Excursions

Another iPhone Story

A must watch short documentary from WSJ, named so aptly “Behind the Glass”. The story behind iPhone’s journey to existence will keep fascinating us, coming out every now and then, bite-sized.

Change is important. Change is inevitable. But if not, it has to be forced. Change is one thing I plan to undergo every time there is nothing happening around.

Change the way I commute to office. Change the route I use. Change the time I travel. Change the schedule at office. Change the schedule at home. Change the services I use. Change the products I use. I.e. Change everything that’s changeable.

Change something. Change at least one thing. Because that cascades down one’s life to change everything. And this change is important. It freshens one up. It pushes one out of his comfort zone. Rather it just doesn’t allow him to enter a comfort zone; a zone of mechanical activeness.

Yesterday there was a buzz going along in my office. My colleague asked me if I would be interested in parting away $2 of mine to embrace a chance to win 15million. (Yeah you heard it right, that is the amount I was told. million as in 7 .. arrr 6 zeros.)

Now I am not those champu “1$ bole to (translation ‘equals’) 40 rupaya” kind of guy. But the confidence with which this $2 ke 15 million deal was sold to me made me enquire further. It turns out, my “hard earned” money was betted on a lottery ticket.

The concept is simple she said. Join a bunch of 10-15 guys and buy a lottery ticket together. One guy gets lucky, everyone gets benefited. Playing safe and sensible she called it.

Now I am no economist, but one thing I can tell you for sure is this “deal” is not going to work in long run. All it would take is one moderate win to break the group. Lucky guy will part, because he will think he could have won this money by himself. And group will shrink with each and every win.

Plus what amazes me is how much lucky a lucky guy would have to be to overcome lucklessness of 9-14 other unlucky suckers!

I always feel that an equilibrium can be attained to make sure that a person will never run bankrupt by any sensible spending; investment is the key. I aim to attain this equilibrium, which my current spending habits are making extremely difficult to.

I am sure these $2 spent today are as much an expenditure as they are an investment. Atleast as of today.

Prologue: I have been working on quite a lot of posts recently but could not finish them and bring them to any bloggable format. So finally decided I should repost some old post. Here goes one such post.

Yesterday i had quite a random dream. Random indeed it was. For the most part of it i was pretty happy about what i was experiencing. And suddenly i went blank. I would say the dream went blank. Making me befuddled. Completely perplexed. Full of queries, queries for myself to answer. But before i get into the dream itself, let me blabber my views on dreams in general.

Dreams are angels. Yes, they have the power to make you experience the bests and worsts of your life at the same time. Indeed we experience the dreams, not just see them. How else can you explain your turning, jumping, twisting, crawling, grawling in the sleep. We are experiencing the event, the dream. I myself have woken up thanking god for turning whatever i experienced into a dream. And then there are those times when i just put myself to sleep again, just to experience what remained incomplete, unexperienced.

Further, the dreams are mutable portkeys. I feel i change lives in dreams. Butterfly effect you can say. But there one can decide if he wants to change his life. Here i don’t. It all depends on my other self, the dreaming threaded me. If he wants me there, i go. Otherwise i just lay here, wake up and continue.

Details. Two threads, if dreaming together, show how the life each is experiencing. We exchange both the positives and negatives. Yes, if you notice, each dream comprises of both goods and bads. We experience some scenes of that life, both happened and yet to happen. Yucks and Wows. If both agree to switch, we switch.

Now you see this concept explains a lot of usualities. Take Deja Vu. Yes indeed it is that ‘yet-to-happen’ scene of the life. We experienced it in the dream before we made the shift. Those jerky wake ups. May be the other self just slapped me for spending such sucking life. Or may be i did it to him for his sucking life. Roaming with unknowns. Yes, you don’t afterall expect two me’s having the same set of friends. Those long nights can be the result of just a mismatch between timings of two threads. Same goes for the short nights.

I will stop. Remove your thinking caps and plunge into the dreamland with the view. You might find quite a few interesting answers.

Anyways back to my dream i dreamed yesterday. I dreamed i was a singer, i was singing well. (Ok, i never said the other me has to be “me”ish. He can indeed me quite contradictory to who i am right?) Audience were happy. I saw my struggle. I saw my first assignment. I was watching myself happy. I watched all the happy me’s. Nothing bad. No yucks. And suddenly it was blank. I don’t remember something like this happening earlier. The dreams changed. The places changed. I woke up suddenly. But it never happened that the dream turned blank, with me facing eternity full of whiteness.

Puzzled, I lay there, closed eyed and open minded, waiting for something to happen. But all in vain. Blank. Whiteness everywhere. Finally i woke up and tottered my way along … With mind full of questions. Unanswered question.

Lets have a look at the word cloud for this random messy place. I am surprised to know that i blog most about “blog” and i “know” a lot too!!!

Courtesy: Wordle

Yeah .. even i know my love for this buddy looks deteriorated. But i would say thats not the case. I am on task to bring in a new entity in world. Nah ... no family planning stuff. Not so soon.

Am working on a 'blogsite', been working late nights after office hours. Designing it. Filling sections up with interesting contents, interesting enough to read. Though not sure when i will be drafting the final version. But soon i will. To grab the peek in the site, you can surely find the link at this page itself. Open your search glasses and come visit me there.

Till that time, its reduced activity at this blog.

Tired. Bored. Empty-Skulled. I gulped another cup of cappuccino. And on my way back, i just churned my head out to find why do i usually drink coffee/tea.

The mentioned three properties are just few of the ones that make me amble towards the vending machine.  In reality, i feel i don't need any reason for supping coffee. Earlier it was to make sure, with sleepy patches of time curling over my head, i don't drivel down the office desk to the ground. But along my stroll through the professional life, the life itself mandated me to sip that muddy liquid each day on specified time. Now is the case that i feel tottery if i don't drink the coffee at the time prescribed by my life.

I feel my life is getting hold of me. I feel it should be the other way round. I need to do something. I need to think. I need to drink a cup of coffee. But this time its non-prescrbed. Thats the start...

Else the day won't be long when my situation would be as shown, with coffee howling "You used to gulp me because you wanted to. Stop gulping me because you have to"

All thanks to the most limited blog templates and still rather basic fuctionalities provided by “Blogger” , here I move to WordPress. I blocked my mind from entering into many territories where it always moved whenever i tried the shift. If i mention below:

• My tacit devotion to Google products
• My concern about losing my Google Pagerank ( whatever it had earned in its prolonged stay at dusty Blogger)
• My concern for my randomly displayed 10-15 readers, i mean subscribers.
• AND one with foremost importance, My fear of unknown

Overcoming all these today I finally made the shift. Won’t forget to mention the great guide for people like me who are Moving from Blogger to WordPress

Title sounds quite harsh, but i needed to be told that. Another day of incremental blunt looks at the same old view of my blog, and i thought am i "dead". I, myself, am not sure why i didn't post any posts in last few days and a month, but i really feel it has everything to do with my MTWThF-Office-Home routine. Each time i see the same old blog posts, i thought i need to motivate myself to start writing again. I tried everything. First thought of all the possible random, 'scribble'able points, came up with many and forgot about almost all of them, unpenned. I will note down the few still crawling in my volatile memory lane.

• My well thought "to-be bad" predictions of where world will stand after, say, 20 years (Hmmm motivation was a list of few predictions from biggies that went wrong. I think you need to predict harsh facts to be biggies. Doesn't matter if they go wrong. That will further elevate my predictions and in turn my biggie status.)
• My untouched list of sources linkable to the Global Warming (This topic is on my hot list. My only concern is i lose atleast one bullet point from the list with each passing day. No surprises, as the global warming topic itself is warmed more than the warming earth. I fear the debatable issues have more threat of extinction than earth)
• My innovative ways to save our dear planet "earth" (Save as in save from so called Global Warming. Not save as in save from getting thrown out of solar system. Though i don't want to post more of this, but few interesting questions did rise in my mind. If we threw Pluto out, where did the poor little chap go? Do the "Pluto" ions know that they are not the part of our solar system? Is our solar system their solar system or do they milk some other milky way? I guess i should stop here.)
• My view of our universe ("There was no big bang. There are no laws. There are no forces. There are no planets, no stars, no solar systems. There is no light. It's just HIM. Unrevealing this summer" Are you still expecting something more? Dude.. thats all you get in a "Teaser", you see :P)

All of the above, though being pretty random, just couldn’t motivate me. But as i was bluntly looking at my blog today, few striking facts about my previous post held my attention. First, my post was on Feb 14th, Mr.Valentine’s ‘some’day. And topic was “Earn Security, but at a price… “. Though quite unintentional, but see what great sense it makes. Its this rosy day, that if you enjoy, you have to lose your liberty (control myself?? forget… ), equality (how dare one asks to be equal with the almighty partner), justice (when i know i have to agree that the person in front has to be right, whats the point asking for justice), freedom (what freedom can a criminal expect when he sentenced life imprisonment for himself). You do this and you sure will earn security, security for commitment. Just make sure you do burn your entirety.

• Come to office : Is it really a step?? Though the efforts required does make it one.
  
• Check mails : Doesn't matter even if i did it just before i left for office. Thats how work dawns at me
  
• Remain updated with my social contacts : Name sounds big. In simple words, i look at my un-updated profile again searching for new updates. Even a look at lame updates from friends would do
  
• Get coffee : Dude, it draws one fresh. Makes me totally ready for work
• Start Working and keep working : Works always there boss. But all work can make one a turtle head in an office. So simultaneous tasks include keeping an eye on notifications from Outlook, Gtalk, feed readers, communicator, fellow workers and "hope they were my fellow workers" types. By the way, a basic click continues. Check mails and social networks!!!
  
• Lunch : Have to take it boss. Can't jump over it. I can give my 100% only when my tummy stays 100%.
• Scribble about everything : "Why just aloo/paneer?" "Need a small nap yaar!!" "Boss i shouldn't have filled my tummy 100%. It really makes work difficult!!! [paradox???]" "Oh wow.. Man I never get a chance to praise beauty. Is it me who choices the wrong places to fall in or its just my luck that throws me in??? [Men will be men ;)]" And when i do think this is getting too out of work context, only the scribble context change "Tomcat sucks big time man!!!" "Eclipse slows like damn dude" "Uhhh my system needs a dose buddy!!" And as this continues ...
• Get Coffee : One has to get fed up. Nothing works in noon. Coffee has to make me fresh
• Start Working and keep working : Work again. And stays the simultaneous threads. Just that an another thread with look at the clock gets added. And as EOD arrives...
  
• Check mails and Social Networks : I do it only twice. Once in the morning and again in the evening. Anyways no one mails. So why waste time checking mails. (An inner thought cries "Uhh still no mails.. no scraps")
• Leave Office: I have a common statement to end my day daily "Today's was the worst day mate. Nothing worked yaar!!!" Scribbling continues....

Speechless .... Thats how today's incident caught me. Really felt am i missing something? Am i really enjoying my life? Corporate world has indeed made me dry. Juiceless. Deprived of whatever fun element I had in my life. Saw the wetted earth today and there loomed the childhood days in front of me.

Those hours I spent sitting on a sofa employing my eyes out at rain beaten roads. "Chai-Bhajji" or "Pohe" that i relished. Slightest sound of a rain drop that made me run towards the porch. Spellbound eyes of mine that tried to gulp up a sight of lush green fields. An enchanting effect that even a midget breeze created. The restlessness that a sight of river or even a small stream gave me. The dew-laden grass plates that endorsed the mesmerizing capacity of the nature. "Aai" who always dabbed me forcefully in the sweater and monkey-cap. Soothing effect that the cooler-chilled room created after returning from burning heat. Glasses of Rasna i gobbled. Waits for the "Chachaji-Sabu-Raka" Combo. Exchanges of comics and greedily moving through the pages, just to make sure we read the most. Carrom Games, Cards, Cricket matches that we played, ignorant of screeching sun, blowing winter or pouring rains. Dirty clothes that i washed so as to keep "aai" unaware of mud-ridden football matches. And the list just goes on, endless. I never knew what really allured me so strongly. But I do was.

And today, here I am looking at the rain-hit porch from my AC cubical. Without a sofa, "Pohe"or "Chai Bhajji". Drops kept pouring, waiting for me to run into the porch. Lush-green lawn's spread out there, just to make me spellbound again. Gone are the rivers/streams and am in the middle of bulk of fountains. But these don't make me restless. "Aai Daddy" are there, always at the other end of phone line. Mirinda can't take the place rasna holds. Dan Brown or Sidney Sheldon can't surrogate "Raj or Diamond". "Batman-Superman" can easily be kneeled down by "Druv-Nagraj". Gone are the games. Gone are the friends. Gone are the fun-filled days. Nature's still out there. Calling me. Waiting to mesmerize me. With me completely oblivious.

Thanks a lot, corporate world. Thanks a lot!!!