Thats-so-Raja !

“I don’t feel like going for this trip ” “Oh dear! Why?” “I don’t know” “hmmm… never mind. It will all end well” “All will end well? Is that another of your delusions? Do you want me to deceive myself like that?” “Nope. Seriously, things that have bothered me in the past have all ended well. It’s all for good. Even if it bothers now, in the long run, it will end well” [The above dialog was between a friend and me this morning] Now, remember the quintessential question – Is there an inherent meaning or purpose behind life? What you saw above is one of the conclusions – Everything is for good. For the good of ‘ YOU !’ For ages, people went crazy about that question. They pondered and because they can think, they concluded that, at the least, they are real. (Cogito ergo sum). But they were confused beyond that. Some suspected that they are part of some big plan but they just couldn’t deduce what this game is all about. I tried to distill the thinking into a simp...

( This is a sequel to A Date - Part 1 ) “How are you?” “I don’t know!” I had given that reply a few times recently. People gaped at me as if I was a green monkey. But seriously, that was a very honest reply. ‘I don’t know’ . A beautiful ‘I don’t know’ . I always had this question in my mind. When people smugly beam that they are doing fantastic, what is their point of reference? Queen of England ? Paris Hilton? Thomas Alva Edison? Jesus Christ? Florence Nightingale? Adolf Hitler? And when people sulk, “It’s been hard”, what are they comparing against? Well, I can declare that, “Oh, compared to what I was before, I am better / worse. Actually, I am my own reference ”. Sure! That’s a logically acceptable argument. But let us take it a bit deeper. If I have to declare that, then am I really a worthy reference to measure myself against? How much do I matter? I was born, fed, loved, abused, pampered, spoiled, praised, shattered, filtered, I was feeling, caring, sharing, hea...

“Good Morning. How is everything? Did you manage to have an early breakfast date with yourself?” I was on the bed in a hotel room in Jakarta when that SMS woke me up. I only managed to get a very few hours of sleep that night. Even in that, my mind went churning non-stop on some meaningless, unconnected things. I was literally aware of all that turmoil in the half sleep, twisting and tossing through it. Back to the SMS. All the SMS I get usually are with a single consistent purpose - my colleagues trying to find my whereabouts. Note - none of them is a hot babe. (This is altogether a different topic - how come no hot chick in this whole damn world manages to become an IT architect!!) Oh, for a change, I do occasionally get some irritating marketing campaigns. So, it is not a wonder that this message sprang me awake like a Maasai Warrior. (Maasai are an African tribe famous for their ability to rise from the deepest sleep to a state of total combat readiness in a matter of seconds)...

When it comes to creating tools, some people just don’t get it. Consider this continuum. At the left end, man does everything. And at the right end, the tool does everything. The fundamental decision a tool designer needs to make is – Where to draw the red line! How much should the tool do? Its an evident fact that the more the tool does, the successful it becomes. "Human shall sweat less" is the design mantra. Google is one good example. The engine keeps watching your activities and understands your preferences. The inferred profile is then used to make the search results personalized for you. You are not expected to describe about yourself anytime anywhere. Now, I am ok if you make the tool do a very minimum initially. The bottom line is - it has to be a decent amount of function, well defined, well delivered and well composable. Like a motor. It makes a decent part of many big systems, composed of many such parts. And the intelligent of creators further take effort to mak...

Jilmitra spoke again and said, "And what of Idiots, master?" "Look at all your peers, bosses, neighbors and friends – those so called successful men. Underneath it all, they do this all for their ‘women’. They work like mad for that fancy house their women want. Do you think these idiots will care to strive this hard, if all their women are happy to screw them in a card board box? Their drive comes from women who are clueless about what they want in life. Or women who have a screwed up value system that never keeps them happy anyway. Now tell me, isn’t the world so full of idiots?" Then begged a loser, "Speak to us of spiritual gurus." "They are fascists, actually. They have a ridiculously high level of ignorance to think that they have found something that others have not. They even go about designing packages for your spiritual growth. And they know nothing about you. They teach nothing close to creating an enlightened man. If not, the world will be...

[Sequel to ' The Battle of the Buddha '] How much land that we own that we don’t use? How much food do we have in our fridge that we may throw away later? How many dresses that we left hanging unused? How much of cosmetics we threw those dint fulfill our whims? How much did we spend on health due to self acquired illnesses? How compulsory are our additional second car, third TV, fourth phone, fifth watch, sixth shoes? How much excess money that we hold on to, that doesn’t help to save a life of a fellow human? Have we stopped buying? Have we stopped wasting? Do we realize what we are doing to our lives and to those others? Simple Truth! This market economy works based on the demand. In other words, GREED. Greed is GOOD! - Capitalism. But with our greed, we increase the demand and the affordability of the essentials. With our greed we keep the poor poorer. With our greed, we kill the soul of some child somewhere right this moment. Why go that far? Aren’t we killing our own sou...

If you simplify everything, there are 2 types of people in this world. The N types and the E types. N types comply with the processes, pay bills punctually, abide by the laws, efficient, non blaspheme, exploit corporate mazes, rapidly achieve capitalistic values, appear to be in control of things and respected by their wives. The E types are the eccentrics. They appear rustic, indisciplined, unpredictable, move their backsides only when it involves their passion, poorly paid and generally unappreciated. While the world hails the N types, this is a story of how unsuitable it has become for the E types. I used to own a motor bike few years back. That was just a passion at that point in time. With the lack of any ‘wild hogs’ gang and with the bike getting older, I moved on to other things. So I planned to scrap the bike. Until here, it was fantastic, folks. But the tough part is to move my ass into executing it. Its boring things like this that I find as hard as shitting bricks. So in tha...

I have reached a slump in blogging. Oh, the well has not dried up yet. But, in the first place, why does one blog anyway? Expression of creativity? Making people happy? Contributing to the collective intelligence? Rubbish! Freud and Maslow would say it’s the pure primitive urge for the feeling of importance. Yes, I want to be noticed. I want people to know the depth in me. I want followers. I want to change things. I want to rule the world. Ok, that’s asking loads too much. But you are getting the drift here, yea? But my blog remains crumby and unnoticed. Like a pigeon poop in a crack of a cheap hotel in Mozambique. My muddy soup of cartoons, parody, post-modern elements… All have failed to tickle a little too many funny bones. My cacophony of science, philosophy, economy… All have fizzled reaching a little too many ears. I want to try writing on Karl Marx, world music, Kim ki-duk, non linear and transgressive narration styles… am I encouraged now? Hell, No. Cutting all the hyper-venti...