDabbler

Okay. So Kiruba.com will not be updated anymore. I once started to blog on the lines of Kiruba.com way back in 2003. But stopped almost immediately.

Then I restarted in 2004 September - with my own voice.

I don’t want to create traffic jams in my blog. That’s one reason there are no links here. These posts are to express my thoughts, feelings, ideas and opinions.

Writing, to me, is an emotional and spiritual experience. It is as if like I am born afresh after every new post. Especially the ones which tells about the person/ soul that is me. I am able to tune myself to my real nature when I blog. It is like seeing naked yourself in the mirror.
Every now and then, I try to read all the mails I have sent to my friends so far.
I have made numerous friends over mail. I have fallen in love and got rejected through mails. I can see my anger, my yearning for company, my keenness to get feedback to all that I write in those mails. Like a child who wants someone to say “Dress nalla irukku” on a Saturday school session.

But then, not every one can be priyums and suman. They all have their own priorities and prejudices. Like I have mine.

Over a period of time, I have grown out of that recognition seeking mentality. That’s a fantastic feeling - to see one grow. I read the meaning of love in “The road less traveled”. It’s putting in your effort voluntarily towards the physical, emotional and spiritual growth of your loved ones.

I look back at the posts I made five months back - same posture, same keyboard. It is fascinating to witness the evolution in the thought process, to think the potential and the scales prabukarthik can peak .

It is because of my blogs that I survived the depression with minimum suffering.

Will I blog forever? We don’t breathe for ever.
I too will grow over blog.

That could happen if and when I get my soul mate.

Even otherwise, I will stop blogging one day. Just like I want to bid adieu to all my friends one day. Not that I don’t love them and they don’t love me. It’s actually a problem of abundance. I love them all and my blog way too much.

As Kiruba says “All good things should come to an end some day”. All new things should start too.

When i decide, I want to call it quits with satisfaction. In fact, it is just a matter of perception.
Everything is perfect - the spastic child, the thieves, the natural disasters, the accidents, the wars and the terminal diseases. I would say this not now but no matter what happens in my life from hereon. Even if I lose all my loved ones, well wishers, all the good will, all the wealth and all the heath I have accrued so far.

The truth is that we always want to move from one form of perfection to another.
Thats one reason those who are happy have reasons to celebrate all the time.

“Kurai ondrum illai maraimoorthy kanna…”.

As i was anticipating an Indian loss to Pakistan in Bangalore, I was thinking whether our batsmen have any intelligence and application required to play a test match.

Actually, this concept of intelligence is pretty tricky and more complicated than what we think it is. Being a nation who takes lot of pride with its programmers, maths wizards and literary stalwarts (Kalidas, Kambar, Bharathiar, Vysar, Valmiki, Valluvar among others), we somehow measure intelliegence only based on the mathematical, logical ability and our ability with words.
In fact its the same scenario across the world.

But our friend Howard Gardner has a completely different tale to tell about this cognitive ability business. Gardner has made important contribution to the concept of “Multiple Intelligence” with his path breaking book called “Frames of Mind”.

This theory of human intelligence suggests there are at least eight, if not more, ways that people have of perceiving and understanding the world. Gardner labels each of these ways a distinct “intelligence”–in other words, a set of skills allowing individuals to find and resolve genuine problems they face.

But first lets see what is Intelligence according to Gardner,

He defines an “intelligence” as a group of abilities that:

1. Is somewhat autonomous from other human capacities
2. Has a core set of information-processing operations
3. Has a distinct history in the stages of development we each pass through
4. Has plausible roots in evolutionary history

He proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:

Linguistic intelligence (”word smart”)
Logical-mathematical intelligence (”number/reasoning smart”)
Spatial intelligence (”picture smart”)
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (”body smart”)
Musical intelligence (”music smart”)
Interpersonal intelligence (”people smart”)
Intrapersonal intelligence (”self smart”)
Naturalist intelligence (”nature smart”)

So even though prabukarthik has none of the eight intelligences mentioned here, be open to the fact that he can actually be “eat smart” and “sleep smart”.

As i was having my ‘Set Dosai’ in Lakshmi Sagar, (Boy it belongs to the super heavy weight cataegory), the guy opposite to me was talking about American terrorism in Iraq(thats the way i see it), Godhra, India - Pakistan cricket etc.
But what he said about Inzamam stood out.

“Saar, naan yaarro avan yaaro, ana pakistan captainlaye rombo nalla, amaidhiyana player Inzamam dhaan”

The kind of goodwill Inzamam has in India is amazing.
I really wanted Inzi to come good this series. Was really happy about his big hundred in Bangalore.

The great Imran Khan said that talent-wise Inzi is ahead of Sachin but then Sachin has much better cricketing brain. I thought cricketing brain is also part of talent.

But Inzi is a tremendous player. No question about that.
He was picked by the legendary Khan after seeing him play Waqar as though he was a club bowler in the nets. Imran went about saying only Viv Richards could have played Waqar with so much time and disdain. Inzi is truly the gentle giant of Pakistan cricket.

Thinking about Inzi, two images crop up my mind.
The way he demolished the Kiwis in 1992 worldcup semifinal in Auckland and helped Pakistan storm into the final. He hit 60 of 36 balls in that innings. Awesome power.

When we talk about Inzi we cannot quite stay away from run-outs i guess.
Yes, the other is Jonty Rhodes flying in to run- out Inzamam in the same world cup.
The run-out of the century in my opinion.
The photograph in the next day’s HINDU will remain etched in my memory for ever.

What is the best way to relax? For long I have always considered sitting in front of the TV with potato chips watching the likes of Viv Richards, Kris Srikkanth, Sachin Tendulkar demolish bowlers was the best way to relax. Or it could be bettered by a sound sleep. Or just the plain vanilla lying down and rolling in bed (alone of course.)
But somehow I kind of felt empty whenever I spent my time that way.
I could not figure out why.

Then I heard Irayanbu, an IAS officer, talk about relaxation. He said something like
“The best way to relax is not to avoid work but to take a different kind of work. A work different from your typical day job.” He being a District Collector spends some 18 hrs of his day on his work does not stop him from working on his garden during Sundays.

I think all activities like our hobbies fall into that category called work.
Sometimes it is more work than our day job. But our interest and curiosity blinds us from the effort involved. Often, we are happiest when we are doing something creative and out of our own volition.

How about when are dejected, feeling low? You can hit bottle or you can try smoke.
But the best way for me to relax is a good walk/ jog in the beach. Again something which involves sweat.

So it looks like there is no relaxation without some kind of work or activity and the sleep that ensues after work.

I had Idiyapaam with Thengai Paal at the Sangeetha’s this evening.
Boy it made me sing all the wonderful songs i know.
Looking back it is the best thing to have happpened in the whole day.

Amma , the greatest cook the world has ever known is out of station for the past couple of days. And i have been like a king who has just been denied entry to his palace.
The situation will continue to be the same for the next 3 days.

But i have learned to enjoy the solitude this situation provides.

I came to know through some blogs that some intellectuals are trying to ridicule all the underprivileged sections of the society as grasshoppers – people who are lazy and deserve to be poor.
And the persons who voice their concern for the poor have been made fun of too. In this instance it happened to be Arundhati Roy.

Granted, Globalization has had a major effect on the way the urban dwellers think and live. I am typing this blog in a high end machine sitting inside air conditioned ambience, all because of private enterprise, spirit and IT revolution.

But capitalism is not the panacea of all ills that pervade the Indian society.

It is like trying to treat all types of fever with a dose of paracetamol.

A country like India which has its roots in the villages and where agriculture is still the major source of livelihood cannot be sustained with Broadband connectivity, IT revolution, stock markets, IPOs blah blah. If a government cannot improve the lives of the men and women who are used to living in their own villages peacefully and if it force s them to sell their lands, make them run to cities for mean jobs, the government is sitting on a time bomb and asking for it to explode.

The erstwhile middle class has been split into two – The upper echelons joining the upper strata of the society while the rest are descending to lower and lower standards of living.

Consider the recent example. The Tamil Nadu government in a bid to promote IT in the state has declared the Old Mahabalipuram Road as IT corridor long back. Now efforts are on in a massive way to expand the road to 10 lane (5 lanes in each way) expressway. All the encroachments have been removed. The owners who have had their lands have been declared PAP (Project Affected People) and have been paid compensations – usually it’s a little more than what you need for peanuts.

Now it is all set to revamp the road in a major way.
Time for celebrations.
But think for a moment about the natives who have been living here for generations. They have seen big IT companies come and usurp the land that was their own. They have been witness to the slow and definite degradation of the environment caused by traffic and pollution (Each software company runs a mini transport corporation).
Agriculture? No scope because there is no water. Now we are taking their land in the name of progress by paying a pittance. Tomorrow we will start charging a toll for using the road. Eventually these people will migrate to cities (Oh Indian cities are such a pleasure to live. We have all the basic amenities in place and proper for the next millennium. )

Or will turn thiefs and come to ransack the houses of all the software techies who live in posh areas in the cities.

Progress with a big P.

If victims protest, there will be a Police Lathi Charge followed by widespread threats by businessmen and real estate mafias who have their crores at stake.
This is the way capitalism works.

Now when someone who has the time to think about these people come out and protest, we ridicule them. Who is this Arundhati Roy? Why can’t she sit in a corner with her PC and write the next erotic best seller? Do Dan Brown or John Grisham ever voice their public opinion? Of course not. That is not their business. Their business is to churn out the next bestseller, make their millions and that is why we all love them, don’t we?

On the contrary look at people like Arundhati Roy. They can’t have their hands off trouble. They write about old-fashioned stuffs like Dams, War, Democracy and communalism. Idiots. They don’t know what sells.

In a way, it is not a new phenomenon. The truth has always been the might of the dollar has always been better than the might of ethics and fairness. The courts and its lawyers have always been favoring the rich rather than the poor.But some people have still managed to stick to their fundamental values because that somehow vaguely commanded a respect so far.
Alas but now even that is also being bought and sold in the marketplace.

So folks, as Ernest Hemingway so famously put it “Take your money and run”.

Because nothing else matters.

I talk to my friends about my dreams, plans and visions for the future. About how I am going to make it big. About the risks involved. About getting out of the comfort zones and be like the Santiago of ALCHEMIST. I listen to their dreams; try to help in whatever silly, trivial ways possible.

The interesting part is, nobody but nobody is entirely happy about his or her life. They are all in their own crossroads. Some are small junctions. Some are like our own Kathipara Junction – too complex. Some are just taking it easy whilst for others it’s ‘perform or perish’ situation.

In a way all of us are like Santiago who loses his money to the conman.
We fail in our attempts. We make mistakes. We are let down. Sometimes stabbed in the back. Fate puts us in a corner. The different roles that we play (father, mother, friend, lover, wife, husband, son and daughter, etc) sometimes put our dreams, goals in the back seat.
Reality bites. We have no other option but to work in the glass shop while actually we were looking out for treasure.

The key is not to get too comfortable with the glass shop job. We may have done well there but we should know that this job is just a transit point and not the original destination result we had in mind.

There is no such thing as minimizing risks.
It’s like saying minimizing life.

So decide on the time to pack your bags from the glass shop and move towards the treasure.

I started to write about you in the morning. Got distracted every now and then.
Those distractions help me pay the bills and feed my body.
But people like you feed my psyche and help retain it in good shape with workouts.

You have often been looked upon as a trouble maker. One who wants to secede from her motherland when it went nuclear.
Who writes when her heart wants to.
But when you express, even your outpour comes out lyrical.
Where do you buy your pens/ keyboards?

My favorite ‘Sujatha’ indirectly referred to you as someone who is looking for publicity. Poor him. You have had your share when you won the Booker.
Forgive him. Age is catching up with him.

I want to know a lot of things about you. The more the better. What made you leave home when you were 16?What made you join architecture? Why not English Literature?
Did it just happen? Just like you happened to join NBA?
Certain things just happen isn’t it? You cannot design them.
Like Childbirth. Like ‘The God of Small Things’.
But you know what, for all your genius in “TGOST”, I love your essay collections
(The Algebra of Infinite Justice) more.
I could see an extraordinary, inspiring lady.
A lady whose life has dissent written all over it.
No matter what you do from hereon, you have shifted an average run- of the mill youth’s perception about corporate globalization.
You have exposed a super power’s heartless agenda.
You have ripped the Hindu Nationalist masks worn by communalists.
Parochial interests and hence disregard for mankind by successive governments stand naked now, Thanks to you.

I write this blog in your own style. No rules. Anarchy rules.

My mom and others ask what kind of a girl I have in mind. All the girls I have/had in mind have a bit of you. They somehow remind you. For me, you are their archetype.

Never mind that. Someone said the best man-woman relationship is potentially that of a father- daughter and mother-son. If I am blessed with a daughter, I would like to name her Arundhati.

Listening to other’s agony is a tricky business. You can listen to their outpour, console them, cajole them, cuddle them. All in the hope that will make them better in due course. But a person’s pain is his own. As an individual I have my share of grief, sorrow, suffering. It is each person’s intensely personal business. Like cleaning ourselves in the toilet.
After listening for some time, if we try to show them what we feel is the way out of their agony, they listen. Or so it seems.

It is not that they do not realize their way out of trouble. They know better than we do. Sometimes they just don’t feel like getting out of trouble and move on with life.
Fools that we are – the listening community, we do not realize it.

We try to make them see our point of view. We try to show them how some other people have crossed the bridge somehow somewhere on earth.
That’s where the trouble starts.
Some view it as comparison.
They start cribbing about how they have suffered 3rd degree burns and how Y – the person shown as an example and an inspiration has suffered only 2nd degree burns and so not really a good example.

The purpose of showing some one as an example is not to compare. The purpose is to convey that there are people who have transcended similiar kind of pain and who are well and truly alive. A burn is a burn after all. We all should go to doctor, get treated for the burns and then aspire to move out of hospital to real life as soon as possible.

Then the “Why me” business creeps in.
Honestly, “why” is an impossible question to answer sometimes.

Why Tsunami? Why Earthquake? War? Famine? Drought? Floods? Why good things happen to bad people? Why bad things happen to good people? Why sometimes we get things we hardly deserve and why sometimes we do everything right and fail?
We can’t possibly provide logically satisfactory answers. Guess most of the folks worship God because of this reason alone.

I think each person has to write his own answer for his or her own “Why?”.
No God, Devil, Stars, Planet is gonna write that.

It’s not a school exam.
This examination is for the degree of “A Living soul” from World University.
But just like school exams, where we skip the question for which we don’t have an answer and move on to next, we should keep the “why?” in our Life aside and move to other clearer aspects of life.

I think this is especially true in matters relating to our heart.
Sometimes the very act of putting our step forward gives more confidence, clarity and peace.

Maybe we can write a brilliant explanation to our “Why” with that clarity.

When we try to convey this, sometimes in not so sweet terms, we get a formal “You were really nice. Sorry for disturbing you, I will not trouble you anymore”.
And I want to shout
‘Appreciating me is the last thing I want. Call me an asshole. I don’t care. Get yourself out of trouble and move on with life.That is the least you can do to yourself and me.’

Let me begin with Last Sunday’s Penn Parkum episode. There were certain things I insisted before seeing that person which I thought would be in her best interests.
Earlier on, when amma wanted me to see this girl, I clearly told I am not going there with a party/battalion. Not even my mom. I just wanted to meet that person, talk briefly about myself and my dreams, give time to that girl to tell whatever she wants and then proceed from there. So it was decided that we meet at a temple. Only the two of us.

Everything went according to plan. But on seeing the person I somehow felt this is not the person I would like to marry. When one feels that way in the first 10 minutes there is nothing you can do after that.

She was way too innocent, simplistic and nice for my taste. If only I had said yes, I think I would have done her a great deal of harm than good. And we had neither physics nor chemistry working between us.

But the fact remains the trip was an eye opener about the kind of person I wanted.
I would like to someone who is honest (the more brutal, the better), good looking and who can put up with an eccentric like me. Put up implies someone who has her own share of wild interests. I don’t want someone who will be like my subordinate. And No I could not care less about Caste, blah blah.

But herein rests the problem. The problem is I am way too clear about my expectations and the areas I will strive to make it work. Unless I find someone on my own, I realize there is very little chance to meet such a person through the arranged marriage route.

Saying No is a very delicate thing. I could not even convince my mother. Forget the rest of the junta. The comments I hear makes me feel guilty about the whole damn thing.
Amma is so upset that she said she will stop this process for sometime.

Very Good. Could not have asked for more.