Catch sleep quick

Lately started listening to Jiddu's audio or started reading few of Jiddu's books.
I think lately I am catching sleep earlier than ever.

Pretty pretty pretty good

Watching Curb Your Enthusiasm all day/night - all the reruns, hardly seem to disappoint me at all. My precious sleep time has taken a beating and waking up in the morning is also a struggle. They also play Seinfeld in regular dosage and I have to say 'Long live nard-dog, long live JTV, long live LD'

Get out of here!

Larry David is God!

Dream - Work In Progress

Why is it that dreams are almost always in slow motion and nothing ever really happens during the entire course of the dream !
Guess, dreams are unfinished or does not have any climax - maybe cause there need not be any climax and dreams are meant to be unfinished.
Someday, I wish I can make a movie which are similar to dreams i.e. there's no beginning, there's no end, everything happens in slow motion, all faces are hazy and nothing really happens during the course of the movie.

The Book Conspiracy

For someone who watches the news/talk shows on television in the US of A, it will be no surprise to find that every guest to any talk show or every guest who walks into any news show, has a book published on some goddamn topic.
It gets terribly irritating and one wishes the host does not turn into a book publisher's pimp !
Even a person like Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Amy Goodman spend a minute or two talking about the book, show the photo of the book's cover and appreciate the author for writing the best seller.
I can't figure out why talk/news show hosts patronize their guests' books or the book publishers !

Travel

I think the concept of 'travel' is hyped.
Who would want to see places or see people, when all the places or people are just available all the time in the internet ?!
Nothing beats the internet !

Flush

'The Thinker' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker)

Now here comes the stinker:
Does it not surprise you that the above picture resembles a person sitting on the toilet seat ?
Does it not surprise you that, it is the toilet seat which provides a conducive environment for free thinking ?

A restroom is an impenetrable fortress, as long as the door is latched properly! One has all the creative licenses of the world to dwell in past or future and see moments pass through in snail's pace. Only precondition to this whole time travel adventure is that the subject must possess fertile imagination and intellect.

Of course this happy story has a sad ending and the sojourn is broken by a flush of all the inventive thoughts and the long walk towards your office desk starts.

Sachin has no class

I always wonder why should a player as flamboyant as Sachin, curbs all his natural instincts/talents just cause he wants to score more runs/want his team to win (rarely).
Questions which immediately comes to my mind are:
a. Is winning more important than being honest to the talent/skill ?
b. Is scoring more runs important than being honest to the talent/skill ?
c. Will Bradman/Richards also stifle all their strokes just for the heck of scoring safe runs ?
d. Why is he so scared of playing those glorious drives in the cover-point, straight ? And instead pockets those safe runs in third man and fine leg region. He really has to think he is Sachin and not Chanderpaul or Jimmy Adams or Justin Langer or Graham Thorpe.

There are folks who say Sachin is playing these drab innings because of:
a. The pressure factor - which does not give him too much liberty to play his natural innings :
Hmm.. I think it is important one does justice to his natural talent and be honest to himself, rather than claim that he is playing for "others".
b. It takes great courage to curb one's instincts:
Hmm.. this is equivalent to cheating oneself.

Why do you care - it is Sachin's own decision to play positively/negatively ?
Agreed, it shouldn't exactly bother me. Sachin has all the liberty to change his style/improvise whenever he wants and whenever he wishes. But, I think Sachin might never re-capture the imagination of many cricket-watchers, thanks to his negative instincts.

Chomsky - Monk

I find a similarity between Chomsky's thoughts and that of Jiddu(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti) or Osho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho). Jiddu and Osho were mostly professing Hindu/Zen school of philosophy, who emphasized the idea of 'self' and how "individualism" is the key to everyone's happiness and not obedience towards concepts like government/state/organization/religion etc.,

Chomsky's thoughts are similar to what these Eastern/Oriental philosophers who have professed i.e. realizing the power of 'self' and do not allow external factors to distract/prevent to pursue the task of understanding/realizing the "self".
In Chomsky-speak, external factors can be replaced with institutions/organizations/state/government/corporate/or any culture which takes itself too seriously.

I trust the bottom-line of Chomsky's school of thought is to 'free the individual' from 'groups' that will invariably enslave him/her.

As part of this effort, Chomsky uses "reason" or "rationality" with the foot soldier's of government/state/organization/corporate/religion. Chomsky's "reasoning or rationality" is not merely qualitative but also quantitative. Chomsky always amaze me with the way he supports his arguments with numbers/data/information from reputed sources. And whenever he supports his arguments with numbers/data/information, I find that the other person is spellbound, gets desperate and jumps out of the argument.

Because of Chomsky's strong opposition to concepts of State/Government, there's a strong likelihood that many among the common public will always associate 'Chomsky' to "anti-state" or "anti-government" or "anti-imperialism" or other upteen number of "anti-.." propaganda, instead of looking at "Chomsky" as the one who professed "individual freedom".

Paki Who!

I could see a Pakistani in his 20's managing a small kiosk in the bus terminus. 

A white guy in his 20's walked in and said "Paki... get me a cigarette". 

I was a spectator to this and from the little that I have seen in "Bend it Like Beckham" or few other Brit movies, I understood that for an Asian to be called a "Paki" is the equivalent of a "Black" being called a "nigger". I thought there will be an altercation between the shop keeper and his customer, but the shop keeper obligingly gave the cigarette to his customer. 

The white guy paid the due money and walked off. 

Now, it was my turn, I told the shopkeeper, "I need vodafone SIM card".

The Pakistani looked at me with anger all over him.

I thought I will tell him, it is not me who called him a Paki, but it was his previous customer who did that.

And then the Pakistani quizzed me "Where am I from ?"

I told him in a sincere tone "I am from India"

And he said, "Isn't Hindi your national language, can't you speak in hindi with me ?"

I was at a loss of words, didn't know what I should tell him... 

Maybe I thought I should tell him, "why do you care ?"

But, I told, "I come from the South India, where we don't speak Hindi that much and we are mostly comfortable with our mother tongue or English".

The Pakistani cared less what I was blabbering.

But yeah, he made his point and showed how irritated he was, not able to digest that a South Asian instead of sticking to his culture roots, is speaking in a crazy foreign language.

Bill Maher and the last mile

Bill Maher during one of his 'stand-up' routines said "I can understand why rich people vote Republican, but I can never understand why poor people vote Republican". 

There are moments during his standup or interview routines, Bill Maher finds that the other person is being terribly stupid because he believes in Jesus or talking snake or against gay/lesbians or is a racist or is a Republican or Conservative a la Fox. 

Bill Maher looks at his guest's ignorance and starts pleading with him "com'on .. you must be kidding.. you can't believe in these.. ". 

At such times, Bill Maher looks terribly disappointed and the look says it all. It seems like, he is telling, "I have done it all, tried my best to rescue this moron from jumping from the cliff, but he is really dumb, what do I do.. !"

 

Busy

In one passing conversation, my mother asked me 

"are you doing okay, is the workload too high in your office ?"

I wondered if my mother was being sarcastic, but she wasn't.

She was asking me in a matter of fact tone.

If only, any of my office friends were next to me, they will be "rolling on the floor laughing". But thanks to their absence, I asked my mother politely, "what makes you think my workload is too high ?"

My mother replied, "your gtalk status message always tell the same".

And I was a dead man before her, I was speechless.

I had to tell her and I did, the whole truth and nothing but the truth... 

"That status message is just to avoid making a polite conversation with strangers and you are no stranger to me, so ignore that message and ping me whenever you feel like"

I wish I added one more line to that,

"And I am on bench, which means at the moment I am getting paid for doing nothing.. "

City of Ghosts

When I visited New York recently, I was seeing people or sequences which weren't there.
It was as creepy as saying 'I see dead people' a la Shyamalan's 'The Sixth Sense'.

I could recollect NY-based Scorsese movies or Godfather series or Sleepless in Seattle climax on top of 'Empire State Building' or Serendipity climax or Taxi Driver or Tom Cruise walking on deserted Times Square or Al Pacino driving like crazy on a Ferrari or Seinfeld or Friends and many many more.

How to dream ?

There was this time, when I could recollect very few dreams. Whatever little that I could recollect, was always below par and not worthy of mention. But lately, things have taken a turn for the good. Nowadays, my dreams are really intense. The other day I was in Afghanistan escaping from the Taliban and this was definitely one helluva dream. It was as good as any 'Tom Clancy story.

But, such things don't happen often and I kept wondering why I had this dream. And then I remembered, before sleeping I was listening to BBC documentary podcast on 'Afghanistan Opium Wars'. And since I had downloaded that particular episode and since my winamp always runs on 'repeat' mode and this particular episode kept playing again and again. And I guess, unlike other dreams which dissipate in just a few hours, this particular dream kept going on and on, more like a real-life story with a little bit of Kite Runner, Rambo, Saddam Hussein capture from a bunker, Hitchcock's North by Northwest fertilizer spraying glider scene etc.,

And as it always happens, the climax evaporated into thin air, when my mobile alarm rang. But, this time the difference is, I could recollect my dream, which I was never able to till then. 

Listen to exciting radio programmes and allow it to keep playing, even if you are fast asleep. And you would know what will happen next ! 

Happy dreaming!

The best US offers

a. Hollywood (Scorcese, Woody Allen, Clooney-Soderberg, Shyamalan, Coppola),

b. Centrist liberal media (NPR stations, NY times, AirAmerica etc.,),

c. Standup comedians (George Carlin, Bill Maher)

Border / Coastal State

The above picture is the epitome of US elections 2008.
Reds or Republicans are conservatives and Blues or Democrats are liberals.
Reds seem to be strong in hinterland, while Blues are strong in border areas or coastal areas.

Probable reason why Blues are strong in coastal areas or border areas is, people who live in these areas are exposed to other cultures who would have to enter US through these regions. Thus, the more likelihood of clash of cultures and which soon settles down and people of difference race/religion/languages start to coexist inspite of all these differences.
Probable reason why Reds are strong in hinterland is the exact inverse of the above i.e. people in hinterland have a lesser likelihood of interacting with people of other cultures and thus, grow more resistant to "change".