Cranberry Sauce

Simulator's dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:15:00 PST

The fabric of the universe is robust, yet intricate and quite tenacious. I often wonder why people act the way they do, but I find this is more difficult to decipher than first appears. Events around a person shape a person, who subsequently incluences subsequent events around him. We are all entangled in a causal loop with no definite start or end point (at least thats what the observer inside the system is led to believe). A suboptimal control over situations poses the need for predictability, but the very nature of human behaviour and the unfolding of situations is dependent on each other. And this one is led to conclude that to deterministically figure out the outcome of one situation, one would have to track back to the origin of time and solve equations all along. This leads us (me, at least) to believe that if the 'nurture' argument along with 'determinism' is assumed, one would either find the solution to every situation that could ever unfold, or none. Engineering promises approximate solutions to some situations, but if the butterfly effect is to be believed, approximations would lead us nowhere and every once in a while our approximate model would go horribly wrong and lead us to a regrettable conclusion. However, don't humans also make horrible judgments sometimes? I guess an approximating algorithmic machine can then approximately resemble a human, with encoded notions of regret and reinforcement learning.

So how does one apply insight in a situation and use intuitive or calculative predictive power to get the best out of it - either in terms of maximising reward/profit/pleasure or minimising punishment/loss/pain? Surely, we all have inbuilt mechanisms that try its best to get the best exchnge out of a situation. Arguable, some people's internal algorithms are better than others. And hence we see people with similar education, economic and social stature getting different value out of similar situations. It is certainly of interest to mankind to induce equality among masses by optimising people's decisions to make the 'most' out of a situation, given an individual's notion of best case scenario, coupled with his intellectual, economic and social capacity.

I am of the strong opinion that we would all love to possess sufficient power in a situation to have things our way, which could be as trivial as having a good evening, or as big as ruling the world. And we often act in suboptimal ways, overlooking some important details like an adamant competitor or rain or alcohol as determinants in the actual merit of our choices. The sooner do we a) start getting what we want out of situations (maybe by trying out different things), b) realising that we're doing a good job (conscious awareness), and c) figuring out exactly what constitutes the alteration of behaviour to optimise utility in the external world (i.e. noting What works and Why) can we device a code to optimise our (and maybe people's) decisions to almost always get the best out of situations.

Tomatoes and Melons

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:04:00 PST

This is the first time I'm pasting from another source. Its originally from the Paulo Coelho Blog (original article here), Beautiful!

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous.
I am always amazed
that so many people are concerned
with wanting to be what they are not;
what’s the point of making yourself look ridiculous?
You don’t always have to pretend to be strong,
there’s no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
you shouldn’t be concerned about what other people are thinking,
cry if you need to,
it’s good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again).

Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:57:00 PDT

Its vitally important to capture the moment when you can. I feel great right now, and know well I might not tomorrow. But its okay. I'm happy, I'm tranquil, and I can live a good chunk of my life right now. And hopefully, if I keep the momentum up, I'll be fine for a while. That's all that matters in life after all, living the moments and living up to them. During the off times, you build yourself up to life FOR the moments, in the past and the ones to come in the future. Life's not too big, a collection of a few moments is what define eras, some better and some longer than others. Its a constant fluctuation, momentary ups and downs that, averaged out make a zero sum game, or if you're lucky have an up slope. You are what you make out of yourself, and the situations around you. The best you can do is your best, and hope to have a good time along the way. Nothing else matters.

People come and go, experiences happen, memories remain. There's not much more to it. When an era ends, the best you can do is let it go, and move on in search of new adventures. The world's population just crossed seven billion. How many have you covered?

Oh man, it doesn't matter. All that matters is being happy and living a good life.

Attribution

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:46:00 PDT

You are the highest of highs

You are the reward of my toil

You are the untouchable

You are the insurmountable

You are unprotected, and thus indestructible

You are the epitome of the human spirit

Yet you're only human

That's what makes you supreme

You are the promise land... the dream destination...

You're always the goal, yet always unattained

You're the light at the end of the tunnel

Always in sight, but always far away

If only I could have you...

I would be redeemed of my sins

I would be immortal

I would be alive........

If only I could.

You're the frail beauty that perishes when possessed

But I would never know

You're the angel's voice in despair

that I have never heard

You're my saviour, my guiding spirit

The twilight of eternal youth

The elixir of life

So I'd like to believe

You're the love of my life

You're a figment of my imagination

I'm trapped in a loop of my own hope

That would never manifest, and never die.

You are the absolute

You're too good to be real

If only you were real

Are you?

But I must believe in you

To preserve the integrity of everything I stand for.

For you are the culmination of my faith

My only surviving hope.....

Before I find out otherwise.

.................................................................

"How can you ignore my faith in everything

When I know what Faith is, and what it's worth"

-Steve Harley (Make Me Smile)

That Whereby Men Live

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:40:00 PDT

I was about to write something stupid but thought against it. Metacognitive as I always am, I am aware now that my feelings might merely be a projection of a conscious reflection arising out of the superimposition of years of environmental conditioning, social structure and human evolution. In essence, I might just be constructing a reality that is made essentially out of nothing. But yet, these fictional realities sometimes overlap, sometimes coincide between two or more people, resulting in consensus. Consensus doesn’t necessitate correctness, it merely represents reinforcement arriving from mutual acceptance. The consented matter might be grounded in reality, or floating in delusion, yet for the consenting believers, that's all that matters. That is true, that is uncontested, that is given. In a sense, by the very nature of human incompetence of arriving at an absolute, only the relative can be consented on. And so, every act of consented conviction must probably arise, to some extent, out of an irrational judgement of merit made by an other-than-cognitive process. And so long as the battle is not entirely fought on terms of syllogistic logic, there is always the possibility of longevity – through compromise and adjustment. Is that really bad though? Not until one finds out otherwise. And it can still be rationalised – we're all schizophrenics that way. And how long can it last, before reality takes over? Well, it lasts some people a lifetime, and that's as long as we can measure anyway. Psychology is a science but isn't physics, minds work roughly on rules but aren't computer programmes, hearts beat but aren't mechanical pistons. Not even close. We may never find out otherwise, maybe we don't want to either. Machines don't want, we do. We desire, emote, express, feel. Machines need fuel and commands. We need love.

London is cold

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:59:00 PDT

Some say I'm on a quest to uncover the fabric of the universe. Others say I'm just kidding myself. Among the believers of the holy grail, there are some that believe I'm looking to discover myself, while others are convinced I'm trying to make sense of the people around me. And then there are some that believe that the self and the other are but trivial and inconsequential objects in the majestic vignette of the universe. And yet, for us imbeciles, we are our world. Life revolves around the self and the other, more pertinently, the significant other. We often spend lifetimes comparing and contrasting ourselves with our contemporaries, and occasionally with our ancestors. Yes, we are remarkably short sighted, but everybody is, so we're not made to feel the need to see otherwise.

I'm both amazed and vexed by the amount of time we spend trying to merge with the social structure, the latter of which is also incrementally shaped by our actions. In effect, we constantly shape and perfect a mutually accepted paradigm for all behaviour. We then feel good or bad or indifferent about ourselves with respect to the world, depending on how closely we ourselves adhere to the seemingly arbitrarily determined paradigm. Arbitrary being said, I must add that it is something that we (I for now) cannot or WILL not understand, as it might be too complicated for us (or me). But there might still exist a perfectly valid reason for which social structure is the way it is. Beats me.

Why are we constantly calibrating ourselves and our peers as against the set benchmarks of social righteousness and 'cool'ness? Why is it so unacceptable to be completely independent of what the cumulative wisdom of the society believes correct? I would love to specify an example, but run the risk of being judged in that respect, and then stereotyped and dismissed. Then again, being a psychologist I do understand the need for stereotypes and heuristics. However, we do need to get better and more discerning at it. Because right now, the rate of misses and false alarms is ridiculously high.

The world creates this out of us. Then again, we created and continue to create the world as it stands. Suspicion always comes before trust. A stranger always first belongs to an outgroup, not ingroup. Does it really have to be so? Can our neurons be rewired, and our preferences modified, just like they are done by commercial advertising? We need more love, more energy and more trust. And thats got noting to do with the lack of sunshine in London.

Possible Worlds: An Interpretation

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 12:22:00 PDT

(Warning: The following review contains spoilers. Please watch the movie before reading this. For an introduction, read my post HERE)

George Barber is a mathematical genius that works in a corporate firm. Due to his psychic abilities, he can 'see' himself simultaneously living out his life in parallel universes. In each of the possible worlds exists Joyce, playing different roles in George's life (a dead wife, a casual partner and a stranger).

At the beginning of the movie, George is found murdered with his brain extracted. Detective Berkeley and his sidekick try to investigate this crime throughout the film. This is interspersed with flashbacks of George's different lives.

In the end, the detectives figure that Doctor Kleber, a brain scientist murdered George so he could study and manipulate his brain. George's brain, still 'alive' and fundamentally conscious is brought back to Joyce.
In the last scene, George's brain simulates a romantic evening at the seaside with Joyce. Here he notices some strange blinking light (the light flashing on the brain apparatus) in the distance, and asks Joyce if they should do something about it. After a while, the blinking stops (when Joyce turns off the brain's life support system) and the movie ends.

Now, it is known that Kleber collects intelligent human brain to study them, and he probably got to know about George during their interview in the mental hospital. But is that all, or are all the scenes relived by George actually mental simulations, artificially created after he was killed?

Also,in the 'life' where George met Kleber, he had attacked the 'stranger' Joyce. But then, after he was killed, Joyce lamented the loss of her husband.

I will admit I didn't understand the movie entirely, and I hope thats my shortcoming, and not a conceptual flaw of the film. Any comments?

Order and Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:39:00 PDT

Life is as random as can be. Ubuntu is good, but the grass is always greener on the other side. Web horcruxes means that my life isn’t really my own, even in the individualist west. I’m so well connected, like everyone else, that life doesn’t really require human intervention to run. It runs almost in autopilot mode, just like the myriad tech gadgets that we now use. Sometimes, it proceeds without an administrator password, making it appear that my life isn’t my own after all, but a coordinate in a haphazard conglomeration of entities incapable of self existence, adding up to a complex dynamic system called society. I wish I could use the word robust or systematic, if only I could make sense of it.

Maybe, just like ant colonies, we're not meant to comprehend the role of an individual in the bigger picture and yet contribute to it. However, a human ostensibly possesses consciousness, and hence is constantly aware of most of the things s/he does. This is the perfect recipe for questions, self-doubt and a general feeling of randomness. Who knows, ants must feel random and pointless too, in their own homuncular way, just like us(?). I maintain, one man's random chaos is another superman's perfectly logical causal chain of events. Who's to say if we're the most cognizant, discerning creatures the universe has ever seen? We may never know...

Which is why it is terribly important to make sense of our lives the best we can, given our mortal constraints, and leave the rest to chance, probability and noise. If we didn't have any of that, academicians like me would have nothing to study. Curiously enough, systematic trends are the easiest to study, its the deviations that we take all our lives trying to figure out. Most of us, however, just (sometimes unwillingly, even unconsciously) submit to the paradigm. And yet, the paradigm is shaped by each one of us, infinitesimally incremented with each contributing member.

It hard to imagine life any other way, just like it is hard to perceive that we're moving at a speed of 470 metres every second, just like it is difficult to diagnose yourself through introspection. Its called reference frame in Physics, it is called anchoring in Psychology. Sometimes, all that's necessary is a change of reference, a little de-conditioning. The observer of a system must lie outside of it.

We look at different places for the same thing. We market ourself differently, but talk about the same things. We're all looking for the same thing; and its NOT money. Monetary motivation is just a byproduct of the system we're anchored to, and is constantly positively and negatively reinforced so as to lead us to the illusion that money is the solution to everything. Not necessarily true. Almost certainly not true. It is however interesting to study why we ended up this way... lusting money, killing brothers, living in selfish greed and coveting power over people. Something somewhere went terribly wrong... but was it inevitable? And is our fate in this world also inevitable? Where's the free will? Where's the love?

When will we get our heads out of our asses and voluntarily work together for the best of us? Come back to the question..... What Matters?
Think

Independent Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:11:00 PST

Sleepless Night

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:41:00 PST

6:05 AM

I guess I have nothing much to do otherwise, so I’ll just write. Such moments of paradoxes, existential or otherwise, should rightfully be celebrated by writing about them. And that being said, I do feel like a sell-out again, and the self-reinforcing loop continues. The self-loathing is strong, it always has been. An endured punishment called existence. I might sound too full of myself, but that’s not necessarily true. Besides, alternate techniques of living a life have somehow eluded me. Not that I am complaining; I’d only know what I’m missing out on if I knew what it’s like to be otherwise. But then, the design is robust, and the curtains provide good insulation from light, so I (we) might never know. This last comment was entirely uncalled for; I just pretended to rise above my own problems and generalise them to the world, thus demeaning people around for my own flaws. Nice try, Watson.

Turns out that the once sleep-hungry procrastinator has turned into a sleep-deprived procrastinator. The suffix remains the same. Ah well, at least I can say I’m working on it now. Not sure how effective the working is though. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy seems no more credible than voodoo; the latter at least has strong effects when it does (ostensibly) work. CBT is just one of those legal conning systems, just like banks.

Paradoxes are beautiful, but they’re utterly frustrating and if you dwell on them a little more, incapacitating. Yet, there exist far too many of them to lead a normal (as prescribed) life, and yet we must try to lead normal lives, walking around these paradoxes, while denying their existence. A simulator’s nightmare, I must say again.

So either I’m too stuck up with my loopy, unrealistic idealistic thoughts; or the rest of the world is stuck up in a warp of their own s***. Statistics says, I’m probably the outlier and hence must be discarded. The model has errors, but they’re on the whole not too significant. Oh we have a perfect distribution, consistent and what not; but the mean is off by a few light years. Then again, we’ve defined our own terms for consistency, but who’s to say we’ve been consistent with it? It’s all a big paradox. Come to think of it; life is a paradox, is a paradox. Nested function; infinite regression.

Recursive definitions are fun. They’re also the negation of linearity, and decomposability. Maybe God does exist after all. Ah well, let’s have another beer.

New Year's

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:22:00 PST

And so I am invited to write by my Other self. There isn't a theme in particular to write on, but then, there rarely is. Oddly enough, it is New Year's day, although by the time I publish this (if I do), it wll be past midnight. Its a fairly monumental day to write on, and hence I shall coax myself to ramble on. Its funny, the climax of 'When the music's over' is playing in the background, and nothing else (eg. blogging) can really matter, but then, here I am, a living contradiction of ideals, as I constatly violate the ideals I stand for. It's all good, I remind myself, and decide to write on, the whole idea now seeming more pointless than ever before. It would make a modicum of sense if I actually wrote about something at all, instead of being self obsessed that I am, accentuated when i'm drunk. I could write about the action packed, fun filled (?) last week or so I've had. Matter of fact, it's an rollercoaster continuum that I can't put start and end tag to, but hey, that's what bloggers and other sellouts (tweeters, facebookers and socialites in general) do, don't they? I must be consistent with the stereotype.

So I visited Bath, Bristol, Portsmouth, Ipswich and Oxford; saw a multitude of museums, churches, abbeys, castles, mansions and other structures with pointy tops. I was in the company of ostensibly interesting people, and I had a fairly questionably good time, just like everything else I do. Question is, how is one kind of enjoyment different from another anyway? Isn't having a wonderful dream while in bed at home an equivalent high to a potential, probabilistic joy that you might receive by visiting the oldest, largest and best museum, cathedeal or university in the world? I mean, it is an elicitation of a brain state, or is it? I've had one of the best times of my (present day) life having an argument about an age-old and thoroughly impractical concept, like free will, with a bunch of psychology students. It's given me more joy than any trip abroad would ever give (I could be wrong, of course). I just don't see the point of spending tens and hundreds of pounds "exploring" the world, "being" with good people (it often ends up being just people, desperate as you are), and "experiencing" "joy" in the "feeling" of "oneness", of "connecting", "sharing" and "living" the moment. A simulator's nightmre I must admit. On a more rational and unbiased note, honestly, isn't it possible to do all this without all the hype, glitz and prodigality of a typical Londoner? I mean, how hard can it be to be in good company and have a good time? Why the whole artificial social structure? Really, why?

I know it's New Year's (just like it was Christmas a week back [and I must admit, the festive spirit did feel good]), and don't get me wrong, I did have an excellent time. But I still wonder, what really matters? The fireworks display at London Eye was excellent, but there was immense social pressure involved in organizing and attending it, all parties involved, let alone the monetary and energy costs. I wonder why people can't all just stay home, maybe with a loved one, eat home healthy food, and meditate. That's a good New Year's eve plan right there. Why the intoxication, why the long travel, why the need to belong to a group or a person? For God's sake, snap out of it. you're complete and happy, and you don't need a "successful" (i.e. something that you can brag about) New Year's eve to convince yourself that you are happy and that everything's alright in life. You are, and it is!.... Just be! Live the moment, don't make extravagent plans in the probabilistic hope of having a prospecive good time. It's all rather artificial and result-oriented. Just live now, the way it is, it's perfect, it's beautiful. See it!

Kit-Kat

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 08:53:00 PST

The paradigm is fine while it lasts, but what happens when it breaks down? Do you then do as per what you learnt in the paradigm, or do you change? But how exactly do you change - the paradigm has defined yourself, including your knowledge to change. What about the time when external reality has no internal reference? Is it still reality then? what if there's no going back to the old paradigm - will you still survive, in hiding or otherwise, or will you rise and morph, change, transform, transcend yourself, in an attempt to survive... or will you transform the external force, thereby acting as the driving force in the paradigm shift that you were so afraid to be exposed to. Is this exposition called adaptation or evolution.... or is it shaking hands with the devil? For the latter at least, you must have known what you call the devil to now reconcile with it. Most of us do, but then most of us are far far off the mark with reality. Yes, the same reality that varies from me to you, but which still we feel compelled to bind under one name (and hence existence, form and structure). Of course, we all have a flawed perception of reality (as with time, space, love, life and everything else), but who's to tell otherwise? The insulation is seamless, the paradigm is robust, almost flawless..... most of the time. But when it does break down, and it will, whatever I've written won't matter anyway. Go figure.

One of these days

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 02:00:00 PST

Long silky hair.... albino white.... ripped abs.... flexed biceps.... untrembling hands.... that look of raw intensity in the eyes.... axe in hand.... blood on face, hands, clothes.... the blinding lights.... the deafening silence.... the careless beauty in the inanimate eyes.... the face of horror and satisfaction.... the mirth of breaking even.... long, long silence...........................

regret

The inaudible scream of the butterfly.

please wake me up, mother.......... please put me to sleep

The observer - I

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:02:00 PST

It would seem as if diversification is the key to relative happiness; when you got nothing to lose then baby you’ve got it all? Why is it then, that we are constantly driven by vertical goals, every now and then at least?

There comes a point in your life (every now and then at least) when you’ve expended yourself sufficiently to be reasonably reluctant of playing out the remainder of your cards too, if there are any left.

Solitude helps, but not explicitly. Solitude kills, but comfortably. Maybe you rise after that, maybe you fall deeper. Hopefully, you reach a point when it doesn’t matter, and either outcome leads to the same singularity. That is the dream. But they say dreamers are very impractical. Time will not tell. Dreamers will continue to dream by the nature of their circumloquacious ontology. That’s their flaw… and their merit. It’s the same.

A sage is not a doctor – the ability to see your own misery guarantees no solution, it might even insulate you from a potential one.

As they say, zero-sum must be preserved. The re-emergence of an old friend necessitates the departure of the present one; actually the latter heralds the former on its way out.

I propounded this once, in youthful naivety, but I say it now, the same words but maybe a different framework: beauty and pain are inseparably and inevitably tied. The capacity to appreciate beauty comes (maybe) from the capacity to feel pain. The adjudicator of good has to graduate through the test of the not so good, the bad, the ugly, and the horrible. What’s more, the adjudicator needs to be constantly subjected to all The Others, and often spend more time researching the horrible, to still be competent enough to tell one apart from the other. It’s a nightmare for us mortals, but to him, it’s the joy of alchemy.

An eventful Independence Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:08:00 PDT

First of all, I’d like to wish Happy Independence Day to all my readers. Today was a day of a national reconciliation for me (like many other of my compatriots). Yet, the national experience of today has been different than previous ones, towards the worse. Although I am more aware about my country today than I was yesterday, I feel no prouder of my country. The feeling I have today is of disappointment (and not disillusionment, mind you). I still believe in my country and its potential to be the world’s finest, but today, I must criticize it for the state of affairs that pervade it.

Incidentally, I watched the movie Peepli Live today, and it left me disappointed and depressed. I already know the current state of India, how it is soiled in corruption, red tape and dirty politics – what I didn’t learn is how can I make a difference… what I, the Common Man of India can do today to ensure a more prosperous tomorrow. The movie had plenty of Masala, its fair share of Profanities (were they trying to say its commonplace in India? – I know that too), lots of humour, pathetic and sorry humour that should make every Indian cry in shame about his country and vow to make a difference. But no, the effect it had on my fellow countrymen was… frantic laughter. Ironic is an understatement for the movie; Tragic is a more apt word. Tragic not because the “big-shot” director Aamir Khan decided to make a film exposing the true face of “Real India, Poor India” (yet again). No, tragic because he made no attempt at encouraging his countrymen to take some action in fixing it. He did a better job encouraging (urging) the youth to take up violent measures, through another of his blockbusters, Rang De Basanti. This movie then must be condemned by fervent nationals the same way Slumdog Millionare was… only worse… because Slumdog was a Hollywood film, made by a foreigner, who didn’t care about his country anyway. No far worse, because Aamir Khan is this self proclaimed activist and catalyst of change, who allegedly vowed to give part of his Taare Zameen Par earnings out as development fund to schools. Not a penny has been received by any school yet, says my friend, a student of politics, Devendra Pai.

It’s as simple as this – movies are made to entertain, with a side motive being educating and uplifting the masses. But movies like Peepli Live, that take India’s case apart, and that too in a cheeky mockery, must be banned from public broadcast, unless they feature some relief, some take-home for the audience, that they might use as a starting point in overcoming the same painful issues that they have now made a laughing stock of. Undoubtedly, movies direct wandering minds (youths, our country’s future), inspire and induce action – and certainly any efforts to exacerbate our country’s predicament, through the media or otherwise, must be curbed.

I also attended the #IndiBlogger Mumbai event, which saw enthusiastic participation from bloggers spanning different niches and styles, bound together by their nationality. It was a congregation of some wonderfully talented people, mostly social and tech savvy individuals, and people, who are positively devoted and driven for the development of themselves, their country and the global blogosphere. By profession, they (we) are engineers, managers, journalists, photographers and models; blogging being either their hobby, passion or profession. The level of involvement was amazing, the youthful exuberance oozing, as they (we) spoke and mingled confidently and decisively. Gul Panag graced the occasion, quite literally, with quite an engaging debate on the role of Bloggers in the Country with respect to dissemination of knowledge, information and ideas in the education sector. More importantly, we argued and consented on the effectiveness of blogging as a source of news, opinions and trends, as against conventional journalism, along with steps on how we could take it further and help affect a Blogging Revolution! It was a thoroughly satisfying evening; I met plenty of interesting people, and made some great friends and prospective blogging partners!

Talk About Feeling (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 12:54:00 PDT

Today is my day of feeling, or in the words of Edward deBono, a day for red hat thinking. Who cares if you’re a guy or a girl, you’re still way different from a monkey or a dolphin, in the sense that you can feel. So might as well make good this liberty, than feel obliged to follow gender rules set about by society, and indeed, self

Sometimes I write well, most of the times, it’s not when I want to do so. Occasionally, it’s when people want me to, but it usually is a function of the environment and my mental state (which might be the same thing). Sometimes, I surprise myself with the words that exit my mouth, or manifest through a systematic movement of my fingers. Sometimes, I pride myself at conducting my own symphony, with my mind being the baton, and my fingers the orchestra.

Without getting too technical now, I’d like to reveal in this moment of partial liberty, that it is indeed a great feeling to release your feelings, and “be true to self”. Whether it’s the correct thing to do is of academic interest, at least for these few brief moments. It’s a liberty I don't often allow myself, often equating it to sinful indulgence. Isn't it remarkable how people ordinarily are looking at opportunities to bury their true, feeling selves in the hope of achieving equanimity, hopefully for greater success ahead? But history shows us, and so does the news, that the ones who go the furthest ahead, are the ones who think from their heart. Who go with their hunches and live their dreams, instead of looking for opportunities in where people would enable them to live their own dreams. It’s hilarious and ironic at the same time, how people look for opportunities to execute their dreams in particular, and happiness in general from their external world, when, in the process, they’re only, if successful, unleashing the power of dreaming and feeling happy in their own selves. Take a person's looks for example, or the notion of love, both of which are deeply rooted in the social revolution that has been carried out chronologically by night clubs, cafes, the telephone and now Facebook.

(At this point, I lost interest writing and started chatting instead, hence confirming and conforming to the social revolution, which might have taken away people's ability to think with their hearts and write with their minds, for purposes other than seeking approval from arbitrarily determined human references.)

Internal Conversation

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:27:00 PDT

It's nothing really. The magnitude seldom, if ever, seeps into the consciousness; the external turmoil is safely padded by layers of rust and fat.

I used to love, and hope and fear, and feel the joy in living. Now, I feel nothing. There is a burn, steady and uneasy, but no more than that. I often wonder why it must – actually I don't.

The need to conform to a style of writing vaguely nags me, but I endure it, like dozens of others every day. My fear of writing wrong impedes me from writing at all – this must be a writer’s worst nightmare come true; after perhaps the dread of understanding the implications of his own writing.

I do believe everything is a piece of a large montage that will eventually add up; but then I have begun to realise it might be beyond human capacity to see it.

I cling persistently to the thought that another world exists somewhere and that I wouldn't have to get my hands dirty after all. But it seems only a matter of time now.

The more the random real and the Utopian dream rift, the more I find myself being stretched, trying to keep a foot in both boats, deferring the point where I must make a choice by a few more moments.

I have lately often found myself saying – what is there to do in life? I wonder if any among mothers, money or medicines have the answer to it.

I turn within for answers and hit a brick wall. I look outside and get mocked.

The more I learn, the more I am driven inward.

Every time I publish one of these, I sell a part of my soul.

But I do survive, and I will.

I hope.

Schlum-Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:23:00 PDT

A few years (maybe months) back I was thinking about the feeling of being stuck in a slimy, not-so-pleasant situation, and that (as my family’s economic stature improves) I hope to never go through those awkward, messy ordeals again.

Then today I had a conversation with the omelette-wala (from whose stall I eat boiled eggs everyday). We were just having a general conversation, and I told him how my friends needed a “cheap” accommodation, nothing more than 10k a month. Some people might beg on streets, some might be overwhelmed in grief and shame, this guy looked me into the eye and the conversation continued. I later realized he’s living with his wife and two very young daughters in a single room with a shared bathroom for 1.2k a month. He, with his 2-3k a month is supporting a family of four. A moment back I was rattling on about the desperate need for air conditioning and a fridge in summer. I was left silenced a couple of minutes later when I realized this guy lives in a roof of tin. And that today his wife was sick, so he took her to the doctor who charged 800 bucks. That's a month’s expenditure. And yet, yet, I feel the need to bargain with him for the price of a boiled egg. We affluent people feel compelled to rob each penny off the poor, keeping them from making their bare minimum and leading a more “normal” life. We also feel compelled to throw money in the thousands, just to maintain our social stature and gel in with the people around us.

The above story is but one of the millions of “true stories” that are the lives of people in our own country. It’s not one from those National Geographic documentaries on India, this one is for real – this story is being narrated to us at every footpath, every junction, every corner of our vast, diverse country. Today, we Indians are bounded together by poverty, and this is for real. Do not for a moment condemn Slumdog for having shown a biased picture of India – it has only (to a very small part) opened our eves for something that is ubiquitously visible in our country – if only we choose to see it.

We living in the posh world may never know what its like for them. And for people like him, they may never for a day live the life that we take for granted to be our birthright. What we spend in an inspired moment of lavishness is their budget for a month. When we scorn at “those people on the streets” and curse them for being “the cursed people”, have we ever, for once, asked ourselves, How is this fair? No, we consider it below our dignity to even consider what life must be on the other side. All we know is that some Bill Gates and some Mukesh Ambani is better off financially then we are, and hence we are underprivileged. But what about those who toil all day and still can’t manage to feed their families. We complain about boring lectures and pointless faculty, but what about those who can’t go to school, because they simply cannot afford it. We entertain (and sometimes amuse) ourselves at the sight of the poor little parentless kid in Africa, “our heart goes out to him”, and we clutch our partner/spouse tighter, in the comfort & safety of our living rooms. All that transpires from that torrid visual is a moment of fake sympathy, a vow to “serve humanity”, and promptly another mouthful of popcorn. Fact is, it is virtually impossible to see things from their perspective – such is the vast gap. Between whom – people of the physical and mental composure as you, created with the same intelligence, the same set of feelings, dreams and aspirations? Here is the million dollar question – what right do we have to discriminate amongst ourselves, depriving others of the basic needs while we go about satisfying our latest fads? Who gave a mortal human being the right to create hierarchy among himself, such that one section of the society will forever live as a slave of the other?

The next time you crib about your drink not having enough ice-cubes, think again.

gg

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:47:00 PST

Monday, February 1, 2010
11:00 PM

Alright, I can see the fabric of the universe... now what? Turns out, knowing the code isn’t enough – there’s always the question ‘how’re you going to apply it?’They talk about Code Division Multiple Access; well yes, the code is there for all to access, but actually accessing it is something else.

I know (at least better than a few people I know) what the basic laws of the universe. Hell, I preach it all the time – which of course is evident from the rapidly plunging balance on my phone every month. The point is – the laws alone aren’t good enough.

There’s no point being a know-it-all guy looking at the world from a bird’s eye and passing comments as to who should be doing what. The point is, I’m not God; I’m just a human. And although I can see things coming, I must actually devise means of getting over them. It’s the age old consideration of idealism vs. practicality. What good is my knowledge when I still feel like miserable and sick with the ways of the world each day? What's the whole point of this knowledge if I’m driven to cut myself every night?

The knowledge pf man is best certified by his actions, not words. If I can’t handle the everyday attrition that worldly life brings – how am I better than the laborer who toils for his meals everyday…? I’m probably worse off.

Ah yes, the genius is bound to come to his own eventually, but then, life doesn’t last forever. Neither is the world isn’t going to wait until your death to judge you. Making it count is paramount, undoubtedly; but there’s also a finite timeframe in which one must make it count, or forever hold one’s peace.

Isn’t it symbolic, me stumbling at every block, that I haven’t yet learnt the ways of the world. It’s the difference between science and engineering. One talks about the laws that bind each one of us. The other takes these laws, builds its own rules based on what actually works, and actually goes about implementing it. Whatever we’ve accomplished today, whatever is real and material is eventually only a brainchild of the engineering that actually put to use precise impractical universal laws. We’re living life on this earth, not playing God trying to administrate the universe at large. It’s time we (I) had a reality check, and went about solving everyday problems, than prophesying the outcome of it all. We make outcomes for tomorrow by our actions today. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity, quite literally.

Nagar

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:30:00 PST

I wish I could write about a colourful, vibrant, robust India; but I just can’t.
People here sit doing nothing at all. They love bickering about how the prices have increased, or discussing some other recent meaningless sensational incident (like a failed bank robbery).

Here I am, sitting in a stationary car, in a town/village called Nagar in Rajasthan. As I type onto my laptop, they look at me in awe and derision as if I’m holding a time machine. I am made to look a complete outcast in my attire of a shirt and jeans – people look at me as if I am the POTUS. Not very comforting at all.

As I found out, there are schools around, of all sorts – elementary, science, commerce, girls. But I don’t see anyone here who seems to have studied. This has got to change. It is just pointless for the Anil’s and the Aditya’s to be spectacularly moneyed, if the rest of the country rots in stagnation this way. These people here are perfectly able citizens of India, capable of forging a new Tomorrow for the nation. They need to be empowered enough (with money, education and health) to be able to deliver their best of their faculties.

Love

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:40:00 PST

People (one person in particular, hope you're listening lawyer) have often displayed reluctance, even despise in using the three magic words. In keeping with the Valentine's spirit, i've compiled the following lines to remind ourselves of our sweet ol' emotion, in anticipation of a "warmer" tomorrow.

I Love you

Because love has no reason, no rhyme,
no season, no time

Because love is blind...
and makes the world go round... and round

Because love is right, true and beautiful
The purest, richest emotion man can feel
The ability to love is man's greatest virtue.
To be loved, his greatest gift

Because love breeds trust and faith, hope and belief
Love is.. that whereby men live
It engenders the noblest of man's spirit
And makes the impossible, possible

Because love transcends space and time...
And brings people and nations together
Love brings happiness and joy to the world
The epitome of life and youth

Because love is free for all, with no taxes or hidden costs
Free as the air...

Because love is in the air... and contagious too!
So lets end with a rhyme, and say I love you.

PS2 Special - Jaypore!

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:44:00 PST

Sunday, January 24, 2010
2:00 PM

The year is 1950. India has recently won a long, hard-fought independence struggle. Joy is in the air. The world is still in black and white, but there is the anticipative enthusiasm of Technicolor in their lives. India, as you must’ve expected, is as much a village as it always was. Shops still sell grains by the quintal – hoarding them in front of their shops. Women of the household still buy supplies for the whole year. People still speak the same soft spoken but reticent traditional Hindi that their grandfathers and their grandfathers spoke. Anyone who looks anything but wheatish and rides anything but a milkman’s cycle is scorned upon. The roads are deserted, except for rundown cars, a few bicycles and a brand new 50cc motorbike parked alongside. Little girls run on roads of sand and gravel, barefoot, without a sense of purpose of concern. There is a park nearby, all the seats of which are broken – maybe they were never made in the first place. The swing seats are broken too, except one – on which a 6 year old boy rides without forbearing or disguise. Beside him, kids are climbing on poles, going upside down, performing acrobatic stunts that the local circus clowns would be proud of. There is construction work going on – mostly by hand. A solitary hen cocks away into the afternoon, a few dogs bark in general annoyance. The whole place is full of pleasant placidity and the stale stagnation of a village that has maintained its tradition and practices in spite of the rest of the world having moved to cars, airplanes, laptops, the internet, Victoria’s Secret, Barack Obama, and most importantly; the crossing over of a millennium. What these perversely orthodox “villagers” of Jaipur city might not have realized is that we’re living in 2010; 60 years since when this lifestyle was in vogue. I’m not saying it’s abhorrent or derogatory, just the its way too old fashioned. Wake up India, Grow out of your glorious slumberous shell – and move into the second decade of the 21st century… all 1.2 Billion of you. Look at the United States of America in the eye, and give then what they deserve – more cheese in their burger, and extra-large fries with that. Throw your cheap dual SIM phones back to the Chinese; it’s time we made some ourselves.

PS2 - Episode 6

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:39:00 PST

Monday, January 18, 2010
10:45

Bertrand Russell once said, as a law of nature, the total entropy of the universe must increase. It's your own entropy that you must decrease, at the cost of the universe.

Here I am, on this momentous day, doing only something that I must, at all costs, do. This undoubtedly marks the beginning of an era, if not an end to the former.

I have moved in… to a house. I am going to be living here for five months (at least), and this is a decision I have taken myself, with full knowledge of its consequences, considering every minute pro and con… and eventually, I have deferred myself to the hands of another human being – by choice. It has been a relative choice, of course; not absolute by any means. I can't overemphasize this – I have decided to live with and in the house of someone, completely by choice. I have now, in the truest sense of the term, become social. This place is weird – it has the elegance of a small palace, and the shabbiness of a rundown cowshed. It combines the lavish vastness of a mother's unlimited love with the agonizing disconsolation of an indifferent step-mother.

Without being compelled to find apt words, I shall ramble on. This place is massive. It's a proper three storey climb before I can get to my room. It has the potential to look like a king's castle. For my 3.5k, I can avail of a big bedroom, bathroom (with a heating rod and an aquaguard installation :| ), a mini-kitchen-like platform and sink, a refrigerator, a TV (?), an internet connection (??), and a vent from which cool air shall be unleashed when it finally gets hot. It Is a little far from my workplace, but hey, whoever said you can't have it all… must probably be dead by now. The room has two beds, mattresses, blankets (arriving soon), a HUGE double almirah and a showcase full of books, mostly on management psychology (!). I even get a complementary laundry and housekeeping services (which is a fancy way of saying they've hired a maid), and have a 5.5ft long, 3.5ft tall dog (though gorilla would be more apt).

Of course, not everything's right here. This place is outright disorderly. There's kites and toothpaste and blades and empty water bottles and doors that don't close shut, and taps that don't work. However, things are beginning to take shape since Mrs. Gupta arrived – I now have a proper bed with cover, a rug, and the water finally works. Ah chuck it; I'm talking like the housewife. Point is, beginning of a new era has been marked, and now I shall embark on it rather than gossiping about every bit – I have a life to live after all.

PS2 - Episode 5

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:01:00 PST

Friday, January 15, 2010
11:08 PM

Bloody hell, this has been the craziest day in Jaipur yet, and that’s saying something! Its certainly been the most tiring in a long long time. I’ve only just got back to my room, and haven’t even eaten yet – that hasn’t happened often here. I now know more about Jaipur in 10 days than I’ve known Mumbai in a lifetime. Oh I’ve practically roamed half the city today, majority of it on foot… and enjoyed every bit of it! Let me say this on camera – I love Jaipur City.

It all started rather late. I realized last night, much to my joy and agony (both for obvious reasons) that I have access to free, fast, unlimited and unrestricted internet at my own guest house, and that I have been the biggest douche bag in the world to have wandered across town in search of cyber cafés. So, in the spirit of mouth-watering-perverse-greed, I set about downloading and uploading as much as I could, in the limited two days of internet I would get. Inevitably, it was 2:30 when I finally slept. My highly reliable alarm in the morning was – the room service guy getting me tea at 8... Which of course he didn’t. So instead I woke up at 9:45 (yes, work starts at 9) and set about my not unusual panicky haste of getting things in order and running for my life. Well, turns out that an Idea Cabbie just about arrived when I was leaving my room, and on it were three chicks (two of them were pretty hot). Yes, it all sounds like a fairytale, but I swear it’s all true (apart from a few narrative simplifications… and a little artistic imagination :-P).

Most of the day was mundane drudgery, however, we did go to a site and checked-out how and why what was done where, by whom (more drudgery). I must say the most exciting part of the day was when our project mentor Mr. Sanjay Gautam introduced us (me) to Priyanka (“Ma’am” :-D ). Maybe someday I would redirect my readers to this blogpost - to remind you “where it all began!” Oh she’s pretty, and innocent, and stunningly pretty (wait, I already said that). She’s got dimples on both cheeks; her skin is made out of ivory, and her hair is like a warm satin blanket in the cold shivery night. And, she had come to meet me (for my housing needs), and then I went to meet her… and again… and again. Like every typical filmy romance, there is a competitor (a.k.a villain). In this case, it’s my buddy (young mentor), Vijay Pareek. He tried valiantly, in vain, in trying to drag me away from her but (I’ve put on a lot of “inertia” lately) I refused to budge and conveniently ignored buddy’s pleas as he droned away in a haze of sounds. All I could hear was her voice, all I could see was her smile, and all I felt like doing was ****(censored for family audiences). Watch this space for more on the above ;-)

Eventually, the glory of the day was marred when our mentor told us we would have to be working Saturdays too, and kept assigning us task after task, adamant that our stay at Idea must be spent doing arduous labor rather than watching pretty chicks (actually, chick). I graciously passed-on the privilege of coming on a Saturday and working overtime to my graceless friends, who accepted it hole-heartedly. Instead, I said, shall be hunting and finalizing my house tomorrow. Quite inevitably (and to my joy), I got a (two-day) extension to my guest house stay (!), due to an “emergency situation” (entirely manufactured by me)

And so, I set about manual (barefoot) house hunting. I must have easily visited 30 houses, and spoken the (nearly) same dialogue each time. Some conversations I dominated, in some I was dominated. But it was one memorable experience. The people are all warm, helpful, and genuinely pleasant. It is not uncommon for a local to go well out of his way to help a total stranger. I even went to an 18k-a-month acco in a 15 storey tower, and spoke directly to the builder himself – in his penthouse. This turned out to be quite embarrassing, as the guy (gentleman) took me quite seriously, and set his (extended) family to work on finding me a suitable place, including a semi-cute daughter :-~~. After a (warm) conversation in gujlish (Gujarati + English), a cup of (very hot) tea, and an offer to stay for free at the owner’s house, I finally managed to escape.

And so I marched along, stopping by occasionally to watch the city adorn itself as the sun set… reach its evening glory, and then de-adorn when it was time for bed. Jaipur is a buzzing city by day and a deserted village by night. After 9ish pm, the entire transport system breaks down. It really becomes the quiet, innocent Jaipur that it has been from centuries, every single night.

And today, in that innocent, placid, cold and deserted heart of Jaipur… I was stuck. Stuck some 7 kms from home, without any means of getting back! I literally waited on the street for three quarters of an hour, before finding a rickshaw-driver, that was intent of swallowing my day’s stipend in return for his services, to whom I politely said to get the f*** out. Next I boarded a cycle rickshaw, the driver of which had no clue about Jaipur. In his confident incompetence and my acute desperation, we straggled along, until we realized we had gone in the wrong direction. Promptly, I got out, gave him a tenner, and helped him along by giving him a kick in the rear. Evidently, I did eventually find a rickshaw with an engine, and did inevitably give him my day’s stipend. Along the way, we stopped for an omelette-pao parcel, while the three wheeler with the sound of a formula one car droned away. And so I did get back to my guest house in one piece, and I peed and shat in uninterrupted glory.

I sleep with a fair burden on my shoulders – of landing a house-deal by tomorrow, of preparing and delivering overtime at work, and of getting down to finally nail my applications and start my GATE preparation, but not in complete dismay. I do have an amazing day and a brilliant city to muse on, as I dose off to the provocative poses of Victoria’s Secret models on Fashion TV. And yes, there’s also the last night of free unlimited downloads! Life’s Good

PS2 - Episode 4

noreply@blogger.com (Ojas Mehta) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:44:00 PST

Sunday, January 10, 2010
9:08 PM

Oh my bloody God, what a crazy day! Every bit of it was absolutely awe-some, a true battle of attrition. I can safely say this is the coldest I have ever been, my hands are still numb. Half an hour back when I was on the bike, I actually found difficulty in speaking because of the cold. I might not be entirely sure about global warming, you know.

Yes, the official verdict is out – on Saturday night, the temperature varied from 9 deg to 3.3 deg! Now the only thing I can say about that is – that was Saturday, today is Sunday. I was out during (nearly) the coldest part of the day last night, when I trod the streets of Ghiya Marg at 10 PM. I can safely say… today was colder… by a fair margin.

My lesson learnt today is – there does exist something like unbearably cold, and yes, sometimes in life, winter protection is essential (I can hear my parents saying “duh”). Basically, I was shivering in a full t-shirt and a sweater, at 2 in the afternoon. Then I rode on a bike. I was actually properly freezing cold. Eventually, I heeded logic and the advice of Mr. Devender Soni (My new local guardian), and bought a thermal inner - great relief, but not for long. Oh the 60 kph bike ride at ~8:30 PM across Jaipur city and back was… an experience.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy every minute of the chill, but there also was a near death kind of thrill to it. I estimate the temperature to have been just over zero, a couple degrees at max. Only tomorrow’s newspaper can tell.

I also went house hunting today. It was pretty cool overall – got to meet a lot of different, warm hearted people, exchanged glances with no less than a dozen pretty chicks, and read a Hindi newspaper for the first time ever. I made a million calls inquiring about my potential accommodation, and physically visited four of them. The first and last were dismal, the second was just about ok… but the third, and actually the wild card among these was simply phenomenal. The place is nothing short of a proper 4-star hotel (It’ll be 5 stars when the internet connection is added, eventually). The place really is mind blowing. It is better maintained than the Louvre, and has more facilities than my home. The room is huge, posh and precisely designed and maintained. Under the package is included a double-bed, breakfast & dinner, bed tea (!), TV, Aircon, fridge (?), and a royal balcony. beside a broadband internet connection. It also offers free room cleaning, weekly bedcover changing, laundry (?), and a maid that comes to hand deliver anything you bother to buzz her and ask for. It is hardly 3 kms from my workplace, and it also houses a couple of fairly hot chicks! The cost – 6500 / month – still doesn’t seem justifiable, but only just. I’m fast to convincing myself why this place is just ideal for me, irrespective of the price tag, and then there is the power of a gujju bargain! ;) Anyway, I can’t wait for tomorrow to arrive – with my first day of full training by cool seniors, playing around with my personal desktop and the prospect of confirming my stay at Mrs. Chaudhary’s palace.