A conscious break!

Dear Readers of the blog -
Thank you for following up and taking time out to read whatever I've written. I appreciate your interest in the blog.
I am taking a sabbatical from this job of writing a blog for some time. I feel the need to freshen up, shake myself up and gain newer, stronger perspectives and interests in life! As I finish 3 years of college, I am feeling very excited about my life ahead. Excited and also nervous! And I guess this sabbatical is a part of a process within me which is helping me understand my life and situations around me in a better way.
Writing is something I like to do and I want to be more sensible and smart in my approach towards maintaining the blog. So yes, this means there will be a change when I return back to blog-work! And it'll be more exciting and much-improved!
I wish you all the best in all your endeavours in this dynamic life and wish for you happiness and excitement.
Have fun!
So long. Till I am back to talk to you through my writings.
Lots of love,
                   Kotagal Atul

Have you bought stuff online?

I wrote an article for my college magazine trying to explain the e-retailing phenomenon (the phenomenon and its impact on physical retailers) through the lens of the book business. I have decided to share it on my blog so that even people who do not have access to the magazine can read my article. It's not a piece of research as I do not have any significant data.  Comments and ideas are most welcome...

Have you bought stuff online?

My teacher seemed a little hesitant when I told him to buy “The Last Lecture” on Flipkart.com. If you are curious about what this last lecture is, well, it is a lecture no doubt. A lecture which has taken the shape of a book and which went on to be a New York Times bestseller and still remains one of the most popular and inspiring books amongst teachers and students alike. The maximum retail price of the book in the physical market (any book-store in the city) is Rs. 295 and you may get some discount if you happen to know the owner of the book-store. But I don’t think anyone would give a 32% discount and sell it to you at Rs. 201. Flipkart.com does. It’s nice, isn’t it? Then why the hesitance to buy the book when the book will be delivered at your door-step and you can pay cash on delivery. A piece of my teacher’s mind – “How can I just forget my favourite bookstore and buy books online? Going there just to browse through books and not buying anything from there seems unfair to my friend of many years. And I don’t even get to see the book while I order it online. It comes to my house wrapped in card-board, coated in plastic with a fancy-ish bookmark inside it. Well fine, what can I do? Everything else is getting so expensive. At least books are getting cheaper.” And finally he bought the book for Rs. 201. From Flipkart!

Seems fair enough. After all, that’s the way businesses and humans work. Cheaper the better. And for businessmen, there is nothing worse than not being in business and nothing better than being in the thick of the business. Because once you’re in business you’re making money and you’re happy. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that online stores or e-retailers as they are called are in the thick of it all when it comes to selling books. At least in big cities, it seems that e-retailing is the norm amongst the consumer class. And not just books, slowly most of the things we need are being made available online. Except petrol! Not everything is sold at a discount though. Window-shopping through e-retailing shops like Flipkart, Infibeam, Junglee (an online product comparison and advertising site launched by Amazon.com) I discovered that electronics, furniture, jewellery, clothing is pretty much sold at prices same as those in physical retail shops. So, it’s predominantly books that are sold at high discount rates. How is it that books are sold at such high discount rates? And why books and why not other items? I do have my hypothesis and after talking to a few people in the business of selling books I scraped up some more soil to dig deeper. But I do not have a lot of data to make my claims stronger. But anyway, here I go.  

Mostly, it is the business model and the capital to go along with it that makes a difference and of course the execution of the model along with the desire to occupy as much market as possible. Firstly, it’s not fair to compare a local retailer with Flipkart. Just because of the style and size and capital involved in the operation. But still, I would like to explain what happens in there when it comes to offering discounted prices as I have some idea of how it all works. Flipkart.com is a start-up company started in 2007 which was given initial capital by a venture capital firm to start their operations in India. They had their first office in Bengaluru, which is their main office, before branching out to other big cities. Flipkart.com had initially decided to sell books online and had a business model in hand which would enable books to be sold at a lower cost, say a discount of 15% to 35% on the MRP. This did mean reduced profits for them. The math would work like this. Say, a book has a selling price of Rs. 100, which is decided by the publisher after doing all calculations so that they would make profit provided all the books they print are sold. The publisher normally gives the books at about 50% discount (Rs. 50) to the distributors. The distributor passes on the books at about 65-70 discount (Rs.65-70) on the selling price to the retailer. The retailer sells the book at Rs.100 and makes a profit of Rs.30-35 on every book. Flipkart is also a retailer. But with a difference. Flipkart would buy the books from the distributor at similar rates as the usual retailer but Flipkart could afford to reduce its profit margin by an amount which the physical retailer cannot even think of. Why? Because of the business model which is based on the capital they have. So Flipkart would sell the book at Rs.70-75 and hence earning very little profit if we add the cost of transportation. One would think – why would a retailer reduce its profit margin? Obviously, it’s a strategy. A strategy to capture the market. More customers would obviously be an asset. Flipkart has the capital to soak in the reduced profit. It’s right here to stay with all the initial capital. Once they have the trust of the people with the excellent customer satisfaction, they can slowly raise the rates and earn more profits and even branch out into other goods. And it is already happening. The Last Lecture of Rs.295 was priced at Rs.177 a year ago and now it is priced at Rs.201. And now they sell nearly everything. And now they have operations all over India. Nicely spread out with good contacts built with both distributors and publishers throughout the country and a very good transportation mechanism to back it all, Flipkart is eating into the market of the local retailer. Flipkart obviously would have to bear the additional cost of transporting the item to our house but it seems they have mastered the art of managing all the costs incurred by them to end up with a profit margin, however small it may be. Flipkart was making losses in the initial phases of their operations but slowly they broke even with the investment in 2010 and are now making profits by starting to sell other items like electronics, jewellery, furniture etc at the rates same as that of the local retailer. Another facet to the business is the added option of paying through credit cards. More credit card transactions would mean more business for banks. So, it all seems to make good business sense for different players in the business of selling. But all this means a huge change in the way urban middle-class, consumerist India shops.

Hardly anyone is seen at the local bookstores these days. I used to work part-time in Popular Book House near Deccan Gymkhana and when we had a monsoon sale there, it hardly seemed like a sale. From 4pm to 8:30 pm only a few dozen people would come in and actually buy books. Quite a few of the books had to be returned to the distributors and the owner had to be careful before ordering books from the distributor for he was very unsure of how many of the ordered book s would actually be sold. This does not mean that people are reading less. Hardly, I guess. People buy online or just read online. It’s much cheaper. With apps like Kindle, Aakash tablet coming in and giving us the options of carrying all our favourite books along with music in a small tablet there is going to be a change in the way we read and buy. And I guess it would be an interesting phenomenon to observe. Does the story look grim for our local retailers? Manney’s, a bookstore in Pune recently shut shop but after asking the owner about the reason for shutting shop his reason was not poor business, it was that he wanted to spend more time with his family after having run the shop non-stop for the past four decades. After talking to one of the employees at Popular Book House, he seemed to acknowledge the pretty big dip in business. Mostly of the English books. Marathi books’ sales have not dipped. Mr. Upendra Dixit of the International Book Service in Deccan Gymkhana acknowledged the dip in their business and seemed to say that they had no option but to cater to the demands of their loyal customers and try to squeeze in as much profit as they could. These local retailers do not have the capital, nor do they have hundreds of employees to manage the business and expand the business, but does that mean that they will not survive in the market? That should not be the case. We all love the feeling of having bought a book we needed after browsing through an entire section in a bookstore. It seems like there is a love story between us and the book as in we were bound to meet or something like that. Bookstores are not just a space to buy, but also like second homes where one could surround oneself with the smell and colour of books and spend a long time browsing. The internet experience is drier for sure.  At least for me. I would still prefer to go to the bookstore and browse through a few sections and choose which book I want. But there would be occasions when I would have to buy the book online due to unavailability or delays in procuring a book from the publisher. In such a case, the online system would be a nice back-up. These small businesses are going through a dynamic phase and so are the big businesses. With healthy competition, and more competitors joining the market and more consumers too, I hope the market share of every player would eventually be such that they would be happy that they got the profit they had envisioned for themselves. E-retailers like Flipkart have a market all over India whereas International Book Service caters only to people living in a particular part of Pune city. There is a huge difference in the size of the market and each would impact the other in some way or the other and eventually let’s hope that we tend to a sort of equilibrium when it comes to competition so that everyone survives, provided everyone makes the right moves. There is a limit to how much one retailer can capture. And thank god, Flipkart does not sell petrol!  

References used for the article :

11)    Deathknell for the bookstore? Vijay Nair, The Hindu April 1, 2012

22)    Flip side of Flipkart: Red Ink for e-tailers, RIP book shops. Binoo K John, Firstpost - Jan 17,2012

33)    Owners and employees at Popular Book House, International Book Service in Pune.

44)    Manney’s in pune to down shutters on March 31, DNA- Jan 17, 2012

55)    Flipkart.com, Infibeam, Wikipedia

Kalyan Varma!

Well guys, here is the link to some absolutely amazing and eye-catching photography (or photo-essaying as it is called) -  http://kalyanvarma.net/essays/
Kalyan Varma is one of India's leading wildlife photographers and conservationists. His photo-essay on Masai Mara, a wildlife area in central Africa beats everything else. It's absolutely mesmerizing! Check'em out!  

Early mornings..

Early summer. Early morning. The first thing I listen to is the chirping of birds. There are only a handful of species near our house, but still the chirping is soothing as a wake-up call. Predominantly it's the red-vented bulbul or the coppersmith barbet but there are some other yet unidentified (by me)birds. Sometimes, I go out with my binoculars to spot the birds but I do not take my field guide along saying to myself that the birds in my locality will be easily identified by me. That's not the case. Next time I go, I will take the field guide for, the smaller birds are not easy to identify once they are spotted after much staring at trees trying to spot movements of branches or leaves!
Anyway, birds are just one part of these early summer-early mornings. The coolness is a beautiful aspect. It's so cool in comparison with the coolness during the day. Well, coolness during the day is non-existent you would say. But there are some moments of coolness if you are in a place like the Mathematics Department in Fergusson College. Anyway, if we create a scale from 0-10 and say coolness during the remaining part of the day is 0.5 then coolness during the early mornings is 10. Obviously, such a silly marking scheme deserves well, nothing. Okay, so it is cool during early summer-early mornings, whereas it is cold during winter-early mornings and even during monsoon-early mornings.
People. People come out to take a walk. But at least near our house, people are more serious and less talkative and seem less happy during early summer-early mornings. People in general, seem to have less energy during summer. And people are slightly grumpy because they do not feel like eating a lot. This may not be true always but according to me, fewer people would eat a Maharashtrian Thali or a Chicken Biryani for lunch/dinner during summer than they would during winter or monsoons. People like to drink during summer. I think people are happier during morning walks only when there is a juice stall around. Think about it! Do you remember people talking more when they see a juice stall?  So, a cool drink may have an important role in affecting happiness of people who go out for morning walks. If they do not find a juice stall while walking(they may or may not buy juice!), upon coming home, such people are likely to come home slightly grumpy and then shout at the first person they see in the hall for sitting without switching the fan on!
Anyway, this early morning is coming to an end. One should also try to study during early summer-early mornings for, this never happens in winter. This early morning is now coming to an end, like all good things. The day will be hot and we will swear at it. But the night will be cooler. Somewhat.  

Lessons from Sport - 2!

Rahul Dravid has retired from international and first-class domestic cricket. He is one of my favourite cricketers ever. I always admired Rahul. Not just as a cricketer but even as a person. He was someone who went about with his job quietly and worked very hard at his job. The perfect gentleman. The wall of Indian cricket. As Harsha Bhogle points out, an era has ended in Indian cricket. With no Rahul at number 3, suddenly the Indian batting line-up looks so much more vulnerable. I will miss you, Rahul.
As Rahul announced his retirement in a press conference in Bangalore, a tear tried to swell up in my eye. It came. But I did not cry. I don't know why. But I felt emotional. I really admired the way this man played the game. He did everything that was asked for from him. He kept wickets. He opened. He batted at the position his team wanted him to. He made way for youth when India started playing T20 and the result - India won the first T20 World Cup. He understood what was needed for the team. What was best for the team. He was the perfect team player. I don't think one can compare the likes of Dravid, Sachin, Laxman, Sehwag. These players are so different in the way they played cricket. Their approaches to the game are so different. Cometh tough times, cometh Dravid, the saviour.
Some people feel sad about Dravid. Sad that he was always under the shadow of something or someone. Under the shadow of Sachin. Under the shadow of Ganguly, while he was the vice-captain. But no. Rahul did his job to perfection. Gave his best to every game. We Indians always admire superstars who are exuberant and people who are extravagant or at least seem to be so. Like Ganguly taking his shirt off at Lord's or Yuvraj or Harbhajan with their pronounced aggression on the field. But some people do what is required without all the hullabaloo. Quiet, unassuming, focussed and dignified, these adjectives embody "Jammy". As Rahul walks into the sunset of his cricketing career I am sure he walks without any regrets, with his head held high. For, he always gave his best on the field and understood his responsibilty in the team like no other. Thank you for everything, Rahul. I love you!  

There.

Stick it out! Don't lose heart.

I know you will survive, for you will fight.

Uphill roads are always there.

You should walk them with your head held high.

Walk them.

Stick it out! Don't stop.

SPEED. BREAKER.

Unable. Scared. No.

Able. Scared.

Don't know. Scared.

Lies. Scared. Truth.

Does it exist? Yes.

Hide. Scared.

Sweetness. Scared.

Respect all. Scared.

Follow rules. Scared.

Come home early. Scared.

Don't propose. Be nice. Scared.

Ghanta! Bloody Hell. Sorry. Scared.

BOOOOM!

Open your eyes. See Roadies, watch shit.

Don't talk. You're useless.

You're a liar.

You need a girlfriend. Seriously, why? No you don't. You can be on your own.

Join the Mathematics Club called Saturday Club.

Understand functions. Some behave nicely and some don't. Chuck Mathematics.

Join the Theatre Group. Feel the situation. Feel the pain.

Let the art come out. Art ko appreciate karo. Phoolon, phalo. Huh?

Randomness. Chaos. Beauty.

Money?

MBA. Not needed. Any job. Will do.

Hero. Passion. Hum mein hain hero.

Aviator shades. Tirupati hairstyle.

No girls. Not needed. Guys are cool. Enjoy life!

Don't look around.

Ignore society.

Be yourself.

Drink Coke. Rs. 8.

Enjoy life!

Lessons from Sport - 1!

Sport has the capacity to teach us a lot of lessons! Today, I saw glimpses of the cricket match between India and Sri Lanka. India had to chase down 321 in 40 overs to stay in the triangular competition(other side-Australia). This is a very hard chase and especially when you have been losing or are being criticised constantly. I think Team India is at its lowest point in the past few years. In the midst of all this, this young aggressive chap, Virat Kohli, a Delhi lad of 25, scored 133* in just 86 balls. The point to note was the aggresion and self-belief in the chap! It was an amazing knock. When no one believes that you are of any value, that's when you come forward and put your hand up and say - "Guys, watch out! I am there." I take this as a lesson. Being self-confident and doing what you're supposed to do would give satisfaction, I think. I have a lesson to learn from Virat Kohli, when it comes to being self-confident and hard-working and listening to one's own voice rather than just being an also-ran!

On Writing on A BLOG..Why?

How does it work-writing? Does it come naturally or do people actually work very hard on it? Or it could very well be a constuctive combination of the above two or even a destructive one at that. This question does not bother me a lot, it should not. It's a sad thing that I have not been writing on this blog for quite some time(around 4 months, I guess). To be frank, I have not felt the urge to come and sit in front of the PC to write stuff for my blog. Because, I do not know what to write on. Maybe, I do not have things to share with you or it is just that I do not want to share it with you. I am thinking that it is the latter. I know, and I even remember my motive to start as a blogger - to share my emotional self with you, the reader I don't know what has taken over me over the past 5 months or so, I would rather add a condition to this motive - if I feel like.I guess this condition was already presesnt in a subtle manner but I would make it more pronounced. Why? Because I think that's the way the cookie crumbles! It's true for every writer. Every piece of literature. What am I writing about? You must be thinking this guy is very tedious and serious about his business..well, forget it! I will be honest with you.
I do not have anything to write about. I already have a personal diary where I write about daily happenings and my understandings of those happenings but that's not the reason for the existence of this blog.This blog is not a personal diary. It's obvious, right? Am I a fool to do that or what? Then what exactly do I mean by sharing my emotional self with you. I don't know, man! It's a confused state. Why to blog at all? Should blogs have a specific subject? Should they be for work that is being carried out and then explained to people who want to know about it through the blog? Should it have an end in mind? Why to blog at all? For me, I don't know. Why do I blog? I do not consider myself to be an expert in any field of knowledge.Nor am I working on a specific project, nor am I away from my closest family that I need to tell them what's happening with me, nor do I do serious poetry or write serious stories or stuff like that. Although, I have many ideas for stories and have done some homework, it's not share-able. Then why should I maintain a blog?
No reason-able answer. But still, I don't want to shut shop right away! I will give a reason - TO WANDER and TO HAVE FUN! I don't know how successful it'll be, but I don't really care. I am hopeful that I will soon have serious stuff to share with you. Stuff that is valuable. But as of now, I have nothing. Not a problem for me. I would continue to write random things on this space of mine and try to have fun writing it, so that some frequency-matching with you, the earthly fellow, is possible. Hoping in hope! I will be more regular and hence more random! But I think I would prefer to have fun, because I do enjoy writing. And you, you should comment or mail me(if you are scared about your comment being visible to everyone else, believe me I do that!).You never know, we may just strike some cool chord and get talking about something and end up learning stuff which we never would have had we not spoken. And hence, the BLOG! 

Cement and Emotion

As you must have noticed, I have changed the name of my blog from "Musings" to "Cement and Emotion". Firstly, my musings are really hard to describe and secondly, how I thought of the name remains a mystery to me. I may have chosen the name because the word sounded good or was a new and attractive little fresh word in my dictionary. Without really going deeper into the meaning.
Anyway, now it is "Cement and Emotion". Why so? These are two things I value in my life. Cement not just because it holds my house together, but more for the rather deeper meaning of it. The way I interpret it would be different. Cement(mixed with water) holds bricks together and helps us make walls of our house, of our compound, of other things as well. Cement mixed with water and gravel, gives us concrete. One of the best materials for roads for us to drive on, to walk on. With comfort. And hence, cement is important. It stands for firmness, it stands for strength. And firmness is important in life. I have realized that we should be firm with certain things in life for us to realize how good or bad those things are. And that would help us grow. But only if we are in tune with our selves. In tune with our EMOTION. What is better than knowing one's own self? Knowing one's self is like a journey all of us undertake, directly or indirectly. But being directly in touch with our selves would mean being in direct conformity with our emotions. And that I feel is very important. I have decided to follow these two 'ideas' in my life and would keep sharing certain experiences with you through my blog.
This blog still serves as an outlet for my feelings, observations and emotions and I hope you would enjoy reading my posts and get back to me from whichever medium that suits you.   

Ain't Giving Up!

How I thought, I would be this that..
How I thought, I would be here there..
How I thought, I would be...
I thought and thought, I do not know how.

The deep recesses of what and what not,
The lump in my throat when I see that person,
The jump in my heart when I talk to that person,
The deep crevices in that rock, how they deepened,

Fools die! Heroes die! Commoners live! Why?
How I wished I would be the salt of the earth!
But hey, I have not given up yet.
I live, and I still dream of tasting success,
With the salt.Or without it, I do not care.

What is the sense behind the recesses and the jump?
And why did I mention the crevices and the lump?
How I thought, I would be there in them..
How I thought, I would be this that..
No idea, mate.

It's an illusory world. You better ask about how's
In classrooms and labs, my dear.
You may get quick answers there,
Not in this world, not in this world.

But hey, I have not given up yet.
For I still am in the search committee.
I am still curious and I won't give up.
I am waiting to taste something known as success.    

Dost ki Poetry - 1

The following piece of literature has been written by Tejas Gokhale, a friend of mine. 

                                                          TIME

Time starts when you are born, ends when you are dead.

Why should time be the same for all ?

Why should a second be the same for all ?

You are your time...

Realise that before it ends for you !

Years do pass by, but what is an year ?

What maketh man young, infant or old ?

Time of the earth ?

Its not your time fellas!!

You are your time...

Come spring, come fall, you make time long or small.

Define your own place, with God's grace, make haste,

For You are your time...

Time didn't start with a BANG !!!

It started with you !

For time exists because you do !

Tejas can be contacted at his e-mail address - tejas93.gokhale@gmail.com 

The good feeling - 1! :-)

I have been involved in our Society's Ganeshotsav preparations for quite some time now. Every year, around ten of us, all of us are of the same age group(late teens to early twenties now), take the initiative to organize a Ganeshotsav in our co-operative housing society. We have a lot of fun while organising it. Of course, there are disappointments at times, but overall,  if one is completely dedicated to his/her work he/she gets that feeling of being a part of a community. This feeling is something which we rarely experience these days. The good feeling! :-) This feeling of doing something, being a part of something irresepective of your problems at home/work/college and coming together for 2-3 weeks, meeting, planning, debating over retrospectively small things, taunting one another, sharing the responsibility. This is something we may be doing in college for say, the festivals, or at work for some event etc. but rarely in housing societies these days.
And even myself. I feel that I live in a co-operative housing society only once in a year. During Ganpati. Otherwise, who cares about one's neighbours these days! Everyone is so busy with his/her work that coming together as a community to do something is very very rare. I feel really bad at times that we, so-called civilized citizens do not even maintain regular contact with our neighbours. I feel a little awkward at times when I meet my neighbours outside. A smile at times. Not even that otherwise. There are many deeper reasons for this sort of behaviour as well. I live in Dahanukar Colony which falls in the Kothrud area of Pune city. This Dahanukar Colony is one of the most well-off areas in the city. One would find a pretty homogeneous society here. Mostly a Brahmin-dominated colony with people coming from the middle or upper middle class. But that is not my point. I do not wish to study my area socio-economically at this point.  would do that. I have done that to some extent already. One would find a certain behavioural trait associated with people living in Dahanukar Colony. I would not generalize. I know very very notable exceptions to this trait as well. Anyway, that is something one has to live with and respect. For, this is what living in a society would ideally mean. Whatever differences we have, we respect the differences. Up to the point we feel it is not harmful for the rest. Tolerance is something we should learn by living in a society. But there is another value which I would like to stress upon here. Fraternity. The feeling of brotherhood/sisterhood. I remember my Civics textbook in school where we used to have some part from the Constitution where we said we would be honest, peaceful, tolerant, secular and fraternal citizens of this country and even the world.
I do not wish to go deep into the issues of societal structure and the dynamic relationship of it with nation-building at this point. For, I find myself incapable of it at this point. I just want to share something which we have been doing in our society for some time now. I am proud of what we do during Ganpati. But then there are always more things which can be done. Why only during Ganpati? Of course, we would love to have that feeling of community during other times of the year as well. I would also like to highlight the fact that even we are not perfect organizers. We have our low moments. There are people even in our society who get left out. Someone with some serious family problem feels left out. Someone with a certain physical/mental disability may feel left out. Our watchmen who guard the Ganpati and the buildings may feel left out and think - what wrong did I do that I and my family cannot enjoy the privileges all these people enjoy? It's all a part of social structure. Again a very deep thing it is. But we have to live on. Live and let live.
We, ten or so young people love organizing Ganpati Utsav here. It all begins with laziness initially, but as Ganpati comes closer we go through that phase - Arey Ganpati basvaychay ka nahi? Serious vha na zara! (Should we install ganpati this year or not? Please be serious, people), then we start collecting contribution from the people living in our society. Starting with booking the Ganpati idol, to planning for events to held during Ganpati. Decorating the place around the Ganpati with lights, mandav, padade(curtains :-p) and small things which we fight on during the decoration part. It is fun! There is a lot of emotion involved. One does not know whether God exists or no. But let us assume he exists(mathematics does show everywhere). Even if we  assume so, all of work day and night, plan, meet people in our society and say aartis, organize events, food etc. Don't we feel something different? We do. I have felt it. I have felt emotionally very different when I am involved in things like this. When your feeling is pure and innocent, when you just want to do it, you don't care about pessimistic things. You do not worry about the existence of God. If the assumption of his existence can make us think so much about ourselves, about our family, about our society, about the happiness of our society, why worry about the non-existence part deeply? Why intellectualize so much? I just love being a part of something and if God is something that brings people together, so be it. I believe in God for that. I may not agree with all the rituals and traditions. But I feel connected to my society, to my country through this God. I love doing this. I would like to thank all my friends in my society for taking the initiative and making things work. It is a good feeling. Emotional but good. No doubt. We still have 6 days of Ganpati left in our society as I write this. I am sure we'll do well this time too. Ganpati Bappa Moraya! Ani jara pavsacha bagh re Ganaraaya! Khup padtoy ya varshi! Thambavach ata! ;-)           

A Smile is something I can give to you...

When I am going through my tests on earth,
I do not seem to be caring about you.
I talk to you immediately after my test is done,
For, it was you who occupied my thoughts while at the test.

You made me realize the importance of respecting,
Respecting differences, respecting the para-'normal',
respecting myself, for, I would not have been happier
Had you not come into my life and talked to me.

You talked to me, you shared your life with me,
I talked to you, I got attached emotionally too.
For the first time, I felt as if someone missed me.
I still miss you. I have always been this way.

I do not fit into the social 'norms',
I do not fit into your friend circle,
I feel left out from so many different angles,
But I have gotten used to it.

I can be that ideal person you want,
But I won't be myself if I am that,
I am very hopeful that by being myself,
I will grow up to become better. Just better. That's all.

When you grow up too, you earn, you socialize,
You move away from me, you are less connected to me,
But this is the way things have always been, at the end of the day,
A Smile and that assurance of tolerance and love,
Is something I can give to you. Because, I love you. 

Momentary randomness

India has won the Cricket World Cup 2011! Feelings of extreme happiness...I could not express my feelings till the time I went to sleep yesterday night! Traffic jams happening at midnight near my place...this madness happens very rarely. It was amazing!!:-) When I woke up today morning, I was feeling very pumped up and when AR Rahman's Vande Mataram played on the radio, I just felt awesome. Such moments do make you feel very proud about your country.
All this done, things move on. The world moves on. Four years from now, maybe we'll see a new champion Down Under. Things in our life move on too. I was just thinking about how I have changed as a person in these last 8 years. I don't remember how I reacted to India's loss in 1999. After that, I guess I was fit enough to remember how I have been during World Cups. In 2003, there was a certain child-like enthusiasm at the beginning of he final. At the end of it though, there was disappointment.Mind-less criticisms of the cricketers at school. Indian cricket sucks. Dada should retire and all. But I always was considerate of the losing team. I knew one had to lose. India played well, Australia was just too good. 2007, I was radical. That phase of my life is the 'radical exuberance of youth' phase. I was a pukka nationalist. I remember I had my Class X board exams at that time and I was really sick of studying(or should I say mugging, I should). I watched that match in which we lost to Bangladesh. My mood was off. And since the World Cup was in the Windies, the feeling of sadness for every Indian must have been more. Anyone would feel sad after seeing your team lose after you watching the match till 3 or 4 in the morning. But we won the T20 WC, and that was a great moment. I would explain all the scenes on the roads of my country to my American cousins. Excitable and provocative and very expressable nationalism. All this without having thought or read a great deal about human behaviour and thought.
2011. I have changed a lot. I have become passive in my expression of feelings. There's a debate raging in my mind whether this is Ok or no. I did go out on the roads to be with my countrymen, but what I saw made me think about the situation in my country. Of course, I love India. Society analysis, people analysis. Such things hold fort over the unabatable nationalist exuberance. Looking at the poor beggars of my country, sitting on the roads, wondering what wrong they did that they did not get to see even a TV in their lives. Such people were getting drunk, not because India won the World Cup, but because it was their daily routine. "Aaj kya hua hai bhai? Itne log paglo jaise aadhiraat ko kya kar rahe hai?" must have been their first reaction. After some time, they would also get into the act by dancing on the roads with the rich Indian. It is a very very rare occasion when you see the middle-class mingle so much with the poor. The rich are of course at the pubs and farm-houses around the city partying like wild with vodka and champagne. Char baj jate hai lekin party ab bhi baki hai! Even in this integrationist moment there are several divisions. If we observe closely, the divisions are in the political sphere. MNS, Shiv Sena, Congress, NCP flags were galore. Social divisions, linked with the economic divisions. Sometimes not linked. It's visible.
I have changed. I guess it happens with most of us. I won't think of all this even 1 year back. But this being a moment to rejoice for our countrymen, we must rejoice. I am happy for Team India. They played really well. Kudos!
The idea behind writing this post was to just share with you how my way of looking at things has changed. I guess it must have happened with many people of a similar age. It is just amazing. I guess, as we grow older, we realise our ignorance more and more. But people don't ignore purposely. It is just that they don't choose to see. That's not ignoring. A day will come, when they will see and ignoring would be hard. Seeing around helps me to understand the complexities of life and there are definitely no finite answers to such problems of life. I can really go on about something which I read in a beautiful book on the Mahabharata recently, but I wont go on. It is change which I realized in myself that I felt like sharing. Such things just go on and on. Things happen, for the better!!

Tod do yeh deewar!!

               Really, sometimes I just get so frustrated at myself for being a good listener! I am more of a listener, than a speaker.  I listen to my friends, I listen and listen to my teachers perennially. I listen to AR Rahman. I listen to my parents, my grandmother, even my younger sister sometimes! Ok, so is listening bad? May not be. Should not be. Is over-listening bad? Maybe . What do I mean when I say over-listening? Here, I mean listening and listening and not speaking to the necessary extent after which people start saying “Dude, you want to say something? No? Ok, so listen…..”.And this goes on. This is what I have felt!! Listening and listening. Being democratic, I am. Let the person present his views, at least. Then I’ll talk.  But by the time, that guy has finished his talk, I have lost the soul of his argument  and he is tired of speaking and speaking. So, what happens is, both of us stare at each other. Blankly. And then I say “Ok. So, you do agree with Marx? But why?” And again I am listening to his ‘clarification’. This time he talks in such a dominating manner that I just don’t feel like discussing and refuting his argument. Done. He leaves. I am confused. Pondering over what Marx may have said. Why was Marx so crazy? And why is my friend one of the few public Marxists in this world of public capitalists? Is he a seer? I doubt. Confusion. That’s what happens when you over-listen.

              Now, let us assume that there is a process here. Well, there IS a process here. You listen, you process the matter (think) and then speak. Something very similar to what I did here while writing this post. I typed out this stuff on the QWERTY thing (wow, typing out qwerty is a rare thing. I enjoyed doing it twice!!), the master-mind processor thought and the dubba CRT spoke in it’s way. Just imagine how efficiently the computer functions. We perform the input functions. The CPU processes and the output is out flat. This happens when the computer is working efficiently and is normal and sane. Now, imagine the output device not working. The computer’s output device not working leaves the human mind frustrated. No computer(or any such gadget) output implies frustration of the human mind! Similarly, we humans take inputs, then process and then give an output. Normally. Suppose we keep on taking in stuff in the form of thoughts, figures, concepts, equations, scripts etc. We think over it(we don’t) and then efficient and normal beings have good, proportionate outputs in the form of exhibitive  responses like verbal replies and histrionics. Abnormal beings do not have such outputs. They remain stuck in the thought process. There is a problem. The output does not come out. Now, if we get frustrated when the computer does not show an output, imagine our condition if WE do not give out good outputs!! There’s a condition of confusion and conflict which is going to stay on. This is not good. There can be a certain kind of mental clogging which can have undesirable consequences. This can become a habit which will not help me when I face society. Lack of expression of feelings at the right time can lead to isolation and a certain self-centeredness. This is also not good. But this problem can be solved.

                How? Now, the solution is in our CPU. It’s in our processing unit. We have a conscience. We have willpower. We can act. We can improve. We can improve further. Now, taking a cue from what I learnt in English Literature class today - “All conflict arises out of desire” -  I would like to be aware of not crossing the line on the other side. I should not lose my good listening skills. And I should not talk non-sense. But there are certain times when my discretionary powers should come to my rescue. Sometimes, we should not express ourselves as we would normally. We must consider the practicality of the situations. Good. Sounds good.

                 But why on earth am I sharing bits of my personal diary with you? Well, my discretion tells me to do so. You, my dear friend and reader of this blog will also take in something from here. If you find the post rubbish and grammatically horrible(some errors creep in, I know it’s sad inspite of MS Word’s existence), please express your displeasure by posting your comment. Let me tell you - let there be transparency between the writer and the reader. But there can be times when you have nothing to say. Perfectly fine! All your feelings and expressions are respected and accepted! I love you.. all I wish is minimal misunderstanding! I wish to understand my Marxist friend and also you. I will talk to you and let there be exchange of ideas, let there be healthy debates, and let there be lessons to be learnt. Learning and growing together is a beautiful process which may lead to a healthy, strong and well-knit society. From here, we can talk of macro-growth and macro-development. We can be a better society, a better country and a better planet. Let there be conversations!! Light will be there, then. 

Beginning with my neighbourhood!

Hi people!

I have decided to start my tryst with the pen(virtual and real).This being my first blog,I felt like giving you all a small glimpse of my surroundings and it's effect on me till now. The musing...

I decided to take a late evening walk in my neighbourhood, yesterday. Walking in a pretty non-appealing but well-organised colony cannot be said to be very refreshing for the mind.Up I walked towards the main road to be amidst people,after a few hours of aloofness.The current scene in our colony makes it even harder to be with people.A road dug-up on it's sides with stones and gravel spread about,giving it the feel of a never-before walking plaza.In fact, the delight of walking in the middle of an erstwhile busy and vehicle-only road made me feel 'lifted'.The normal footpaths have are non-existent and lead to the creation of a wide,foot-only path due to barricading and metre-deep trenches on parallel sides of the direction of foot-march.The markedly visible,unidentifiable pipes in the metre-deep trenches are nearly completely covered with some men doing some more digging and other men doing some pipe-wire engineering,the description of which escapes my factual brain.Whereas, the women surrounding sacks of cement(or maybe even sand,I am not sure,as always) are helping the digger-men either by being digger-women or by clearing the sand and piling it up on a nearby heap.

The foot-plaza(i.e the main road) is compartmentalized into many sub-footplazas for the convenience of we pedestrians.Something for the pedestrians,finally!!Up and down from the sub-footplazas are the residential lanes.Due to the trenches,humanity here felt the need to build bridges to connect these sub-footplazas to the residential lanes.A new kind of bridge.The Sack-bridge!!It's strong, it's curvy(and hence,sexy!) and maybe the shortest bridge to help both the pedestrian and the occasional motor-biker!!

As I look at my colony with more observant eyes, I start finding it a little more appealing.There are these light-starved but nevertheless happy trees enjoying their freedom from 'shishir'.And the Indrayani bungalow(sadly) stood behind three such trees.The three trees(one of whom I name Sheela,what's in a name yaar!) literally beg it's inhabitants to start paying their electricity bills.On the other side, Sheela and her friends face a decently-lit Vamanrao Udyan, a parabolic road separating the visually antagonistic and contrasting landmarks in Dahanukar Colony. This Vamanrao Udyan used to be the site for my shy playfulness for a short period of time.As I look at it now,I notice one new play equipment.The waist-high semi-circular jungle-gym.The basketball court with the two nets being separated by gravel, is the court witness to many a physical battle!The jogging track which is an ill-fit for any 2-feet wide plus mortal still exists.I remember stepping aside every two minutes to allow the other 'jogger' to pass by or (rarely)pass through.That's one bad jogging track!Then the three bhai-bhai-bhai slides.Small,medium,large.I hated the small(for obvious reasons).Enjoyed the medium.But detested the large one because I could not climb up the slide from the bottom of the butt-rester!Then the mini merry-go-round and the mini gymnasium and of course the best place to hide-the water basin,remind me of my days here.I used to come here as a primary school-kid with my Mom and infant sister.We had a Rs.340/- pass to the garden,which we all valued because of it's high cost and great play infrastructure!

As I end a day of retrospection,walking around my colony,going back to my playful-kid days I bury my left foot into a gravel mound.Shaking my foot and chappal and thanking gravity for allowing the gravel to get off me,I once again come back to the current realm of thoughts.Even I am in a state of repair,like the foot-plaza of my colony.

Stepping over the sack-bridge I enter my lane and walk down the narrowing but well-lit lane and sloping path which leads me to my building.As I walk down, I try staring at the faces of the bike-riders riding upwards,only managing to guess the age and sex of the rider as he/she zooms by.

Not really refreshed,but happy nonetheless I return to my shed.The uncertainty remains,it does not zoom by so easily!! :-)