Lair of thought

A picture hanging in the airport said: "A point of view is the same view from a different point" A cemetery in Bangalore: The board at the gate read "Indian Christian Cemetery". It had glass pieces on the walls. What was that for? To keep people out of keep the dead in I wonder? Sunjay Dutt in a TV interview after being called up in TADA court again: "Munnabhai was a turning point in my career and the career of the country". uh?

I was browsing a Time magazine the other day and reading about Dafur and Africa in general and it got me wondering about the very basic things in life that we take for granted. I walk on the streets unaware that there is an underlying social order that stops from anybody walking up to me and slapping me. Nobody thinks of simply walking into my house one day and asking me to get out of the house so that he could live there. Nobody walks into my work place and tells me that I have lost my job and he is now going to work in my place. But this kind of atrocities happen in many parts of the world as we continue blissfully unaware that we are secure in a unspoken order that our society follows. In many a conversations people wonder why certain countries never make it out of their anarchy and chaos. More often then not most arguments hinge on that premise that if they cant help themselves then they don’t deserve any better. One of the most common statements I have encountered is that if India...

I have had a long standing battle with mathematics. Sometimes I think a great part of where I am today is shaped by my dislike towards the subject. I sit here today and laugh at all the attempts I have made to avoid it like the plague and how it has hounded me all my life. A below average student in my early years, neither mathematics nor any other subject for that matter evoked such strong emotions in me. I was what you would call a free spirit not tied down by the little things such as studies. I would ignore all the subjects equally and there was no deep seated hate for any one subject. I hated them all without preference. Then eighth grade happened. I was never the competitive kind myself but in the eighth grade it was thrust upon me. I was trying to continue my indifference to education but it was not to be. For some reason without my even attempting anything in that direction I came to be in the top ten of the class. Suddenly there were adulations and everyone including my parent...

I have always wondered why people argue. Conventional wisdom (mine that is :-)) says that an argument is for the purpose of informing the other person of your point of view and understanding why the other person disagrees with you. It stops becoming an argument when the idea of the argument is to convince the person that you are right. Convincing a person, I believe, should only be the product of making your point rather than the goal. There are several strategies we use to win over an argument. Some I use and other I have run into over time. Here are some of them listed in no particular order. 1. Start the argument with a blanket judgment on the other person’s opinion This usually starts with something like "That is just stupid" or "I can’t believe you said that". The argument begins with the assumption that my opinion is not worth any merit and the only reason the argument is even happening is because I need to be convinced of what is right. There is no pretense o...

I was waiting at the optician’s office wondering what she would have to say. I had been experiencing some sort of a headache every evening on the days I was at work. It is not the sort that worries you but rather nags you. I wondered if it was something serious or if it was just that my vision had deteriorated to a point where I needed new glasses. She walked out and announced that my vision had improved leaving me completely stunned. She said that my vision had improved ever so slightly and that there was no need to changes my glasses. So I quipped her on the reason for the nagging headache and she simply brushed it away saying that it is because I work on the computer for long periods of time. She suggested that I don’t wear my glasses (short-sighted) while I work on the computer. She also suggested that I look away from the screen once in a while so that my eyes do not get strained. Strained eyes usually cause a nagging headache and she said that I need to look away and blink a few ...

What is self-confidence derived from? Every time you come across a person with a lot of it, you wonder what makes them so confident of their own selves. Sometimes I look at these people and find no reason that they should exude such confidence and yet they are there standing before me talking and doing things with reckless abandon. Most times I conclude that it is success in their lives, success at school, success at work and an overall successful life to that point that leads to such unbridled confidence. But I sit back and wonder and very rarely agree with this conclusion. There are several people that I have interacted with, that have not really been that successful but yet they have no self doubt. I used to work for a person who was the picture of self belief. He truly believed in everything that he proposed. His vision and ideas were hardly ever in doubt and yet this man had come off a failed project and was currently in a very questionable project (In terms of it possibility of s...

Like Norah Jones would say...... "Here we go again....". Yesterday was my first day at the guitar class. With some motivation from my wife I finally decided to get out there and try it out. So I signed up for these lessons at an adult education centre. Four years ago there was a similar crisis in my life. I felt the need for music and went and bought myself a keyboard. I know you are wondering why I didn’t ust go and buy myself a music system instead. Something I wonder too. I was primarily inspired by a colleague of mine who used to play it effortlessly. Watching him play made be a bit jealous of the fact that I couldn't play any instrument. So with his help I went and bought myself a second hand keyboard. That was followed by the self teaching books. A few days went by and the interest waned. I guess it was discouraging that I was not making any progress in understanding the notes at all. I would be able to play a couple of tunes but I knew within myself that they were ...

The other day I got into church about five minutes late for the regular Sunday service. The church was full and I was left standing at the back of the church. The service was pretty ordinary, and things were going along as usual until I noticed somebody standing next to me. This was an old lady probably in her sixties. She was standing with her two grown sons. Nothing out of the ordinary really except that both the sons appeared to be suffering from something that resembled Down's syndrome. She went about her prayers and the sons stood there probably unaware of thier surroundings. They sometimes sat on the floor, sometimes stood up, sometimes glanced around and always greeted people who were walking by with a big smile. And yet the lady was unmoved. She seemed completely comfortable with the antics of her grown sons. She would only instruct them to be mindful of the alter when the really important parts of the service came along. Whenever I argue about the churches stand on abortio...

The catholic church has been ferociously against stem cell research and anything to do with harming an embryo. To its credit it has been extremely consistent with its stance on abortion, stem cell research, artificial birth and many more. But stem cell hits a perticularly raw nerve for a lot of people since the research is targeted at curing some of the most dihabilitating diseases that are known to man. So why is the church against it? Well for obvious reasons since the creating of a stem cell line essentially destroys the embryo and kills what could possibly have turned out to be a baby. A couple of days back researchers announced that they have found a way to develop cell lines from embryos without actually destroying the embryo. For various reasons including testing the health of the future baby, scientists have been separating out cells from an embryo for years. When the embryo initially multiplies it forms blastomeres. Scientists detach a single blastomere from the embryo and tes...

I walked into Starbucks today and bought myself a latte. Flipped out my wallet and casually paid out a princely sum of $3. I actually felt pretty good being in the coffee shop and enjoyed the latte as well. The whole experience is enjoyable from the time you step into the coffee shop. I guess that is why I pay the $3 for my small cup of latte. I am rather satisfied with my explanation. I then go to the gas station to fill gas in my car. $3.04. good lord I used to pay $0.91 in 1998 as a poor student. What has the world come to? This is definitely the oil companies price gauging. That $55000 a second profit making oil companies. They all deserve to be taxed and punished for manipulating the market like this. Unbelievable! The irony is that even after contrasting the two purchases I still feel I am justified in my thought process. Oil is an essential commodity and cannot be priced like the Latte that I had earlier in the day. Oil is what the economy runs on. If the price of oil was set li...

When I read other blogs I am astonished at the amount of things they have to say to the world. The interest with which people follow blogs and the amount of opinions that are out there on just about anything. Fascinating. So here I am out to make a little space for myself too. I have nothing specific in mind right now but I will try and make in interesting reading. I will not claim to try and change the world. Maybe it might just turn out to be just a place were I read out my thoughts. Either way I welcome all of you to read (whoever actually finds thier way here) and post any comments you might have. Maybe you might answer the questions I have.