It's all about the end

The folks of Westeros may be still waiting for the winter (Watch the T.V. Series 'Game of Thrones' if you didn't understand), but for us humans living in the Northern Hemisphere, winter has already knocked on our doors. With the twelfth month of the year coming to an end tonight, it is the end of yet another year. We bid farewell to the year 2013, and the many memories that came along with it.

For me, the New Year's eve is unlike that for other, gregarious butterflies. While people plan to drink till they puke, play poker all night, or kiss their loved ones at midnight, I'd be hibernating after deploying my three-layered clothing mechanism, and adding an extra cover of a thick blanket (Seriously, it's cold in Punjab). You don't believe me? Fine. Today, the only 'countable' activities that I performed were: playing Counter Strike, writing and upvoting answers on Quora, and reading a few articles from the Indian Economist (Yes, I have been doing a bit of reading lately. You should really check out The Indian Economist. There's a lot of good articles to read). So, my point is that I have nothing special for New Year's eve. Many people would agree with me.

But whether you follow the Indian calender or the Roman Calender, you still feel like something's ending. People start greeting each other right from Christmas. People start talking about resolutions. They talk about memories and achievements. And you really get the feeling of end, even if it doesn't concern you. Everything official ends tonight, and everything new begins tomorrow.

I don't want to greet you right away. I want to pose some questions. I want to talk about the 'end'. Why are we so fixated on the end? Why are we so emotional about the end? And why are we so excited about the end?

Because, we have always been running towards the 'end'. We live our lives, trying to plan for the 'end'. We play a sport to win in the 'end'. We essentially, do everything we do to reach an 'end'.
Think about the New Year Resolutions. What are resolutions? They are your goals. They are your plans for the 'end'. You start planning for the 'end' right in the 'beginning'. This year, I didn't achieve my targets. I'll strive hard to achieve them this year. This is a plan for the 'end'.
Doesn't it appear then, that 'our ends define our means'? That whatever our end goals are, they define what we will do in the whole year?

But really, do our ends define our means? Or do our means define our ends? Does your target make you choose your path, or is it the other way around?

To reach to that answer, imagine a situation where you have to travel to a lake. For that, you need to travel between point A (where you are) and point B (where the lake is). You don't have a map. But in reality, the route looks a bit like this:

When you start from A, and reach the first junction, what path will you choose? Since you don't have a map, you'd choose one path. But then, your logical mind says you should choose a path where you can 'hear' the water flowing. You choose the upper route. Here, your 'end' defined your 'means'. You choose the upper path and then, again reach a junction. There are two ways again, but this time, you can hear the water flowing on both sides. Which path will you choose? Does your 'end' define your 'means' in any way? No.
Consider the situation if you had taken the lower route. You didn't think of the sound of water. So, you chose a different path and you ended up at either C or D. Did you reach your desired 'end'? No. You reached a different end because you chose a different path. In this case, your 'means' defined your 'end'.

So, the answer to the question: "Do the means define the ends, or the ends define the means?" is: It is a bit of both. While you may surely want to control everything in your life, is it possible for you to do so? The answer is 'No'. Your path will be decided by your 'ends' but again, in that path, the variables or the choices you face will decide what end you'll reach. So, while you make your resolutions and try a lot to complete them, you will almost never achieve the desired 'end'. The odds are very less.

So, should you never make resolutions? You should. But, instead of yearly, solid, rock-hard resolutions, your resolutions should be flexible. They should change with the path you choose. Take a resolution for a definite time period, and choose your path. Once you deflect, tweak your resolution a bit. Work towards an improvised goal. This way, your ends will define your means, and your means will define your ends. You will have better chances of achieving happiness and satisfaction at the end of the year.

Cherish the end, be happy that you got new experiences. Don't be upset if you couldn't achieve your 'ends'. Because, it wasn't very definitive in the first place. Be glad that you at least reached somewhere, instead of nowhere. And that you actually worked a bit towards your goals...

Buh-bye! Wish you a Happy Ending Year! And a Happy New Year!

The Quirks of Social Networking

It is a normal day. I am finally relaxed after a good Saturday night sleep, and a hot bath in the morning. And now, I sit on my desk and fire up my laptop. Pretty much the same routine as always. All my days begin this way. I don't do prayers, I'm not that much religious. So, I directly go on to the issues of the day. And as my laptop starts up, I immediately open up Facebook in my browser. I check all the vital updates in the sequence: Notifications, Messages, Friend Requests. I see the red sign glaring at me, shouting to me that I have 9 unseen Notifications. I click on the tiny globe, and I get to see a list which has had me curious for the past two minutes or so. But this list is hugely a disappointment. Among these nine notifications, two are game requests, two are some stupid photos I'm tagged in, two more are some posts in a group, and only three are notifications that really matter to me. Nevertheless, after this short ritual, I jump to my wall. I peruse through whatever new updates my wall has to offer me; at the same time, judge some people for their bad photo or another copied status update. Once I am done doing all of that, I move on to yet another social networking site - Quora. Unlike Facebook, Quora has even more notifications, but most of them are just upvotes to my answers. Yes, one of my answers on Quora has already gotten around 650+ votes, and counting. I immediately click on the 'Clear New Notifications' button. I then, start to read answers and upvote some very good ones. After around half an hour of doing so, I decide to leave Quora for the good. And so, after completing this daily ritual lasting upto an hour or so, I finally get ready for important things of my daily routine.

Staring at the screen for like half an hour, and that too, in the morning, makes me a bit dizzy. So, I sit quietly for two minutes, stretch my body for some exercise (because my mom is continuously talking about the need of exercise), and after those two minutes of exercise, I am back at my screen. After half an hour of checking my mails, I finally realize I have work to do - I have assignments to complete, I have classes to attend, and other loads of crap. With a heavy heart, I put my laptop to sleep, and return back to the normal world. But, as I step outside my room and into the hallway, I take a very deep yawn. And that is how I start hanging in my classes like the Gardens of Babylon.

I guess you might get the point of my little experience above. And of course, you would be having some questions about my daily routine. I would love to not answer them. (I might answer which soap I use for bathing, though). Social Networking has been around us for a long time now. This is the generation of social networking. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Quora, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, and many more have become a part of our daily communication. A majority of our knowledge of the outside world is gained through these sites. And an introvert like me definitely likes and prefers these networking sites to day-to-day conversations. That is a good thing, actually. The merits and demerits of these sites have been discussed and again discussed, and then discussed all over again. And, people may say what they want to; I certainly like social networking sites.

Networks are important for knowledge. Since a major part of my summer this year was spent studying about networks and networked knowledge, I would like to share some interesting ideas about networks. So, networks are essential in the process of information transfer. In our brains, how does information become knowledge? Do we remember some fact as a sentence? No. When we get any new information, neurons in the neural network of our brain fire up, in some sequence. This firing of neurons establishes a neural link in our brain, which leads to knowledge. So basically, knowledge in our brain is nothing more than a pattern of specific entities connected to each other via a network. And so, networks are the building blocks of information transfer process. Same thing happens when we move onto higher levels. A network of persons creates a society. And just as formation of links between neurons leads to exchange of information, the formation of links between humans in a society leads to information transfer...

And so, social networking is not a bad thing. It is basically a replica of what happens in our brain - in this case, we being the neurons. Every single day, we get so much of new information via these social networks. There are trends in a network, and we can get to see those trends and try to implement them, and then what was once social knowledge becomes personal knowledge. And memes are a very good example of them. Memes have now become a massive hit. Imagine just a year or two ago, if one were to write "One can has cheeseballs", every single Grammar Nazi would be more than ready to shoot him down. But now, this language has become a part and parcel of these memes. Why? Because, well, Grumpy Cat can't spell. And so, we have a whole new dimension of entertainment, and we get loads of new information and current affairs from these trending posts. Until about a week ago, I didn't know that Ben Affleck is the Batman in the next Superman movie. But, when I saw all those trolls about him, I was compelled to look at one. And that's how I got my information. I wouldn't have known of Miley Cyrus's performance at the VMA 2013, had it not been for the Zac Brown Band's status update (A page that I have liked). And so, I would have missed up on such a good piece of news trending all over the Internet if it hadn't been for social networking.

That is exactly how social networking helps us. It increases our knowledge and helps us to know some people better. It makes us more accessible. It makes many a conversations much easier. But then, it is not all goody-goody. There are some aspects of it that make me wanna throw away my laptop (Seriously). First one of them is definitely that 'Future predictions' thingy. I have never ever understood why people want to do that. Some of those are absolutely stupid. 'When are you gonna die?', 'Who will be your life-partner?', 'Who has crush on you?' and 'Are-you-kidding-me?' Okay the last one was just me being a little dramatic. But really, what the hell is this? Is Facebook God? You really think Facebook knows all about your life, when you, even despite it being your life, don't know what you're gonna do a week from now? And I am sorry, Facebook is not responsible here. It is those bloody apps which have crawled into our Facebook walls somehow, and which stop at nothing to irritate us all by generating stupidly stupid images, and then spreading like a virus into everyone's walls determined to uproot their lives by a shitload of spam. And recently, those 'Who visited my profile?' thingies have surfaced to the scene. And there are people who actually click those links, and then the app, which was waiting for this perfect moment, posts the same thing as this victim, and then someone else clicks the victim's link, and this continues. Even though people have learnt all about viruses and even despite knowing that they should not click on unknown or unverified links, they still click on those links, they still fall prey into all those schemes, and then they don't even care to check their Activity Log to delete any such content, because at some level, they don't care. Some Facebook groups are filled up with loads of such posts, and not even the Admin cares enough to delete them.

And Game Requests are not far away here. Okay, when you share your scores in public, which is absolutely not required, we know what game you are playing. But no, you have to pester some quiet people, looking to enjoy the social networking site. You have to invite them to play. You have to add a new notification to their list, and add hope that there might be a like on their photo, only to badly crush that hope with a shameless Game Request. And as if that's not enough, some people go on to tag all of their friends into their personal photos, or even some copied photos with quotes saying 'Friendship is a sea...' or some crap like that. And then, people comment on that, adding to the pile of existing Notifications, and then, it takes an individual almost ten minutes to click, let it open, Unfollow and then close the window. And, then, one has to scream in the pillow to let all that anger and frustration out.

Seriously, networks are very powerful, but only if they are used in a right manner. Spamming these with unwanted content or advertisements defeats the very aim of learning and information sharing. Networks like Quora or forums are some of the best things to happen on the Internet. They actually utilize networking phenomena for information sharing. I learn such a great deal from Quora, or from some random forums. And that is exactly the purpose of such networks. They are there to enhance the process, and we, by doing things we do, degrade the process. All we need to do is be careful, and avoid spamming, and everything will turn back to normal, and networks will actually become what they're supposed to be - mediums of information exchange...

Disclaimer: I don't intend on hurting anyone who does all those things above, but seriously, you need to mend your ways!

The topic of this post was suggested by Shubham Tyagi

The Gossip Monger

"Do you know that blonde girl just broke up with a third guy in just a week? I always knew that bitch was horny!" "Hey, you know, something interesting happened today... Someone talked to me about you. And it was bad...." "He is such a show-off... I heard his parents have cut him off from their money..."
The blonde girl, the back-talker and the show-off might not want to read this piece of news, but I sympathize with you - enough to write a post about it. Apparently, you have become targets to something that has just a beginning and often no ending. You have fallen prey to something whose odds of helping you are as equal as the odds of ruining your life. You have become the subject of something that is a human quality everyone possesses and utilizes very efficiently.
You, my not-so-dear friends, have become the topic of a gossip...

Gossips are interesting. They are. While modern-day people rely on facts, gossip still continues to be a major source of people's information. And it's not bad. Gossips are supposed to enhance the dynamics of a group, by making the information-transfer process speedy. Gossip has become a social interaction that helps a group know something about an individual without actually talking to them. But as much as it tries to help in the transmission of information, it stops doing so there and then only. A majority of gossips are never completely true. The point of origin of the gossip, and the point of termination of the gossip have very different versions of a piece of news. And that is because of the inclusion of many different nodes in the network - each node tries to impart its own characteristics to the original information, and by the time it reaches to the final node, it becomes something else.

And why does that happen? Why do the initial node and the final node not have the same information? What is it that changes in the process?
While a node passes on a piece of information to another node, some energy is lost in the channel. It happens often. If suppose, I tell my friend, "Person B is not applying for foreign universities. Don't know why. Anyhow, it is very expensive. If only education was so affordable." Now, suppose there was some disturbance in the background (suppose someone howled for a moment), thus damping your voice while you spoke, "Don't know why. Anyho...", then your friend will only get the following: "Person B is not applying for foreign universities. Something spoken (Becaus)e, it is very expensive. If only education was affordable"
Person B is not applying for a foreign university, not because he doesn't have money (this might be the reason, but we're not sure), but now, because of noise in communication, it has become a fact. And so, in the transfer of information between nodes, information is always lost - it is then pure chance whether the information lost was of value of not.

But it is not just the friction between the channels that causes this loss of information. A majority of the transmission process relies on the nature of the nodes transmitting the information. If I said something to my friend, and my friend has different views about the topic, the topic would be modified accordingly. Now, suppose, in the same example, if my friend is rich, and he received distorted information from me, he will further modify this information according to his own nature. He will probably pass on something like, "Person B is not applying for foreign universities because he is poor.", which may be further passed on as two different pieces of information like "Person B is not applying for foreign universities" and "Did you know he is poor? He hardly manages to attend the school with the shortage of money..."
Just look for yourself... What was the original piece of news? What has it become in the process of transmission while passing through just three nodes?

While the first phenomenon, i.e., loss of information due to damping is not very common everytime, the second phenomenon of changing the information to suit personal needs is very much common, and is the biggest factor in changing the course of gossip. Every person tries to modify the information to suit his/her context. There is even a game about it - one person tells a second person about something, and that second person has to pass it on to third, and so on, until the last person gets the information. But in the process, everyone has to change something about the information. And sometimes, it is purely hilarious to see what the difference between the original news and the final news is... Information changes bit by bit until it transforms into something else. And that is one of the prime reasons for so much of misunderstanding among groups.

It is often said that women are very interested in gossip, that they are always ready to hear something new and they always want to transfer information to someone else. That is true, but it is only partly so. Women like gossip, because everyone likes gossip, and they are subset of 'everyone'. All human beings like gossip. Because, gossip is the source of information. It is what opens the gates to our curiosity. And saying that men don't gossip is a big, fat lie. Men gossip in ways women don't even think about. And it is very interesting to see men gossip. It is very amusing to observe a group of men talking bad about someone. There are clear indications of jealousy, hatred and an urge to make oneself feel better - something that is always attributed to women. Gossiping is not a womanly trait. It is as much a part of men's circles as it is of women's. It's just the style that differs. Maybe women have special 'gossip sessions' specially reserved to discuss about someone/someone's someone/someone's something. But men don't gossip in such a way. They are discreet. They'll drop a trigger to start the conversation, and then gradually weigh in, and when the discussion reaches an ignition point, they add the spark that causes the conversation to take place. So, it is false to say that men don't gossip. Maybe they gossip even more than women. (Sorry for revealing the secrets of the brotherhood... I really needed something to write about!)

Gossips may turn the course of the original information, but sometimes, information is manipulated on purpose, just to damage someone's reputation. That is when information turns into a 'rumour'. Rumours are some of the biggest weapons in the communication process. The sad part is that everyone has access to these weapons. They are like missiles - on whom, everybody has control. Now a person may use a missile to attack an enemy, or he can do it just for fun. The end result is same - something is damaged. And the extent of the damage depends on the connections through which the information passes. And these rumours are basically responsible for people turning against each other, because people will start having prejudiced opinions of each other. And that would basically hinder the very process of effective communication. The rule is to never trust a rumour. It only takes one person to create, two to confirm and three to factualize it...

An episode of the popular T.V. Series, The Big Bang Theory, called The Herb Garden Germination showed how gossip usually travels. Two of the characters of the show made an experiment to see how much time it took for a piece of gossip to travel. They used a statement to be propagated, and a counter statement to check the flow of the original statement. The end result was that no one discussed about the counter statement. The entire group focused only on the first statement, because it was more interesting and unexpected than the second. And so, it could be seen from just a 20-minute episode that we talk about things that interest us - we only consider passing information that makes us surprised and sounds interesting. Because, some part of us always wants entertainment in the form of gossip. And this part can stop at nothing to get or transmit the information...

Gossips are interesting... They can improve the dynamics of a group, while at the same time, they can lead to the downfall of the group. Humans have extraordinary qualities which are utilized in even more extraordinary ways. And gossips are surely one of them...
Adios!

The Moral Conundrum

When it all comes down to morality, most of us believe that there are only two kinds of people - the moral ones and the immoral ones. "Why not?" you may ask. Everything in this universe is made up of poles - the positive and the negative, the masculine and the feminine, the matter and the antimatter. I did talk about the two poles of everything in my post titled 'The Two Faces'.

And this human trait is no different. There are murderers, there are psychopaths, there are sociopaths and there are rapists - there are thieves, burglars and robbers... They are branded as 'immoral'.

But let me ask you a question I often ponder upon - is the degree of their immorality same?

Is a murderer as equally immoral as a robber? Is a robber as equally immoral as a rapist? Is a rapist as equally immoral as a kidnapper?

The crux of my question is - 'Is morality analog or digital?' Does it have to be characterized by a degree? Or does it have only two states - morality and immorality? This is an interesting question. We know all immoral people are not equally immoral. Yet, we still brand them as 'immoral'. And why is that? Why do our minds classify something that is not meant to be classified in the first place?

Because morality is not a 'trait'; it is rather a 'state'. A person is neither purely moral, nor purely immoral. But what about the poles then - the positive and the negative? As I mentioned once, R.L. Stevenson said in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, "Man is not truly one, but truly two." Every single person on this planet has both moral and immoral sides. It is what is in excess that gives him the title... Consider a simple example. If there are 5 electrons and 2 protons in an atom, what would you call it? A negative atom. Is it because the atom only has negative charge? No. It does have some positive charge. The problem is that all the effects that you see as just 'negative', hence the name.

But then, is the concept of morality as easy as simple Mathematics?

Here's where things become tricky - no matter what we do, how much we try; we cannot stop being immoral. Ever. The only moral life is that of a fetus inside its mother's womb. Right from the time we are born, we have been killing - we have taken the lives of millions of plants (living beings) to satisfy our needs... We have killed millions of tiny insects and creatures while walking, and without even being aware of the same. In a way, we have killed, and there is no way out. Because, to survive, we need to do it. So, right from our birth, we have been immoral. The negativity grows, until we do something to balance this.

Say, for example, there is a person in your class who is always bullying others. He would be termed as a 'bad guy'. His impression of a bad person grows as he bullies more people. Other students in the class will keep on getting a stronger impression about this character of his. But what can change that? If that guy stops bullying other people and starts helping them instead, there would be a change in people's perceptions. He will stop being the 'bad guy', and he will turn into a 'good guy'. That is the point. Until we do something 'moral' to balance all the 'immoral' things we have been doing since we were born, we would be nothing more than a pile of increasing negativity.

But then, who decides what is moral? And what immoral? Some say, pure morality is a state when you 'do not cause any harm to anyone'. But, what exactly is 'harm'? How do you define 'harm'? Isn't it relative?

Suppose you testify against someone who is accused of bribery. Your act will be termed 'moral'. Because, you put away an immoral person. But hasn't it caused 'harm' to the accused person? Then, isn't it immoral?

For centuries, humans have experienced arduous situations, and then established a set of rules for defining 'morality'. But sometimes, situations are not so easy... Here is one such interesting case. Choose for yourself:

Consider a hypothetical situation where a giant ball is rolling towards five people sitting on a bench. The ball is going to crush them all, and no one can do anything about it. Except you. 'You' can change the course of the ball to only one direction, where a person is walking down the road. So should you save the five people and kill the one who was never even going to be killed? Or should you let them die, so as to not kill that one person?

This is a situation where both choices are equally moral, and, equally immoral. So, in such a situation, choosing any one of them should not have any 'net' effect on you. But, someone is getting killed. And you are the reason for that. Would your mind be at peace after such an event, even though there is no 'net' change in your moral and immoral sides? In such situations, is there a way to define 'immorality'?

Consider another situation. The ones who are 'immoral', i.e. who have greater negativity, can do almost anything - they can kill, rob, rape - anything, because, well, they are immoral. And the ones with the morals have all the restrictions. In such a case, it is natural that there might be greater number of immoral people than the moral ones. But doesn't it violate the very balance of universe? Would you, in such a case, believe in the 'balance of the world' and the 'neutrality' of the poles or the 'Second Law of Thermodynamics' which says, 'The entropy (randomness) of the universe is constantly increasing'?

The choice is up to you...

I will leave you pondering. Ultimately, it is all about our minds. The mind is a tool which can cause revolutions. It can change the course of actions. And surely, it can cause conundrums...

Dream a little dream

As the scene unfolds, you are running on the roof of a building, with fear of the highest degree. Someone is following you - he is coming closer... He is faster than you are, but still, you cannot possibly give up. Your legs have started aching, and your body is now demanding rest. But the fear is consuming the pain - it is making you to continue nonetheless... You look behind but find no visible silhouette, but you know he is there - chasing you. You have run a considerable distance to save yourself. And as you try to run ahead, you see you have reached a dead end - you have reached the edge of the roof...
You are panting - it is now your mouth which is breathing. Your senses are alert, they have to be alert... In a moment of quick decision, you see that you have no choice. You jump off the roof to help yourself... And as you complete the jump, gravity takes over your body. You feel the mighty force pulling you down. You are short of air as you accelerate downwards. Adrenaline suddenly rushes in your body, and you are filled with a range of emotions - terror, excitement, thrill and pain... You continue falling downwards to what seems to be the end of your life... You are falling, and falling, and falling...
And then you wake up.

Dreams are no less than movies - with you as protagonists. For long, they have been a mystery - and unsolvable at that. People have argued over their purpose and their meanings for centuries now. But this mystery continues to be a mystery. They are unreal, but still, are so real - when we are dreaming, we don't even come to know that we are dreaming. Everything from images, ideas and emotions is present in our dreams. Stories seem to be real, but they don't make any sense. Characters are mixed, and plots are twisted - basically, we are transported to a wonderland, where anything is possible... And all that, when we are physically in one place, with our eyes closed and body intact...

According to the Indian text, Upanishads, dreams are our experiences when our soul leaves our body during our sleep. The experiences of the soul are basically our experiences - that's why our dreams feel so real to us. But yes, you don't have to believe that. The ancient humans were a fancy people. No wonder their imaginations had no limits.
The subject of dreams has always been a subject of discussion and debate. Many scientists and researchers have put forward various theories to explain the reason behind these virtual movies (if you see the irony). The first of those many theories was that of Sigmund Freud. According to him, dreams are manifestations of our deep, repressed desires - many of them linking to sexual desire. So, a train going into a tunnel in our dream is nothing but sexual symbolism. While this seemed to be a logical explanation; the way he proposed, everything could be traced back to sex.

During this time, Carl Jung, a student of Freud, proposed something different. He still believed in the psychological origin of dreams, but according to him, dreams were basically a means to solve our problems through the sleep and a reflection on our selves. We have noticed that sometimes - we have a problem in our mind when we go to sleep; and when we wake up, we are struck with a solution. (Although the solutions which I get this way often lead to more problems!) This theory seemed to be convincing, but soon enough, another theory came into limelight. According to researchers Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, dreams are simply a result of random electrical impulses in our brains, with images and stories often pulled from bits of our memory. This theory explains why most of the time, our dreams don't make any sense - there is a random story, and there are random characters. And because it gives the answers to most of our dream-related questions, this theory is still one of the most prominent theories in the field of oneirology (the scientific study of dreams).

But these are all theories. No one knows for sure what actually happens. But, that doesn't stop researchers from pursuing this mysterious area. Scientists now know that most of our dreams occur during a phase of our deep sleep, called the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. During this phase, our brain functionality is so high that it resembles that of being awake. During this stage of our sleep, our body releases chemicals which essentially paralyze our body, preventing us from acting out our dreams... But, all our dreams don't happen during the REM stage. Some of our mild dreams also occur during our non-REM sleep, which sometimes causes us to act them out, because our bodies aren't paralyzed. That's why some people start kicking in their sleep... (That doesn't mean that you, kickers, are forgiven!)

But that is all okay, you'd say. Where's something fun? Okay then. Take this: Kekule, the chemist who discovered the structure of benzene did so in his sleep! He worked days and nights to figure out the structure of this molecule, but in vain. Until one night, when in his sleep, he had a dream about snakes, forming circles with their tails in their mouths. And then he realized that benzene molecule, unlike other organic molecules, had a circular structure instead of a linear one... Mary Shelly, the author of the famous book, Frankenstein, got the idea from a dream. Elias Howe, the inventor of sewing machine, got the idea of fixing a needle in the machine in his dream. And there is a skill that allows people to control what to dream about in their sleep. This is called Dream Incubation.

People have even come up with the meanings of dreams - like, being naked in public means you are trying to hide something and you fear exposure; falling down means your life is out of your control; being chased means you are running away from your problems; flying means you are in control of things; and so on... But who is to say what is actually meant by what you dream?
Amidst all this comes the concept of Déjà vu - the sensation that a currently occurring event has been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not. One of the theories of Déjà vu attributes the feeling to having dreamt about a similar situation or location, and then forgetting it until reminded of the dream during the event in present. Maybe it is true. During a typical life span, a person spends a total of about six years dreaming. And out of those six years of dreams, can it not be possible that we dreamt about something that actually happens in reality?

Movies like 'Inception' add a completely new insight into dreams. The movie shows the concept of 'dream sharing', and it shows the concept of a dream within a dream. Characters are confused between the real world and the dream world, and without any indicators for the same (like totem), they could be forever lost in the abyss of the dream-world, called the 'limbo'. And all such objects make the concept of dreams and dreaming all the more intriguing...

Do dreams symbolize our inner desires? Are they hints to solutions for our problems? Or are they just random impulses which mean nothing? Do they express our fears and insecurities? Or are they prophecies? Is our entire life a dream? How do we know we are in the 'real world'?
There are many unanswered questions about these virtual realities, and rest assured, we may never know for sure what causes them or what they mean. But, dreams are a means for us to break free from the shackles of our lives - they can take us to places we have never seen, they can make us have experiences which we could never have, but above all that, they have the power to free us from the chains we are in, and to transport us to a world where anything and everything is possible... All that's needed is for us to close our eyes. And the rest is a miracle...

The Curious Case

Edmund Burke once said, "The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity". Curiosity is a trait of inquisitiveness, it is a quality which makes us learn, explore, ask and investigate. And this trait is one of the few which develops in humans at a very early age. In fact, we get most of our knowledge because of our curiosity. A child learns his mother tongue only because of curiosity. This quality is what helps children learn at faster rates than adults. And this is the quality which has led us to explore things beyond what we see, hear or feel...

As children, we learn thousands of words and that too with perfection. We insert these words in our day-to-day language and gradually, they become an essential part of our language. But as it always happens with every language, when we are asked to define a particular word which we learnt in our childhood, we would not be able to define some of these words. Or even if we are able to define them, their definitions would have some words, whose definition again, we wouldn't be able to give, thus leading us to a loop where one word requires another word to define it, and it continues until the last word requires the very first word in its definition.

My point is, to define new words, we need some basic words whose definitions cannot be given. But there are many words in our vocabulary which we use very often, but still cannot give their definition. And that's how we learn our mother tongue. We listen to the words being spoken, and then we are 'curious' to know about them and use them. Curiosity is the reason why children ask so many questions when they gain awareness. But, as we move on towards our modern system of education (which I discussed in very detail in my previous post titled 'The Modern Education Scenario'); we start losing our inquisitiveness. We start accepting concepts as facts. We start assuming things to be true. And we start taking theories for granted.

But how does that happen? 
We all have a pleasure centre in our brains. (Sounds like an amusement park, right? It is.) This centre lets us know if some action is pleasurable, and it generates the desire to perform the same action again. And this 'pleasure centre' is the centre for everything from laughter to drugs to sex... This centre is responsible for the titillating feelings we experience when we are having pleasure. And this centre is responsible for us wanting to do those things again...
And this is done via a chemical called 'dopamine'. Whenever we find ourselves in situations which are pleasurable, the pleasure centre of our brains releases this chemical. And we feel good. We feel a rush in our bodies. And that increases the secretion of this chemical, reminding us to do the activity again. Studies have shown that even a sip of beer is enough for the release of dopamine. And when we have an addiction, this is the bad guy which makes it challenging for us to stop.
When having sex, when taking drugs, when in addiction, this is the chemical which makes us do it all over again. So, when we see our partners again, when we see our objects of addiction again, this chemical reminds our brains about the last time, and makes us want to perform the activity again to have the 'pleasure' that we did before.

And interestingly, when we pursue new information through our curiosity, this chemical is secreted again. And that is why some people cannot control their curiosity - they would go to any lengths to satisfy their greed for information. That is why curiosity is often related with 'pleasure', because it gives us a unique kind of pleasure. It makes us feel satisfied, similar to sex and drugs. Research has shown that negative curiosity (i.e., uncontrolled curiosity) could lead to a new addiction - the addiction to find information. And no sooner does this addiction become an obsession, making us lose track of what is going on around us. That is why many scientists are often regarded as 'insane'. They are so curious to find answers that they become obsessed with this feeling, and soon, start getting detached from the world around them and enter a world in which they are satisfied -  a world which they can control...

There is a common joke about Newton and his law of gravitation. If Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head, what was he doing when his poop went down the toilet?
Did gravity not exist before an apple fell on his head? It did. Did the laws of gravitation not exist before this event? They did. Then why did he discover gravity only after this event? Because of his curiosity. Because, before an apple fell on his head, he had never given a thought to it. But since he was in a garden, and he was sitting idle (hard to believe though), and at that point, an apple fell on his head; he got curious why. If the apple would have fallen on the ground instead, maybe he wouldn't even have gotten curious. When the apple fell, and specifically, on his head, he had a reaction - there was an instant where he thought about this event, which led to him being curious. And that is interesting. Feelings get merged with curiosity. And that leads to questions, whose answers we are tempted to find out...

If it weren't for the curiosity of humans, we would still be living in the Stone Age. Man rubbed two rocks together, and it produced a spark. It was his curiosity that made him do that again to discover what it was that was produced. When he was successful in producing something called 'fire', he tried to put various things in it to check what it did. And this curious nature led him to 'cooking'. And there are many, many such instances - you wouldn't even be able to record such instances, because every single day, everyone of us has several such encounters with our curious sides. There have been many a discoveries and inventions which were accidental... William Kellogg accidentally invented the corn-flakes when he left boiled wheat to sit out for too long. Percy Spencer got the idea of a microwave oven, when microwaves in the laboratory melted a candy bar in his pocket. Alexander Fleming invented the penicillin after noticing a mysterious mould in one of his petri-dishes when he returned from a two-week long vacation. And Horace Wells got the idea of an anaesthetic when he witnessed a man under the influence of laughing gas who felt nothing despite having an injured leg during a demonstration.
All these seem to be so easy to catch up, and we may be wondering they were lucky, that if we were in their place, even we would have invented something. But no, chances are that we wouldn't have even stumbled upon the idea of thinking about such things. We would have thrown away the flaky wheat as 'badly cooked food', we would have paid more attention to our spoiled pants, we would have thrown away the petri-dishes as a 'bad experiment result', and we would have paid more attention to the man in the demonstration than the fact that he didn't feel the pain. (Maybe we would have been jealous to see him 'control' his pain)

All these inventions were accidents, that's true. But these accidents wouldn't have become inventions had it not been for the curiosity of these people. Curiosity works in mysterious ways. It forces us to search for answers in situations we never think about. When we hear a piece of gossip, it is our curiosity that makes us want more details. There is no person who'd say he/she is not interested in gossip. Because we are curious creatures. We want to know. And we 'need' to know. That is what keeps us informed and makes us think. (More about gossip in a future post.)

Curiosity is interesting - it can drive people insane, and it can drive people to answers. It can make people addicted and it can make them feel satisfied. But more than that, it has the power to do what no other human trait can do - it can enlighten the minds, cause revolutions and forever change the course of our destiny...

The Modern Education Scenario

Education is not a modern phenomenon. It has been in action for thousands of years now. From the days humans came into existence, they've shared knowledge, ideas and techniques. Even before literacy, knowledge was passed on in the form of story-telling and imitation of actions. The fact is, that we have been learning our entire lives. And there is no denying that we once knew how to learn better than we do now...

When we were born, our potential to learn was infinite. It is like saying that we were a dot, from where a line could be drawn in any direction. We did not have restrictions. And we did not know of any 'techniques' of learning. Still, we all went on to learn our mother tongue. How did that happen? Did we attend regular classes? Did we take tests to get our performance evaluated? No. We learnt through 'use'. We did not write some tests; we used our knowledge of the language in the way it is used - by 'speaking'. And when it was made sure that we were able to speak properly, it was sure that we had 'learnt' the language...

Since the formation of schools, colleges and universities, education has always experienced a downfall. Mark Twain once said: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education". And that is true. Today's schools are no more an epitome of learning, they have become a symbol of instruction. This is what happens in a school now-a days: A teacher comes into the class and starts speaking some alien code language, which we are expected to decipher. Then, the teacher opens up a book and starts reading from it. Yeah, we really needed to come to school to have a book being read to us. But, it doesn't end here. If a teacher is asked a doubt and if he/she doesn't know the answer to it,  his/her face will turn pale. And then, it will become a game of ego. He/she will have to show his/her knowledge off, so that students wouldn't ask such questions ever again.

And we all know these are true instances of modern teaching. I have had all these kinds of teachers and many more. I once had a teacher for Social Science, who used to make various people from the class read out text from our books! You see, I remained in confusion for over a month whether it was a Social Science class or an Oratory class. I had a Science teacher who did nothing but make us write text which was not in the book, just so that we had enough material to write in the exam! (How helpful, right? Going beyond the textbook always seemed so unreal to me!) I had yet another teacher who would read out the text from our English textbook and then tell us the meanings of the words we couldn't understand. If this last one seems to be fine to you, you might want to think about it a bit more...

You see what the problem is? And I have only talked about my school days here. Because schools are where 'teachers' are supposed to be. In colleges, there are no teachers, there are professors. And also, some post-graduate students who seem to look like they got their degrees just yesterday.

The problem is that we have all forgotten what education is all about. For us, attending classes and passing the tests has become the modern definition. How is a new language taught generally? First, we learn the alphabet. Then we learn new words. Then, we learn sentences. And then, we learn the grammar. And we are waved off as 'proficient' in that language if we get a good score in our written and oral examinations.

But did we, as children, learn our mother tongue in the manner described above? Did we start off with learning the alphabet, then the words, then the sentences, and then the grammar? The answer is no. We 'listened' to the language. We tried to 'imitate' the language. We tried to 'ask' about the language. And then we tried to 'use' that language. And we, as children, who knew nothing about teaching and learning, learnt better than we learn now, with all the modern 'theories' of learning.

There is a big problem in the current education scenario. And that is the 'commercialization' of education. Teaching, which was once a 'responsibility', has now become a 'profession'. Teachers are concerned more about their paid leaves and overtime money than students' understanding and clarity of concepts. That is why teachers start reading from books, just to pass time in the class. As long as their students are scoring well in examinations, thus improving their record; they are least concerned about whether the students have actually learnt the subject or not. Some of them even go to the extent of teaching poorly in classroom so that students could join their 'coaching centres', thus giving them double benefits in the form of money and results.
Is this what the fate of modern education is? Once upon a time, a teacher was considered to be the figure of highest respect in a society. Do people even know what a teacher is responsible for ? A doctor, if not a master of his skills, could lead to the death of a person. A pilot, if not efficient enough, could lead to the deaths of hundreds of people. An erring engineer could lead to deaths of thousands of people. But a teacher? A teacher, who has not taught well, is responsible for the death of an entire generation. Because, it is the role of a teacher to make engineers, doctors, and pilots out of hollow cans of gleaming potential. 

But rarely does anyone think about that. All everyone cares about is money. Even professions as noble as this one have been corroded by this air of commercialization. And the scene is even worse when it comes to higher education. In colleges, even the word is removed. 'Teachers' are replaced by 'professors'. At least a teacher needs a degree in teaching. A professor doesn't even need that. The authorities think changing the name of the profession has shown them a free ticket. But still, a professor has to 'teach'. The essence of 'imparting knowledge' still holds, even though the terms have changed. But, the authorities proudly flaunt their professors' degrees to make an impact. "We have five professors, all heading this many projects..." Yeah, as if we give a shit about how many projects they are heading. Does having a good degree mean ability to teach effectively? Does the heading of projects guarantee their teaching efficiency? Do all knowledgeable people make for good teachers?
The answer is simply 'No'.

They actually want us to believe that the more knowledge a person has, the better he can teach. We have proof to the contrary - we all have witnessed our professors in the classroom. Most of them are nothing but monotonous puppets, reciting every line of theirs as news reporters. Even audio book narrators have better expressions than these stern-faced, 'no smile ever', Nazi army men, who just know what to say, because they have studied it before us. People with great qualifications who are at the end of their careers start teaching. They might as well invade our homes and play 'Hide and Seek'. Is this called teaching? Have we forgotten the difference between knowing and teaching? Since when did knowledgeable people become equivalent to teachers? Since when do experts start deciding other people's futures? And most of us don't even realize what is wrong with what is going on...

A teacher 'teaches'. And teaching is not a process of imparting facts. If that were true, even a computer could teach you. Teaching is an 'art' - a 'teacher' is an actor, he is an artist - a teacher does drama, a teacher 'shows', and he opens the gates to creative thinking. He invites discussions, he invites ideas; but above all, he makes sure that his students are passionate about learning. He has to read minds, he has to read expressions, he has to make sure no one in his class gets bored. He dances, he sings, he acts and he plays - if that's what it takes for his students to learn. That is teaching.
In the classroom, a teacher should not teach what is given in the book. Because, it is in the book. A true teacher would teach Social Science by enacting historical characters, by encouraging political debates, by conducting elections, and by organizing role-plays. He would teach Science by demonstrating experiments, encouraging research, playing games and taking the class to educational trips. He would teach English by performing dramas, by encouraging students to feel the characters, and by conducting plays and performances. That is what a true teacher is like.

And that is the kind of enthusiasm true educators should have. Evaluation by means of simple written tests is no evaluation. True educators would make evaluations all about what a student has actually gained - it is the practical world the student has to apply his/her knowledge in. You don't evaluate pilots by a simple question-answer test. You make them fly. Even if it is only on a simulator, it is testing their practical knowledge. Because, it is the practical knowledge that matters in the real world. A cartographer is not just tested by his map making skills. When a cartographer can withstand being in a community of other cartographers, when he 'acts' as one in a community of many such, then only can he be called a 'real cartographer'.
Then why is evaluation theoretical? Why encourage students to learn by mugging? Why not test students for what they have to become? Why not include more of practical knowledge in the curriculum? And why to make it all about dollars or rupees or yen or euros?

A nation may be in  need of successful engineers, doctors, pilots; but above all that, a nation is in need of successful teachers and educators. The modern learning is no learning at all. It is just the transfer of facts. What we need is the transfer of experiences, of ideas, of opinions. And this transfer should not be one-way. If a student has something to learn from the teacher, a teacher also has something to learn from a student. Then only can we produce better educated, more knowledgeable and more powerful individuals - who will stop at nothing to reform the world...

The Two Faces

Look around yourself, and you'll see the world filled up with poles - opposite poles. You'll see the sky and the earth, you'll see the high and the low, and you'll see the rich and the poor... Wherever you'll glance, you'll see opposites - someone is tall, while someone is short; someone is fair, while someone else is dark... And you very well know why I'm pointing these things out. Our world is made up of poles - the positive and the negative, we say. And in a way, everything has two sides, everything has two faces...

Every coin has two sides - you can simply not have a coin with just one face. Even the Roman God Janus has two faces - he literally has two faces. You may read the name and discard it as 'never heard before', but there is something interesting about him. In Roman Mythology, Janus is the god of transitions. He is the god of gates, of doorways and passages. His two faces look into the past and the future. And he actually symbolises what I am writing about here - poles.

To transit from one phase to another, you need to walk through a doorway - and Janus is the one who stands at this doorway. Every door has a speciality. And I'm not talking about the color,  although 'Asian Paints' may easily make this as their tagline. I'm talking about the symbolism. At every door, one path ends and another begins. Every door is a symbol of beginning and end. When new doors in the form of new opportunities enter our lives, we transit through those doors - we end something and begin something new. And because Janus stands at the doors between almost everything, that's why when a year ends in the our calender and a new year begins, Janus makes the transition - yes, the month of January is named after this god of the beginnings and the endings...

We leave our past and enter the present, which was once our future. And that's how we make our transitions. We enter and we leave. We come and we go. We get born and we die.

But that is not all.

I am always so intrigued by 'duality'. But the mere presence of two entities cannot sustain this universe. When two entities of a similar nature add, they strengthen the effect. But when two entities of opposite nature add, they balance the effect. And harmony can only be achieved by two, opposite forces. Without the poor, there would be no rich people. Without days, there would be no nights. Without summers, there would be no winters. If everything in this world were singular, this world wouldn't have lasted even a day. If there were no nights, we would have viewed the world as consisting of only days. And we would have lived by it forever. Every day, when we wake up in the morning, we see the sun rise, we get a pleasant feeling. Imagine if this sun were never to set. We would miss the nights in ways we cannot even begin to imagine.

Because everyone likes change. No one likes a stable life. While all we try to do in life is 'settle down', we can't live our lives without change. That explains why some people, despite being loyal to the core, have extra-marital affairs - because they are fed up of a monotonous life; because they want 'change'. And then, soon enough, their one life would end and another one would begin. (Yeah, I didn't mean murder.) 

Enough about change. When we in general, think about 'two faces', we don't normally talk about change. We talk about 'actual' two faces. And again, as I said before - everyone has two faces. All humans have two faces - a person may shower praises full of candied words when he talks to his boss; but let him come out in the lobby, and he is no less than a werewolf  in broad daylight. And I am not blaming him, or anybody for that matter. This is human nature. We want to please people, because we are social animals. And because we may not find everyone pleasing, we try to behave differently in front of them. Take the case of a police officer. While a criminal might think he is a 'bad cop' - stern and strict; his friend would have a very different opinion of him. He might even think of him as an idiot. The same police officer, who is so firm and cold and detached in appearance, might be afraid of cockroaches. (Don't judge him, he is not real.)

And just like that, we all have two faces. But most importantly, we are all addicts.

We all have different addictions - some people are addicts in a more obvious way - they are addicted to smoking or to drugs; some people are addicted to caffeine; some are addicted to pornography. And we judge them openly. What we don't know is that we are addicts too, maybe to things less visible. And there are some addictions you wouldn't have even thought about, like an  addiction to one's breasts (not in case of men!), or an addiction to pull out hair from drains, or an addiction to talk to dolls, and many, many more. We may be addicted to the Internet (although being addicted to my blog will be considered positive behaviour), we may be addicted to Television, hell, we can even be addicted to pull out our hair, or scratch our skin. And then we judge others, while being in the same pool.

And you might be wondering why I am talking about addictions in a post about 'Two Faces'. But at this point, let me highlight an interesting piece of literature. You might have heard of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' by R.L. Stevenson. I don't know how many people actually like the book, but there is something in this book that is worth thinking about. In this book, Stevenson says, "Man is not truly one, but truly two." 

We divide people into 'moral' and 'immoral'. But is it really just a simple division? Is a rapist as equally immoral as a murderer? On the lines of how we classify people, it sure seems that way... But you know it's not correct. Because even though both are immoral, their 'degrees' of immorality are different. (I will talk more about morality in a future post.)

No one on earth can say that they are completely moral, because no one actually is. Everyone has a moral side and an immoral side, a positive side and a negative side - and that is what I meant when I said that everyone has two faces. That is what Stevenson meant when he said that man is truly two.

Addictions change us. When we are addicted to something, we have basically split into two. There is one side of us, which tries to control us. But there is one side of us that drives us to the object of our addiction. This has been talked about for centuries now, you know, the angel and the devil in our minds... When we have an urge, we transform into someone else, we transform into the devil - we turn into Mr. Hyde. And we suppress our Dr. Jekyll, we suppress our angel. That's why addictions ruin us - Mr. Hyde tries to destroy Dr. Jekyll. One part of us tries to collapse the other. And we may be no less than vampires - they may be a little bit  more visual, but essentially, everyone of us is a creature who transforms into someone else. 

Like poles repel. Unlike attract. And that is no different in our lives. In astrology, opposite signs are said to form the best matches. Why? Simply because when opposites team up, they increase the power. One fills in the weaknesses of the other. Day brings light, while night brings darkness. Most of us often try to find partners which are similar to us in as many ways as possible. But people who are almost same will soon get bored of each other. But it doesn't mean that they should be completely opposite to each other. Club such people together, and they'll fight all day long... Opposite forces complete each other, and they must complete each other - then only can they achieve harmony. Matter cannot pair with darkness. (Weird, right? Exactly what I'm talking about). Matter pairs with antimatter, and light pairs with darkness. The only reason being that they complete each other.

And that's why everything is important; everyone is important. The wealthy would not be rich without the poor, the fair-complexioned wouldn't be fair without the dark-complexioned people, and moral wouldn't be moral without the immoral people. What we need to understand is that every one is essential. Nature is perfect in the way it is. And only by the complementary existence of opposites can we have things we wish to have - Balance. Harmony. Unison.

Monsoon? More Soon...

Come the winds of monsoon, and we are relieved - with the cruel rays and scorching heat of the sun finally gone, we welcome the season with open arms. We dance with joy and let the elixir of heaven wet our bodies, as we feel the drops of rain strike against our skin... It is a joyous occasion, a symbol of cleanser of our souls and bodies. As P.B. Shelly says in Ode to the West Wind, rain is a tree whose roots lie in the earth but whose branches spread into the sky... Rain adds a dimension to our character - it is a symbol of growth, of nourishment, of life - the round drops falling down as we try to catch them, the brightened colours after a downpour, and the petrichor (the scent of rain on dry earth) after a fresh rain... We often stand amidst the miracle of nature and yet we often fail to appreciate its beauty. And this season stops at nothing to remind us of that.

We often connect rains with joy and celebration. But what many of us don't know is the legend behind this 'best season of all times' (Yes, some of us are really crazy about it; they even have pits dug up in their homes to enjoy the free 'swimming pool'). According to Greek mythology, the Titan Atlas, the god of astronomy and navigation, who held the sky on his shoulders (do a Google Image Search on Atlas, you'll recognize him) had a son named Hyas by a nymph called Pleione. One day, Hyas went to hunt into the forests. But unfortunately, he, instead of preying on a lioness, became a prey to her and was killed. His sisters, the Hyades were so grief stricken, that they mourned for their dead brother and wept till death. It is their tears that are said to pour down the heavens as rain. And because of their unending love for their brother; Zeus, the father of Gods, turned them into stars, forming the head of the constellation,Taurus. Their appearance in the sky marks the start of the rainy season in Greece. Hence the name Hyades, meaning 'the rainy ones'.

We celebrate this season with such joy, the story behind it being tragic to its core.

But there is more to this season than just thrill and excitement. While the people who benefit obviously from this season are the umbrella sellers (Yeah, raincoats too... And if, in future, there comes something that can actually help us dodge the rains, then that too) and farmers, this 'very refreshing' season of 'heavenly works' soon starts pissing people off, and I will give you plenty reasons why.

First of all, the mud. Yeah, the Hindi word keechad adds a 'fancy' ring to it. Go to some parts of North India, and you will hear people pronouncing it as chikkad. Laugh all you want. That's how they utter it. And so, this non-appealing brownish physical mixture of earth and water is as bad as it can get. If you're wearing sandals, you're in for a sure treat. Later in the day, you will be compelled to wash your sandals and your feet. And not to mention that uneasy feeling that bugs you as this 'heavenly gift' sticks to your feet.

You may win the first round of this championship, and walk home smiling at the fate of mud, as you wear shoes and save your feet from becoming a harbour to foreign sludge; but the rain is an active ally of mud and as I already mentioned before - 'roots in earth, and branches in heaven'. When you shit at the roots, the branches will give you fruits full of crap. (Copyright intended for this quote) And so, when you try to battle against the earth, the heavens are not gonna forgive you for that. As the rains continue through the day, the weak areas in the muddy roads will soon enough transform into potholes filled with muddy waters. The roads would get flooded, and then, you'd have to dip your feet in the water. And that's how they begin - the most painful hours of the day, as you try to battle against water in your shoes alongwith your wet feet and socks. And believe me, it's not a pretty situation. So goes the saying, "When it comes to nature, you have to compromise". You go to battle with the forces beyond your ken, you will find yourself kissing their ___. (What? I meant 'feet'!)

And the mud is not the only problem. With rains come hundreds of different species of insects, which are determined to make your days worse if the mud couldn't harm you, you know, just in case you are a car person. While that may be a carnival for the entomologists, you sure aren't gonna enjoy any of that. With their constant buzzzing sounds freaking you out, you wouldn't even be able to watch a movie on your laptop or a show on your TV with the lights off. So, your special 'screening' would be ruined; and you would be forced to waste electricity just to keep those creatures away. (That's a very good excuse for wasting power, by the way.)

As if that was not enough, we now come to an area, which although a master-art often only capable of being performed correctly by women, is often practised by men as a result of some punishment awarded by the womenfolk of the house. And that, my dear readers, is the art of 'Hanging Washed Clothes on ropes'. (Smile all you want). The gods of rain are merciless in this case. The clothes stay wet for days, compelling us to either wear the same old clothes over and over again, or to stink wearing the partially dried clothes. The home becomes a laundry, with clothes hanging all over the place - towels on the doors, shirts on the chairs, and undergarments anywhere you run your eyes. The stink of damp clothes fills the entire place and your bodies soon become the dining halls for Rhino-virus... And just in case you wished for leniency, the rhino-virus isn't among the ones who'd spare you. The colds will last for at least a week, and then you'll curse the rains for your plight, as you cough and spread the joy of life around.

As I already said, it's not all pinks and roses. While what I mentioned are only instances of personal experiences, there are far worse and devastating experiences associated with rains - heavy floods, thunderstorms, power failures and what not. These can really disrupt our lives and cause unrecoverable damage to a nation - these are some things we have got to live with...

Everything has two sides. Rains can be providers - they make plants grow, they nourish our souls, they add colours to our lives in the form of beautiful rainbows. But they can also be destructors - they can take away things we love in ways we would have never imagined. Appreciate beauty when it's in front of you, but don't try to play with forces beyond your control, because you never know when they will come to punch you in the face...

Adios!

Friends - The Charms and the Firearms

Happy Friendship Day to y'all! Yes, as usual, I have done my research. Friendship Day originally falls on 30 July according to the United Nations (and you thought they had important things to do! Yeah, yeah, conflicts of countries can wait.), but many countries including India celebrate it on the first Sunday of August every year. And if you haven't known until now, I am an Indian. So, I'm here, again, to write about this incredible relationship, which is no less than a carnival of laughs and cries and moments and memories - we'd cherish them for years to come and smile at them. And then, we'd get lost in the magical world of these wonder days...

It all starts with the beginning - how we become friends. And the instances are hilarious - the first impressions are often wrong, and it smells 'awkwardness' all around. One of my best friends initially hated me (and I got to know that just a month ago!), I never wanted to be friends with one particular individual who is now one of my closest friends. I'm telling you, it's awkward at the first go, meaningless even, and it becomes all the more weird when you start talking.

We start bonding with people over daily meetings - sitting on the same desk everyday, brushing past each other in the canteen, being in the same clubs or associations, and so on. But most of our friendships don't even begin at everyday encounters. They begin when one of us needs help from the other - asking for help to fill out a form, asking doubts, sometimes even asking an address; it's the first meeting that is legendary in its own, and rarely is it 'love at first sight'. It is gradual, circumstantial, and mutual; and as the time flies by, it turns into a ritual.

"Hi, what's your name?" "Vivek, (awkward pause, thinking for a thousand times what to speak next) what's your name?" "Batman (Coz XYZ is just too mainstream.)"

And that is the normal beginning of a friendly conversation. The next line becomes an ordeal - a thousand possible questions could be asked - address, city, hometown, hobbies - and only some go on to a long conversation. Rest of them end short and bam, you are just casual friends!

But once you are friends, you have stepped into another universe. Personal activities become mutual (the degree, however, depends on the level of your friendship). We start seeing each other more often than before - we want to be with them because they amuse us; we want to spend more time because we feel uplifted in their presence, and believe me when I say - the love of a lover is the love of a different kind, but the love of a friend is far more intense and at the same time, it comes with almost no strings attached. And over time, we grow, we develop, we mature according to them and that is how we reach the core of our friendships.

But these charms of friendship are very different in men and women. When women become best friends, you can see it, hell, they'll broadcast it like they are long lost sisters who have met again after all these years. There is visibility. They'll have Facebook photos captioned, "Had a great time with my besties! Love you darlings! Muaah! <3 <3". They'll have status updates saying, "Miss you sweetheart!", or "You're my BFF", and yes, everyone in the world knows they're friends. It's not wrong, and I don't intend to mock (okay, I confess - a bit). That is how it works. And in case their friendship is over, you'll get another round of even more graceful status updates like "Things don't work out the way you want" or "People hurt", while obviously they transform into creatures of prey in their diary entries with words like "Screw", "Bitch" and "Curses" being the top-ranked.

Men on the other hand, will be no less discrete in their friendships than a hush-hush CIA mission. And they don't post status updates like above. Theirs would be, "Had fun today" (Yes, sometimes, even without an exclamation mark), or "Awesome day". It's not that they don't have such feelings, it's that they don't see the point of putting it out in front of everyone. Sometimes, even they don't know that they are best friends with someone! And they are anything but "BFFs" and "besties" - they are "pals","buddies", "brothers" and "bros". And when they end their friendship with someone, they are hurt more than they're hurt when the love of their life stomps on them - deep down, they are feeling the weight of feelings crushing them. But they don't show it. They don't broadcast it, and they don't even use foul words because they simply cannot - they lost a "bro", a brother, and they would feel guilty for it in an amount that is indescribable.

Bros have been popularized now, thanks to Barney Stinson's "Bro Code". When female friends talk, they talk about their love lives, they talk about every little point, every little topic - they share happiness when one of them achieves something, and they sit down and console when one of them is sad. But when male friends talk, they first mock each other, and then maybe talk about some feelings. When one of them achieves something, he is more worried about throwing a party and calculating its cost. And when he is sad, consolations are present even here, but they are soon followed by the bashing and mocking part again.

Friends teach you a lot of things - their life starts having impact on yours, and they leave an impression on you. And eventually that becomes a part of your personality. Some friends teach you how to live happily, some friends add fun, some teach you to work hard, some others teach you to live a carefree life - they all impart you something, and you give them a part of your personality in return. You imitate some of their expressions, you start uttering some words the way they do, and it all makes the bond even stronger... Some day or the other, you part ways with them. And then you cry a river inside, all those moments come rushing back to you... But, even then, you have changed because of them. There is some part of them inside you, and which will be there forever. And that's how strangers go on from becoming 'someone' to becoming 'a part of our lives'.

Let's raise a toast to all our friends, the best ones or the casual ones, coz har ek friend zaroori hota hai (because every friend is important). This roller-coaster ride has its charms - the late night talks, the mocking others, the laughing out loud in classes; and it also has its firearms - becoming the target of mockery, doing something embarrassing which will be a topic of discussion for eternity, or parting ways with them... Eventually, we move on. But they remain with us, in our hearts - in our memories, in our personalities...

What's your friendship story? Any hilarious moments? Why not comment here?

C'ya!

Than'Queue'

We have witnessed lines for so long, and have even been explained the importance of lines - although they are 'unreal', still they form such a major part of our reality. Idioms like "get someone on the line", "cross the line", "a fine line", "along the lines of" or "read between the lines" have been long employed to adorn our language. Half of our elementary school geometry is based on lines - angles, triangles, polygons and so much more... We have often heard about the funda of "joining the dots"... Looking back at life, and seeing a line, and it makes us ponder...

Well, I am not interested in all that. The point is that 'line' is like a superhero; it's like Iron Man of shapes (some might say Batman, but really, I don't wanna go into these 'political' controversies). We like things when they are making sense - when they are 'straight' (That explains why people are so harsh on gay people, although I think they have a full right to be happy until they are not doing anything to harm others). We don't like a 'curled up' life, we are always wanting to 'straighten' things out, you know, 'getting things in line' or 'drawing a fine line' between good and bad. And that is just so intriguing. This non-real two-dimensional shape has earned something that people like me take almost a lifetime to achieve - 'importance'.

But lines are really not what they look like in mathematical fairy tales. Or the philosophical ones. When you actually witness a line, you'd hate it - deep down, you'd want out of it. And that's what happens when you stand in a 'line' - yes, the British say 'queue'. They do have fancy words for everything, right? Ah, the charms of a royal language! Anyhow, potato, potahto... Not the time to quibble over terminology.

We are not a patient species - only some of us are patient enough to wait for our friend for over half an hour and then not even point out that he/she is late. Yeah, your friend knows that he/she is late. It's not about stating the obvious, it's about making them feel guilty. And so, obviously, when you are waiting in a long queue with say, twenty people in front of you, and above that, the clerk sitting at the counter seems to be stuck in a space-time continuum, you really have nothing to do but wait. And those are the times you feel like ripping yourself apart...

That happened with me today. I had to pay my college fees, and it being an institute of 'Technology', believes firmly in saving technology for better uses rather than allowing online transactions. So, some 220 people from my branch were supposed to pay their fees today. And that's not the end of the tragedy. The counter opens at 10:30 a.m. and is open only till 3:30 p.m. Also, 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. is the lunch time for officials. So, they expect 220 students to deposit their fees within just four hours. And did I mention that it was a working day? So, we were supposed to attend classes too! Thankfully for us, that didn't happen because, well, we bunked our classes. The only other way of doing both the activities would have been teleportation or use of clones, but let's leave something to the experts, right?

I started, with great effort and determination from the end of the queue, and believe me when I say this, just the sight of how long the queue was would've given you chills. In a second of all possible thoughts, you would have known that you were going to groan in pain at the end of the day and curse the administration for saving the technology for alien invasions. For a better idea, I've posted a rough figure of what the queue was like:

And did I mention that it was raining heavily? All the roads were flooded, and there was no chance in hell that one could cross a road without getting their feet wet. Earlier that day, I was debating with my friend about how shoes were better on rainy days rather than sandals. And within an hour of standing in the queue with my wet feet and socks, I was already realising how wrong I was.

The clerks at the counter were having free entertainment, as people roared when someone tried to break the line to get their way in, or clapped when a particular individual's form fell into water. Almost everyone was paying in cash, and so, counting of money took even more time. Not only that, the person counting the money was so slow, even a snail could've beat him. He counted a wad of cash three times and then verified it with the counting machine. And occasionally, he'd play a game by sifting back and forth the bundle, as if he enjoyed the sound of the notes in the process.

Amidst all this, I was fortunate to have three of my friends just ahead of me, and that stopped me from being bored to death. It was a festival of humdrum chit-chat. All topics like novels, TV Series, Dreams, Deja Vu, restaurants, etc. were actively covered with the occasional saccharine mixture of beautifully woven swears. That was only temporary. No sooner were we back where we began - clueless, restless and jobless.

Finally, with just fifteen people ahead of me after approximately two and a half hours, I knew I had covered an arduous journey. And it was approaching its end. But, there was still one problem - it was already half past one, and so the counter was closed for an hour. Thankfully, the guard monitoring the straightness of the queue had a solution - he wrote serial numbers on our forms, helping us to make a queue when we'd return after an hour. I was completely exhausted, and the water in my shoes was bugging me more than anything.

Anyhow, the counter opened after an hour and we got in line again, after much arguments with the newcomers who had formed a line while we were away. We were able to regain our former positions, thanks to the guard. My faith in humanity was restored. And finally, after about 45 more minutes, I was able to pay my fees and get my receipt.

And I greeted them with a 'Thank You', for making me stand in line for four hours, for wasting my entire day, for making me tired as hell and for giving me a reason to write a blog post.

Lines may seem to be simple, but they are much more complicated. Only when you are a victim of one do you understand their potential.

The New Organism

Hey everyone! If you are reading this post, I would like to thank you for your effort of clicking on a link to arrive at this page, then waiting for a second for the page to load (my sympathy if otherwise) and then actually moving your eyeballs around to read the text, and now I know you might be feeling what the heck I am doing.

For ages, an organism called 'Vivek Mehta' (scientific name: Homosapien) has been a matter of discussions and conversations. Anyway, if you don't know about this famous (or notorious?) species, a Google search would be of little help. Why don't I elaborate more about it? So, this organism has been mentioned in several ancient scriptures dated back to 1993 A.D. From the day it was born, this organism was cursed. But it was no ordinary curse. According to it, and in exact words, "Thou shall be considered a bookworm and a geek for thy entire lifetime". And the infant literally laughed in its squeaky voice. For this seemed to be no curse. And that was the very mistake that caused the curse to take effect.

Now this organism, after completion of its nineteen years, and having moved on to its ''twenties'' has taken upon the task of nettling other people by writing blogs, which according to the Instruction Manual attached with the organism, is 'just one of the many normal side-effects of the curse'. To save themselves from this unique curse, mankind is suggested to read the posts and give their opinions from time-to-time, thus tricking the organism to stick in the 'Geek Loop' and thus distracting it from performing any dangersome activities. While this seems to be a self-advertising claim no different from any politician of the world, the readers can be rest assured that they will have a good time reading this blog.

Now, from the author and on a serious note, this blog is all about the journey of a youth between situations, ideas and accomplishments. I would generally be writing about various things off the top of my head - stories, opinions, ideas and discussions. And yes, I am not giving away any gifts to people who read my blog. If you were of that opinion, either you were misled by someone, or I lied to get more visitors...

Anyways, see you in the next post... Till then, Cheers!