Who AM I

What if there are no answers ...

2011-06-02T16:13:00.001+05:30

What if the mystery remains unresolved and there is no ending ...?
Would it matter if one were to raise a hand, and the respondent moves on to another question?
What if there is no death?
In this lonesome universe, how would you spend seconds as the last man standing?
What if one disappears?
What would it mean to vanish while the the next ride on the ferris wheel is about to begin?
What if ...

Fear of Retribution!

2011-06-01T14:41:00.001+05:30

http://en.articlesgratuits.com/fear-facts-and-factors-psychology-of-fear-id390.php

Fear is so pervasive that one need not indulge in customary argument and counter-argument to establish the veracity of this fact. Fear does not need substantiation!

The effects of actions impinged upon by fear are quiet dramatic, import of which one does not realise unless an inner turmoil escapes the subconscious and becomes ominously threatening to the very existence of the self. The crippling self-evaluation in the aftermath of some minor tragedy or an impending personal disaster that one conducts with increasing frequency shows up in minor events and catclysmic catastrophes.

Our history is riddled with countless examples where individual fear and collective paranoia have wreaked havoc upon nature and mankind. Still, we do not comprehend the extent of damage and decay that fear causes.

What causes fear? I can hardly begin to come to terms with my own.

That is the challenege and the travesty.

Even before we are brought face-to-face with our demeaning fears, we begin to propound theories and espouse cures for ills of the universe!

Less of a sin, more of a twist

I am not ill, let alone be slain

The willing victim of fate

Walks on, with a blind eye

The vast stretch of time, fertile

The shallow soul grasps, futile

For fear is my ruling star

Some times I feel, happy

When greed knocks, lays

Eggs of hopes, bears fruits

Gripes and turns sour

The very bowels of heart ...

Salvation of the non-believer

2011-06-01T10:23:00.002+05:30

{Source: http://www.christian-wallpaper.com/backgrounds/conceptual-picture-about-salvation.jpg - Is that a hairy hand tugging at another hairy hand? Damn, you hairless Bas***d, no one's coming for you!!}

If you are religious minded and believe that the angels lay in wait for you to stride into the gilded portals of heaven, then check out the above links.

If you are an ignorant oaf like me then you are doomed to evaporate and spook and haunt gentlemen playing games on their X-Box and startle pretty ladies in the kitchen knitting a dress out of ham and sausages!

Surrender ...

2011-06-01T10:14:00.000+05:30

I have a sad sinking feeling that It would best to surrender, absolutely and completely; whatever it may mean. The difficulty is that I don't know what ritual, ceremony or habit would make for SURRENDER.

Does it mean I cease to exist ...
Or, escape ceaselessy into diversions ...
Be a zombie ...
Keep rattling off synonyms of the word ...
Find a Guru and badger him to bugger me into salvation ...

(Not pretty thoughts)

May be I should switch off my brain!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xztzg_sarah-mclachlan-sweet-surrender_music

Is it possible to be compassionate?

2011-06-01T10:03:00.000+05:30

When the clouds burst open

And the tears of heavens escape

Is it exhilaration, or worse fear

That make the moisture dissipate and disappear

–noun

a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire toalleviate the suffering.

Is it possible for me to be compassionate--to know when a fellow being suffers and needs to see a sign of hope. I don't know. I don't even remember when I last felt a quiver of emotion because someone else was sad or plain unlucky.

I always thought that I can be any thing but compassionate, love is a far cry. Of course, I do put on an ambivalent look on face, from time to time. But, folks do see through me. The snicker is hard to hide. I always knew that compassion is some thing that other people needed. I stopped seeking the dregs when I grew up.

Now, when I reflect on all things myself, I do need to find an answer--why do we need not be compassionate and why I am loathe even to pretend that I may empathise or show remorse when others feel sad.

Songs of Innocence and Experience: Introduction

2011-05-31T17:29:00.001+05:30

Innocence: Introduction

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
``Pipe a song about a Lamb!''
So I piped with a merry chear.
``Piper, pipe that song again;''
So I piped: he wept to hear.
``Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy chear:''
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
``Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.''
So he vanish'd from my sight,
And I pluck'd a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs,
Every child may joy to hear.

Experience: Introduction

Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk'd among the ancient trees,
Calling the lapsed Soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might controll
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!
``O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.
``Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The wat'ry shore,
Is giv'n thee till the break of day.''

What is meditation?

2011-05-31T17:23:00.001+05:30

Meditation refers to any of a family of practices in which the practitioner trains his or her mind or self-induces a mode of consciousness in order to realize some benefit.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Meditation is generally an internal, personal practice and done without any external involvement, except perhaps prayer beads to count prayers, though many practitioners of meditation may rely on external objects such as candle flames as points on which to focus their attention as an aid to the process. Meditation often involves invoking or cultivating a feeling or internal state, such as compassion, or attending to a specific focal point. The term can refer to the state itself, as well as to practices or techniques employed to cultivate the state.

There is a possibility that meditation as explained above may help in precipitating the chaos that keeps getting murkier by the day. A process of cleansing whereby one may dust off the cobwebs in the mind. A mind that is unsure, uncertain, and unreliable. When I close my eyes and focus on breathing the cycle of objective observation, followed by dissipation/exhileration is self-defeating.

Probably, I will persist with it and see how it goes ...

Control versus Freedom

2011-05-31T16:30:00.002+05:30

How is one one to experience pure and inhibitionless freedom?

Oh Freedom, how I long and fret

Every minute for you to embrace

My burdened soul ...

Oh fickle folly of the hair-brained

Do you really live beyond some lofty portals

Or, are you just a crazy dream

Wrought upon by cursed smoke and narcotics,

You have befooled many,

Who never shall cease

To lay themselves upon you feet

Do you not have a heart

To have pity on damned souls

Of those who long till eternity

When their lives are nothing but brief ...

It seems to me that fear and greed are constantly preying on my ability to exist freely and independently -- ability to see clearly and thus experience reality as it is. And, mind it, I am not talking about experience in terms of moments isolated from their moorings in chronological time and sociological context. It is easy to look at oneself by dividing an experience and time into their various facets--emotional propensity, visual details, psychological dependencies, and subjective outcome of the experience measured from a selected point of reference.

*** Pardon the convulted prose. I am still working on keeping it simple.

Absolute Simple and Beautiful Surrender

2011-05-31T12:30:00.001+05:30

Now, we all rely on the wisdom of others to find hope, meaning, and salvation. However, it is a difficult, almost impossible for the egoistic mind to accept a channel for its deliverance. Then, how am I to find the door that leads me unto myself.

And, what is the guarantee that the door won't open into another prison of lies and self-deceit!

Observer is the observed!

2011-05-31T12:20:00.001+05:30

The observer is the observed

"One image, as the observer, observes dozens of other images around himself and inside himself, and he says, `I like this image, I'm going to keep it' or 'I don't like that image so I'll get rid of it', but the observer himself has been put together by the various images which have come into being through reaction to various other images. So we come to a point where we can say, `The observer is also the image, only he has separated himself and observes. This observer who has come into being through various other images thinks himself permanent and between himself and the images he has created there is a division, a time interval. This creates conflict between himself and the images he believes to be the cause of his troubles. So then he says, "I must get rid of this conflict", but the very desire to get rid of the conflict creates another image. Awareness of all this, which is real meditation, has revealed that there is a central image put together by all the other images, and the central image, the observer, is the censor, the experiencer, the evaluator, the judge who wants to conquer or subjugate the other images or destroy them altogether. The other images are the result of judgements, opinions and conclusions by the observer, and the observer is the result of all the other images - therefore the observer is the observed."

Commentaries On Living Series II Chapter 50 Convictions--Dreams

Mind

2011-05-31T12:13:00.001+05:30

–noun

(in a human or other conscious being) the element, part,substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills,perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind.

Psychology . the totality of conscious and unconsciousmental processes and activities.

intellect or understanding, as distinguished from the facultiesof feeling and willing; intelligence.

Mind is definitely not an organ part of human physionlogy. The definition in terms of psychology is more apt.

In terms of understanding what brings about a chane in the quality of a mind, an analysis of all aspects of human thought and the physiological changes associated with the working of the "mind" is of utmost significance.

Change!!!!

2011-05-27T16:09:00.000+05:30

I want to change!

I don't like a thing about myself, and would like to re-create 'myself' in a way a painter creates newer layers of perspective over the botched strokes of a painitng gone wrong. Don't get me wrong. I do not hate my self. The obsessive pre-occupation with my own persona is the culprit.

This question of change throws up a lot of questions that never arise in a sequence or follow a definite logic. It's more or less a chaotic "stream-of-consciousness". So I do not have the luxury of knowing where to start and which question to answer first.

Questions

Who am I?
Why did I tell my best friend that he is as big an idiot as I?
Why don't I rise early in the morning?
Am I getting older and kinkier?
Why did I spend so much money on a car that I began to hate the moment I drove out of the showroom?
Why did I dream of running a marathon against Yousuf Raza Gilani?
Why am I constantly being choked on a mysterious pang of guilt and shame?
Why does Sachin suck at T20?
Why don't I get along with most people?
When would I stop asking uncomfortable questions?

The list is long and uninteresting. However, I need to make a start. Reason, I am not getting any younger. The train may drop me at a station where I am the only person alive or dead. And, I have to find out answers to at least some of the questions on the list.

Where should I begin? See ... what I mean :)

I have been doing a little reading. Apparently there are actually a few people alive and many dead who do not need to answer any questions any more. There are theories after theories, books after books that may help in answering some of the questions.

Reading should help but it doesn't.

Because, I can't go by other people's version of change and achieving self realisation -- a perpetual state of being with no thought ... thus no questions. SIMPLE.

Since the questions are mine, the answers should be mine. I am looking for a discovery of my own, an experience, a belief! A truth so true that I say "NO KIDDING"!

How?

surenderpanthri's photostream

2011-05-27T15:08:00.001+05:30

surenderpanthri's photostream on Flickr.

DSC_6621

2011-05-27T14:20:00.001+05:30

DSC_6621, a photo by surenderpanthri on Flickr.

Knock on the door!

2008-07-21T20:20:00.000+05:30

When some one stands outside And refuses to knock the door Who sidles inside on silent steps

Why are Rajputs opposing Jodha Akbar

2008-01-28T18:59:00.000+05:30

http://www.saharasamay.com/samayhtml/articles.aspx?newsid=93683 The above news story created a flutter few days back. Rajputs are suppossed to be angry about distortion of historical facts in the film Jodha Akbar. They want to stall the rlease of the film. At the rate people are opposing such trivial issues like a movie, I wonder if we should get the censor board to screen all the proposals that are turned into the film. This is totally, completely, utterly bizzare, Jodha Akbar is not about history. It is most likely an artists impression of facts. I think Rajputs who oppose Jodha Akbar should dig wells in the desert rather than create a fuss over a movie which would be forgotten after it completes its run on the box office.

जोधा Akbar: History is boring.

2008-01-28T18:39:00.000+05:30

Bollywood is typically averse to historicals. Shear economics of providing reasonable production value to a project is a massive deterrant. Moreover, there is a strong view amongst filmmakers that Indians are more interested in mythologies than histories. History is boring. In last ten years I can remember of only one historical attempted by any hindi filmmaker -- ASOKA. The only reason this movie actually got made is Shahrukh Khan. In spite of his blockbuster successes, the superstar had been criticised for his lack of versatility and inane performances. ASOKA was his gateway to eternity. Santosh Sivan sold the story of ASOKA, the lover and peace-maker, with greta conviction. What audiences got to see was a lopsided story of a pansy king, strutting coyishly in a carnival in Rio. We don't like our kings chasing dumb-belles outdoors. We would much rather have them fighting tame adversaries, astride their elephants. Unfortunately, Shahrukh and Santosh Shivan were too keen on romance than history. The audiences welcomed the movie with a quiet no--there was not a soul (dead or alive) in the theaters after the first few shows. With the baggage of such a disappoiting precedent, here comes Ashotosh Gowarikar with his Magnum Opus Jodha . Promos look good. After the success of Lagaan, Ashutosh's movies have always been able to create decent buzz. Music has played some role in creating hype. Remember, Swadesh. Rehman was at top of his game. This time around, the soundtrack of Jodha Akbar hasn't really set the market on fire. Feel of the music is in sync with the theme but it lacks the zing. In this one, Ashwarya Rai looks exquisite, but Hritik looks a tad out of place. I am not sure if he would be able top pull it off in Jodha Akbar. I just pray the movie is as good as it promises to be. Jodha Akbar is significant, because ashutosh is making it. If the film succeeds, it will pave way for historicals in bollywood.

Jodha Akbar Songs

2008-01-28T18:09:00.000+05:30

The songs of Jodha Akbar are unique and fresh for a period film. Music Director A.R. Rahman has done justice to the songs and lyricist Javed Akhtar has penned lyrics apt to the period. As he had said at the launch of the film's music, the words must seem of the Mughal era but they should also be understaood by the masses of today. With all the remix beats and disco numbers, it might be difficult for the music to strike a cord with the public, it however will appeal to people who like classical based music. "Khwaja Mere Khawaja," sung by A.R Rahman has a Sufi appeal, and can be identified with similar numbers in the past like "Piya Haji Ali." "Azeemo-O-Shaan" is another good number with strong beats or rather battle beats and then in between celebration and praise of Akbar. Sounds cool. Melody wise "Jashn-E-Bahar" is nice and soothing. The lyrics of all the songs are a mix of Urdu and a bit rajasthani-UP dialect. Instrumental versions of songs have also been added to the album. Overall a good one. It will be worth the wait to see their picturisation on the big screen.

Amazing stills from Jodha Akbar

2008-01-18T17:58:00.000+05:30

These stills give a prewiew of Ashutosh Govarikar's magnus opus. The trailers on T.V somehow don't capture the grandeur.

$2,500 car: Where to drive & Where to Park?

2008-01-11T10:21:00.000+05:30

Tata Nano has surely been welcomed with eager bear hugs. Ordinary man walking down the street would like to change the way he travels. Industry bigwigs have hailed it as nothing short of a revolution. Still, skeptics have turned their back on this marvel from TATA's. There are some basic questions that have to be answered before 'people's car' begins to zip across town. Where the hell are we going to drive? Where's the parking space? Accordingt o consercative estimates Tatas must sell at least 300,00 cars per annum. No car in India has sold as many units. 500,000 units is what make this 'people's car' profitable. Let's imagine that tat's actually sell close to 250,000 Nanos a year. How is it going to change the way we drive in next five years? Our metropolises are bursting at seams. Traffic movement is slowing down. Moreover, there is no space for parking. In next ten years, the number of private vehicles on Indian roads will increase manifolds. Thanks to NANO! Are we ready for this deluge? I don't think so. It takes me about 60 minutes to travel less than 21 kilometers in mumbai. What's going to happen in next 10-15 years? 10 kilometers an hour. Quiet possible. India's economic growth is increasingly leaving people with more disposable income. You can't stop people from spending that money. They will buy cars, NANO looks a very good product. Is the government doing enough. Is the infrastructure in India ready to handle this torture. Not quiet. This is high time. Indian government creats a long term plan. Planning ahead is the only solution. Plan which takes into account possibilities for next 150 years. It's simply not about building roads. Public transport, creating spaces in the cities, creating satelling cities, distribution of revenue generating businesses across larger areas, strengthening smaller metroplitan cities etc. Let's stop worrying about planet earth. At the rate we are destroying nature in the name of development we're doomed for sure. I have started building an ark, and hoarding life saving stuff. Let's raise the toast to NANO.

Tata Nano: Best small car?

2008-01-11T10:13:00.000+05:30

TATA Nano: 1 Lakh Car Source: The Times of India 10, Jan, 2008 Dimensions: 3.1 metres (10.23 feet) long, 1.5 metres wide and 1.6 metres high. Can seat four to five people. Engine: A two cylinder 623 cc, 33 horsepower rear mounted, all aluminium, multi-point fuel injection petrol engine can power the car to top speeds of 105 kilometres per hour (65 miles per hour). Fuel Efficiency: 20 kilometres per litre, or 50 miles per gallon is claimed. Pollution: Exceeds Indian regulatory requirements and can meet strict Euro IV emission standards. In terms of overall pollutants, Tata says the car is better than two-wheelers manufactured in India currently. Safety: Car exceeds current regulatory requirements with a strong passenger compartment, crumple zones, intrusion resistant doors, seat belts, strong seats and anchorage. Initial Annual Production Target: 250,000 units to rise later to 350,000. PRICE: Basic model price 100,000 rupees (2,500 dollars) plus tax and transport costs, which will bring on the road price to at least 120,000 rupees. The price of two deluxe models that will include air-conditioning and other features to be announced later. Nearest Domestic Car Rival: Maruti 800, part of Japanese-owned Suzuki Maruti stable whose base model sells for about 4,800 dollars -- nearly double the price of the Nano. Nearest International Rival: China's Chery QQ which retails for 3,600 dollars. Sales: Tata will focus on selling the car in India for the next two to three years, before eyeing Latin American and Southeast Asian markets. Market: India's car market is a huge draw because car penetration is just seven per 1,000 people, compared to 550 per 1,000 in such countries as Germany or 476 in France, according to the Society of Indian Automobiles. Company Details: Tata Motors is India's largest vehicle company with revenues of 7.2 billion dollars in 2006-2007. It is the leader in commercial vehicles, such as trucks and buses, and the second largest in passenger vehicles. There are over four million Tata vehicles on Indian roads.

1-Lakh Car

2008-01-10T17:38:00.000+05:30

Tata Nano was launched today. Mr. Rata Tata drove in to uncover one of Indian auto industry's best kept secrets in recent times. There has been a lot of hype around the lanunch of this car, and justifiably so. Standards of living have been raised; why should only the rich have all the fun.

However, I am not too excited. I am a lazy person. I drive a bike these days but ... it is more of a avoidable necassity.

Environmentalists are worried. More cars means, more fuel consumption, and more pollution. I don't think we should worry too much about depletion of natural resources or the harm we are causing to the environment.

Let's worry about how we are going to fit in an AC inside a one-Lakh car!

Waterfall Rappling

2007-12-25T16:19:00.000+05:30

First Steps Down!

Shake it!

Shower Wash!

Knee Deep in Troubled Waters!

Camping on an Island in river Kundalika

2007-12-25T16:06:00.000+05:30

Treading the Iron Line on Kundalika!

Solitary bough kissing the river!

Shimmer in the river - Kayaking in Kundalika!

The crowded boat!

How many man must a tent need!

Adventures in kundalika, Kolad, Maharashtra

2007-12-25T15:14:00.000+05:30

Camping trip to Kolad, Kundalika in Maharashtra

To cross or not to cross a river Kundalika

Wilful drowning of a non-swimmer in Kundalika!

Green grass, Blue Sky, It's a beautiful world in Kolad!

Mad, Mad, Whirl of Kundalika!