July – Sep 2011 reading list

Worth dying for by Lee child (4 stars)

The giving tree by shel Silverstein (5 stars)

Ted saves the world by Bryan (4 stars)

Plugged by Eric cofler by 3 stars

The culture code by 4 stars

Survivor by chuck palanuik 4 stars

Stars tennis balls by Stephen fry 3 1/2 stars

The average American male by chad kultgen 4 stars

Case of the missing servant by tarquin hall 3 stars

The man who died laughing by tarquin hall 3 stars

The perfect murder by hrf keating 3 stars

V for vendetta by Alan Moore 5 stars

Men women and children by chad kultgen huh1/2 star

The good thief’s guide to amesdram 3 stars

Chalk circle man by Fred Vargas 3 1/2 stars

Mother night by Kurt Vonnegut 5 stars

Habibi by Craig Thompson 4 stars

Genghis Khan and making of the modern world 4 stars

Two Perspectives

Today morning as I walked in office, there was this girl walking wearing high heels.

And as the wont of high heels, with every step heels made a clicking sound on the floor, so I told her that women wear high heels to announce their presence. They want every head to turn and look at them.

So she says, no that isn’t true. High heels were invented because short women were tired of getting kissed on the forehead.

Perspectives.

I think

Anything that is said should be said if it is important to what is said around it. Before or after.

First and second

I read that Arvind Adiga has published his second novel “Last man in Tower” and I checked the product description, and in a way it seemed to have parallels with his first book. I haven’t read the new book but like White Tiger which was about class differences, this one deals with economic disparity.

Then I tried to think how many authors are there in the modern times who actually write about different stuff. And I am talking about famous authors.

Before the commercialized world took control of our lives, we had writers like Oscar Wilde who wrote philosophical to satirical to children stories with equal ease, or Steinbeck or Orwell or Twain or Graham Greene writers who had diversity in their writing (this is a general observations and not a rule).

But in recent times, if you look at the success stories you find that writers get tagged or themselves confine within certain themes (though I am waiting to see what Ms. Rowling will do next. Wonder if she can write a single stand alone novel or will she be tempted to repeat the series formula).

There are two things about writers that I believe are always true-

1. If you really want to read any authors honest voice, you should read their first book. Invariably it also would be their best work, unless second assumption comes into play.

2. If you want to know how courageous an author is read the second book after the first successful book, for that will tell you is he just extending the first book or writing a new first book.

I as a rule don’t read the author again, if I find the second book on a theme similar to the first one, that shows nothing but paucity of ideas. It might be better crafted, better written, better said but I have read the better version already. Rewording doesn’t make it a new idea.

And I would rather spend my time on a new idea rather than wasting it on an already read story.

Books are not words. Books are ideas, imagination, fantasies, dreams.

You talking to me

Silence.

A choice.

Or a compulsion.

I don’t like to talk.

Or maybe I have nothing to say.

Inqualaab Zindabad

It was very interesting to watch the protest of Anna Hazare last month and slowly dwindling media footage with every passing week.

As it was interesting to watch “No one killed Jessica”.

As interesting it is to wait for the next movie by Martin Scorsese.

We live in such interesting time.

Do you think Anna Hazare who started the protest and the Anna Hazare who is a celebrity are the same people?

Do you think anything when touched with filth can remain pure anymore?

Does having a thought involuntarily change us in any way? Or an action done consciously stronger?

What makes more sense forced action or self-discipline?

I won’t take bribe.

I won’t give bribe.

If you have seen “A bridge over River Kwai” you will remember the protagonist who falls in love with his own creation losing every other reality in its relation.

Can we break a system we have made with our own loving blooded hands?

Are habits so easy to forget?

Equality is a myth. Not a myth it is a joke.

We should change the system. They should not take the bride. They should not do this, they should not do that.

Who the fuck is this “they”?

Ah, they is not I, they is them, someone else, some faceless, nameless person, I don’t know, haven’t seen, haven’t heard.

It is not me.

It is not my father.

It is not my uncle.

It is not my friend.

It is not my neighbor.

It is someone else.

Someone I don’t know.

But someone I hate.

Someone who is fucking it up for all of us. And specially for me.

And I am with you Anna Hazare.

But sorry, I will not stand in the queue for a rail ticket but pay the agent to get me a ticket in black. Come on that’s a legitimate business.

Sorry, I cannot stand in this queue, I will call up my influential uncle and get ahead of the line filled with these stinking sweating animals. You don’t think they are humans?

I don’t pay bribe but I just asked if he will do my work for money.

But I am with you Anna Hazare.

I remember now, I was supposed to fuck the system by participating in not buying anything strike day.

We must thank Anna Hazare for letting all of us know, without him we would have never heard of such noble thoughts and acceptable behavior. If it wasn’t for him how would we know-

Don’t take bribe

Don’t give bribe

System is rotten

Rich rule the roost

Honesty is a good policy

Be good.

Don’t steal.

Violence against weak is a crime.

Those school years, stories about great souls were just stories and for exams to be passed. Zillion Hindi movies are just entertainment and Mahatama Gandhi is dead. Remember he was shot, assassinated.

Oops did I just call Anna Hazare entertainment? A TV show? As unreal as superfluous as those never ending TV shows.

I cannot.

How dare I?

Didn’t I see the government capitulate and talk to him?

Isn’t the Lokpal Bill being considered and soon would be implemented?

I did, I know, but then there is this niggling, bothering little voice irritatingly telling me that every office already has these small lines that give complaint numbers in case of bribes.

Don’t remember anyone using it.

Except for some brave souls.

Souls without crowds behind them but individuals standing up to their morals and values.

I always suspected that people are idiots but I didn’t know that they were morons of such extent.

There are two interesting concepts self-affirmation and self-delusion.

In self-affirmation I clap very hard when I hear someone saying things which I believe in. So a part of the crowd that clapped and chanted probably was already non-corrupt.

End result – nothing changes.

Self-delusion is when I refuse to acknowledge my complicity in an action. I still clap hard as I group myself with self-affirmation group.

End result – nothing changes.

I have the utmost respect for the self-affirmation group, they need no Anna Hazare for they have themselves to fight their battles.

The other group, that’s majority who participate yet don’t know will ensure nothing changes.

But what about the corrupt you ask.

There is no one who is corrupt.

When I say no one I mean no one.

Individual can never be corrupt.

Individual can never create corruption, even if he desires.

It is a collaborative exercise.

Groups are corrupt.

And beauty of group is that it is nameless.

It is them.

It is they.

Not I.

Never I.

To tell you the truth, I don’t give a fuck about Anna Hazare and I don’t give a fuck about me, He is good and so am I.

I give a fuck when I am with you because we are assholes.

Change will happen when the belief changes from “they are corrupt” to “we are corrupt” and “We will not be”.

That day you will be honest.

I will be honest.

And we will be honest.

Now the closure, I will tell you a secret: That day will never come.

Original Thought

In the morning I woke up and I thought that I thought a new thought.

I mentally scribbled the new thought in my mind thought blurb.

I thought of you and thought to share the thought.

I thought of my blog and thought of writing my thought as a thought post.

So here is the thought….

Rest of it, I think you have already thought.

hahahaha.

Words

The best gift that one can have in life is the gift of words.

Words have a limitation in the sense they can constrain experiencing a new experience but when it comes to expressing a known experience, only words can give it meaning. And words are only about transmitting and sharing it with others but about how your mind processes that information.

You see an attractive girl, we already have used the word attractive, the other word you have beautiful that will give it a slightly different meaning, change that to pristine, that again changes that visual experience, or you think ethereal beauty it again changes the experience.

Words can elevate everything we see, feel, taste, smell, hear.

Our senses needs words to have meanings.

Eventually everything is in the mind.

Reading

The beauty of reading lies in it’s duality and duplicity. As a friend recently commented on my blog that reading is living vicariously, seeing the world from someone else’s eyes, in case of reading from the eyes of the writer.

Yes the book has characters, different personalities,each having different views and opinions, yet end of the day they are a creation of the writer’s imagination. And with that imagination the characters are both limited as well as enriched.

But at no point should the reader forget that he is engaged with the personality of an individual and he is seeing the world from the writer’s point of view. A world of his creation.

The reader at no point should forget this duality.

There are two stages of reading, firstly is when you are in the world of imagination and secondly when you disengage yourself from that and become yourself once again. The problem with many readers and I consider it a limitation, is that they are always themselves. They are unable to leave their world, they have an inability to see the world from the eyes of the writer. They don’t have that duality. To give a simple example, if a blind person describes his world in words, the reader has to be that blind person for without losing the sight yourself, the reader will never be able to understand the writing, it would be just jumbled words and meaningless reading. Reader can view, contemplate, argue, disagree or whatever else he wants to do is after he has disengaged himself and is no longer a writer, a creator of that imagination but a reader who read someone’s imagination and is now viewing it with his understanding.

Imagine I’m a writer and who is only interested in the internal world, the world of the mind, where names, locations, settings are meaningless and only thing that matters to me is what makes the mind tick and I believe in the universality of human weaknesses and believe that by giving geographical, physical, symbolic, tangible or intangible manifestation will reduce the thoughts universality, then does that make me a less writer if you the reader likes to have a setting. That you need a reference point or a peg to hold the thoughts, is that my limitation or the readers shortcoming.

The simple parallel of this is, someone being unable to experience to romance of the rain with the sound without getting drenched.

Duality is mandatory.

If you cannot feel that the words in front of eyes are written by you, you don’t deserve to be the reader of that book.

Does it hold good for every book?

Yes for every book, reason some books have no readers as there is no one except one who says it is mine.

Hope You enjoyed and my views were understood.

Hahaha.

Asses in Corporateland

“My company does not respect performance”
“That guy got such an underserving promotion”
“Woh chaat chaat kar….”
“Let’s see how far he goes without talent and through favoritism”
“So fucking unfair”

Today morning I was driving to office with a colleague and the conversation veered towards the above mentioned sentiment. He started sharing with me his corporate sob story of how he has worked so hard and for so many years yet another guy who is so very underserving is rising up and the usual associated shit, which I am sure you can easily hear in your head. We all in our course of work life have said and heard these refrains and laments in the past.

How can people be so dumb?

What do they think corporate world is?

Some fucking NGO??

Ram Rajya??

Some idealistic society???

For some reason people tend to consider the corporate world to be a perfect society. There are two mistakes in it, one is to think it has a parallel with the society and it is a miniature of the outside world they live in, the so called society.

I don’t have much of patience on this issue and will put my views succinctly and please don’t think the argument is a censure of the capitalism in any manner. And just my views.

Three points-

1. It is not a mirror of the society. It has rules which are independent of the society justice system. Do not mistake it as a perfect world where all things that happen are just and right.

2. The world does not operate as a barter system in its relation with its customers. It’s only smoke and mirror. In a way it is closer to the crime and criminal world in construct. The things it offers it tries to extract a price as high as possible in comparison to its actual cost of manufacturing. It in a way is a con game. And the ones that bluff the best are the winners. It requires a different kind of mindset to succeed, if I can think of an appropriate world, it will illusion.

3. If illusion is the reality of the corporate world outside the same will also hold true inside. The guys who can create the best illusions inside will succeed. What goes outside must happen inside. And it is best for the organization to succeed. It needs such people only. It doesn’t need honest, hardworking, committed people; it needs con artists who know their trade the best because dear friend, that is the business.

So stop cribbing and go find the best artist in the trade and become his or her apprentice if you have desire and ambition to succeed in this parallel, alternate reality universe.

And this argument is a con trick.

I dare you to find the flaw.