Of stories and storytellers...
For ages have the questions beguiled us of whence have we come, what are we here for and where shall we go. While the mysteries at the extremities might still retain their elusiveness for some time, I hazard an answer to the medial enquiry --we are here to tell stories.
The pinnacle of evolution, nature's very own pièce de résistance, has been consciousness. Qualia, the raw emotion perceived or experienced, splits us into two selves --the Greater Self : that which is in terms of nerve cells and circuitry; and the Evanescent Self : that which makes each of us, a distinct 'me'. While the theory of evolution has been explained in terms of genetic selection, environmental adaptation and even the anomalous though fortuitous occurrence of preadaptation, it has yet to account for or explain the emergence of consciousness.
I see an apple. It reminds me of Zach 'J.D.' Braff's appletinis from the television series, Scrubs. The song, I'm no Superman plays in my head. Damn, Justice League starts in ten on Cartoon Network.
A fruit fly, when it detects an apple, registers "food".
This indulgence in seemingly random yet concomitant thoughts is a phenomenon that has been contrived by evolution to serve, protect and, when necessary, deceive an otherwise mechanical organism. Consciousness is the story-teller. Beliefs, biases, perceptions, denials --reality-- are its stories. Are we the story-tellers or are we the stories told?
Now let's take another thread.
When a primordial soup churned and unchurned to gradually procreate without precursor, there it began to tell a story of life; that after excessive efforts culminated in the telling of story of unicellular organisms. The multi-celled bacterium took up the mantle to continue to tell the story. The Human body is made up of millions (or is it billions?) of cells. Mitochondria are integral constituents of human cells. But these mitochondria are bacterial entities that gave up their independence, millions (or is it billions, again?) of years ago. When man became a part of the story, he began to tell it, too. In Maya, Jostein Gaarder says, "The applause for the Big Bang was heard only fifteen billion years later." The popular Gaia theory propounds that the earth (or Gaia) is itself an organism. As the mitochondrion to man, so may man someday be to Gaia. Maybe the applause was a little premature. Maybe the story is yet to conclude. Maybe the plot is far from unraveled. Maybe it has only just begun.
As Ira Glass says, "Great stories happen to those who can tell them." This paradoxical implication presents both hope and warning. Our lives are the stories we live. In Troy, Achilles tells Briseis, "The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again." Each moment is a story itself. Is it a story worth telling? But more importantly, is it a story worth living? Answering to the former is conjecture. But experiencing the latter is truth.
From stories we come, stories we live and to stories we go.
Sharing lightens; Listening heals...
The world, as we know, is fast shrinking due to the rapid advances in all spheres of human activity. But ironically, the price for this has been that people have started drifting apart. In the quest for self advancement and independence, men and women have started isolating themselves. Today, paradoxically, one has to 'stand out', to 'fit in'.
In order to attain social acceptance, we are forced to wear so many masks, that often we forget what our actual face looks like. Under this cloud of pretension and pressure, we may stand in a crowd and still be alone. Often we speak but do not express. And we hear but do not listen. In this crowd, spoken words abound, but emoted feelings are lost. A person is acknowledged, but a soul is ignored. The sight of wood is lost for the tree, where materialistic pursuits are defined, not by the value they add to our lives but, by their values themselves. So we are entangled in this quagmire of self-deceit and success where the more we try to escape the trappings, the deeper we find ourselves sink. The need of the hour is for man to introspect, analyse and re-invent his value system and build his world in its image rather than fashion his values around the world. And for this, man needs to express and man needs to listen. When feelings remain unaddressed, they fester like unattended wounds. Pent up emotions stretch the fabric of our civilization. And when these remain bottled up, they suddenly manifest themselves in unexpected and unpleasant ways. Our society is like a raging animal on steroids that we are hanging on to --desperate in that we do not fall off it, even while we do not enjoy the ride. We need to rebuild our society into a structure that encourages growth of an individual while promoting the progress of the community at large. And at the core of this rebuilding process is communication. When we express, we alleviate. But communication is incomplete if we only convey our thoughts but do not construe, empathise and respond to the feelings of others. For the process of sharing and healing will go a full cycle only when we mutually address our emotions. Working hands are better than praying lips –but sometimes a patient ear, a soothing tongue or a shoulder to lean on, can make a world of difference too. An open mind and an un-judging ear can be the bridge for another, between despair and hope; between the inevitable and possibilities; between death and a second chance. So it’s up to us to shake up the world, revive its core values, and open up forgotten channels of communication –not between people, but between souls. Let us speak out the stifled and listen to the unsaid. Let’s reach out to emotions. Let’s not want a reward or acclaim or a mention by posterity. Let’s make it our business and do it as our job. Let’s all work together and make the world a better place.Descending into depressive shadows,
Reeking of ignored, forsaken gloom;
He moves among the forgotten, incognito,
As one of their own in that festering room.
He offers solace of warmth, love,
That stem from personal hurt and betrayal;
Transcending pain to something nobler above. In shadows, he works, nameless,
Recognition is not for him;
The silent moon, his only witness,
The stars shine down upon him. ~From, The Altruist
Religion and the modern society
In ancient times, when civilizations were born, each one was a self-sustaining unit –an individual society. All its members were like the spokes of a wheel, functioning synchronously to keep the rim that was their collective lifestyle, moving smoothly. The central hub to which these individual spokes were tethered was the concept of religion. Religion was merely a set of rules governing daily life and deemed essential to uphold the society’s unity and enforced interdependence. It also helped define duties of its members and maintain harmony in the society. As trade developed, it necessitated migration of people. Confronted with perilous journeys, possibilities of not returning back, long periods of absence and vast distances from home, the one constant comfort to these migrants was the refuge to practices of their religion.
Rules framed by man are regularly set in stone by passage of time and mystifying of source. Often the essence of the words and their context are lost in the blind devotion to their literal translation. And as more followers are led astray by such fool-hardy zealousness, degeneration sets into that religion.The modern world comprises of a single society –the Global society. The advent of better transportation and faster communication has principally fostered a global community by creating opportunities and facilitating large migrations. The religion-based societies have been amalgamated into this one synergistic society.
But, to carry the wheel-analogy forward, the ancient hubs of religion still function to create separate societies based on moral and ethical ideologies. While the modern world, in general, is run on a unifying theme of inclusiveness with a common purpose of collective advancement, religious beliefs still steer individual lifestyles and practices.The notion of a set of rules, rooted in morality, dictating private choice is an agreeable, nay, favourable undertaking. But religious fervour often manifests itself in intolerance of other religions. And fanatic adherence to the ‘hubs’ strains the cords that bind one to one’s religion. And as more strained cords intertwine, the very fabric of society is stretched. The society is transformed into a wheel with multiple hubs, polarized spokes and a rim that is in absolute disarray. The wheel wobbles, veers drunkenly, largely goes nowhere and faces the dangerous eventuality of falling flat on its side.
So how does the global society negotiate the problems posed by these religious sub-societies? The answer lies in revisiting the fundamentals of inclusiveness and tolerance that form the basis for the creation of modern civilization. Atrocities in the name of religion are merely the festering wounds of social inequalities clothed in collective garb of faith. For, what better unifying ideology for such brimming discontent than one the oppressed already subscribe to. The need of the hour is not alienation of one religion or faith. It lies in addressing the social causes which incite a populace to justify their retaliation to society at large. Religion too has its role to play in the scheme of things. It will take the collective efforts of all upholders of every religion to find a common path of cooperative tolerance and peaceful existence. Every religion must evaluate its place and value in today’s world. It must keep in mind to not lose the wood for the tree. The underlying basic values might remain the same, but their paths of pursuit have to be pertinent to the age. Religion must shake off its rigidity, avert stagnancy and keep pace with times. It must constantly reinvent and update itself. Meaningful evolution is an essential cornerstone for religion to retain its relevance. Religion is as much an identity of an individual, as nationality, political affiliations or any other. The core foundation of religion is to instruct its practitioner on how to lead a life that is productive and useful not only to oneself, but also for the society on the whole. To paraphrase Isaac Asimov, religion must never get in the way of doing what’s right. As long as this dictum is observed, religion will only serve to propel society forward and advance our civilization.Ignite, Mumbai: To the other shore...
So, Ignite is this fun concept, where you get 5 minutes to tell a story or anything you want to share, in exactly 20 slides, where each slide is on auto change after 15 seconds.
Started in Seattle in December, 2006, true to its name, Ignite has set afire the imagination of enthusiasts all around the globe. It has set up a movement of idea exchange and a novel method of story telling to which Mumbai has just started to awaken.
Ignite Mumbai held it's first event on the 24th of April, 2010, at Cafe Goa, Bandra. I was one of the first speakers at it.
I had an awesome time there, and this is my presentation:
For all the videos from Ignite Mumbai, check this link out: http://www.youtube.com/user/ignitemumbai
Into an abyss of hopelessness...
Slip away,
Into obscurity,
Cheerlessness.
Clouds surround,
Gloom engulfs,
Suffocating swathe,
Strangling life.
Gradually dive,
Plummeting
Into chasm.Retreating ledge,
Shrinking visage,
Unrepentant,
Bids farewell.Fear, alarm, panic;
Resignation,
Acceptance,
Enervated submission.Receding azure,
Ochre approaches,
Dizzying depth,
Spinning, spiralling.Abrupt clarity, calm,
Peace, beatitude;
Drift in comforting cocoon,
Into the abyss of hopelessness.
The altruist
Descending into depressive shadows,
Reeking of ignored, forsaken gloom;
He moves among the forgotten, incognito,
As one of their own in that festering room.
A stranger, so familiar, to them, outcasts,
He offers solace of warmth, love,
That stem from personal hurt and betrayal;
Transcending pain to something nobler above.
In shadows, he works, nameless,
Recognition is not for him;
The silent moon, his only witness,
The stars shine down upon him.
Writer's block
As I wait with pen in hand,
For diction of word;
Inches from paper hovers nib,
Taut drawn bow.
To indite verse,
Unyielding manual leash
Restraining flow.Fluttering parchment straining,
All ready to fly;
But deprived of orientation,
Nowhere to go.With all props ready,
And audience in seat,
The play dies premature,
For the actors fail to show.Cracking my knuckles,
Wringing hands in vain;
Racking brains, and
Thinking of all I know.Waiting for inspiration’s
Brilliant strike;
Desperate for rescue
From this silent legato.And then I give up,
My quest for rhyme;
Lay down weapons,
Before poetic foe.Then my failure, I realize,
Is in itself poem;
Poem for my despair,
Quid pro quo!
For the love of love...
Walking on wandering feet,
Along unknown road and aimless street;
Searching, seeking, on the quest,
For the love of love itself.
Love as passion, love as zest,
Carnal, needy, and all the rest;
None of these in itself do i seek,
But only the love of love itself.Love that nourishes, that which consumes,
Creating, sustaining or that doth expunge
None of these do i desire,
Save the love of love itself.As drifting leaf on intent winds,
My meandering soul finds many sojourns;
I see a glimmer, an illusion of hope,
But it eludes me, --the love of love itself.Tired, vanquished, in despair,
Failed endeavour, homeward i repair;
Still i turn to that elusive notion,
I yearn for the love of love itself.Disturbed thoughts in chaotic strife,
Unasked questions and unanswered voices;
Interrupted emotions restlessly restrained,
All for the love of love itself.At long last, the stormy clouds part,
Streaks of golden sunlight bathe
My mind into tranquility, peace then beatitude,
With the love of love itself.I lost myself in a divergent journey,
In obsessive pursuit of a concept;
And in the end found it in me,
The precious love of love itself.
Technical interview at TCS
The economic recession is also an opportunity for career advancement
We have certainly hit rough weather. But as the saying goes, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. These are testing times but the thing about being in an abyss is that there’s only one way to go- up!





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