Back to Bangalore

Moving back to Bangalore from Delhi has been so far very refreshing. A lot has happened over these three months. I was directly put in an ongoing project after joining a company in Bangalore. I had to work a lot for the first two months and simultaneously I had to search for a guy who will be will willing to share an apartment with me. We searched for a decent house day and night and found a decent place near our company. Unfortunately after one month my colleague and I met with an accident. I was able to get out of with some injuries which left a permanent mark on my left hand. My colleague had multiple fractures and he had to undergo an operation. I was a very bad day! Because of this tragic accident he had to leave the rented house, which is on the first floor. I was all alone for the past one month and  this the first time I am alone in a house. I was trying to spend my time attending swimming classes, reading books and watching movies. Recently I discovered that some of my old roommates are living near to my place and it was fun spending time with them and help them cook stuff. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand has been a constant companion for the past six months. It takes time to think and digest  conversations between characters in this book. So unlike some mari puzo's novel, which I can finish in a jiffy, it is taking ages for me to complete reading this book. I was at a point where Fransico d. Anconia gives a speech on money after overhearing a lady saying money is the root cause of all evil and here it is which might make you wiser:

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except by the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss – the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery – that you must offer them values, not wounds – that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best your money can find. And when men live by trade – with reason, not force, as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, then man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality – the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth – the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve that mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict which you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride, or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich – will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt – and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood – money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves – slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers – as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money – and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide – as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out."

Gandhiji: My inspiration

   I have been reading Gandhiji's My experiments with truth recently. Whatever people may think I like Gandhiji. I know many people hate him because millions died during partition and many blame it on the leaders. I remember my class teacher calling him "stupid" when I was in 6th grade. If possible I wanted to go back to that time and teach him what Gandhiji is. Many people scold him with half knowledge.

   After reading his book my respect towards him grew ten fold. I never came across a person who adheres to his principles so adamantly. I never came across an author who writes about his faults so openly and it had been a good learning for me. Whenever I try to lie even when not to cause any difficulty to others, at the back of my mind I keep thinking of Gandhiji. The ultimate motto of Gandhiji is to tread in the path of truth alone. Even during trying times he never deviated. He gave up all his riches so easily. There is an instance when he gets lot of expensive farewell gifts when he was leaving South Africa as he is a well known person who fought for the welfare of suppressed Indians there. He was so easily able to give up all those(even his wife's jewellery ) as he did not like the idea of doing public service for these gifts. One thing I understood from his life is, whenever you try to follow the truth and whenever you try to do good to others even if you are penniless you will be a happy man. This book made me forgive all my friends(as Gandhiji calls his enemies and well wishers) whom I wouldn't have forgiven otherwise. This book made me little bit wiser than before. I wish I can be half the man he is while following my own principles. 

Corporate World

 Well here is my take on corporate world. I have been in the corporate world for about 3 years and it had been a roller coaster ride. Sometimes things around me were complex and sometimes I made things complex around me. I started off in an electronics company where I understood how juvenile and stupid engineers are. There was a person who held training sessions  and he used to harass us all the time. He even used to tell us that he will complain to the division head if we answered some questions wrongly. Interns were treated as people without self-respect. We swam through that pool with difficulty and landed in a job. I was happy in the job for over an year as I was under a cool manager and I liked it very much there.. One fine day, this cool manager left our company and things began to get complex.  I had to shift to a new division because of lack of good manager who can finish the project. 

I joined this company happily freeing myself off the baggage in my own way. I kept getting shock after shock. People were just like school children here. My manager wanted me to work round the clock as this is  a "scratch project". Life long being little bit smarter made me be around this bookworms ho never think outside the box. The mindset of a manager in India is generally like this: As you are a bachelor you don't have any life other than office life. Well these manage try to dictate your life. Icing on the cake is I learnt a lot about the design work. My life has been always like that study hard and things will be good in your future. Things are going to get worse but never better unless you take up the reins of the horse you are riding on. I see people around me I am afraid my life is going to be like that.

A sloka

 I am not an ardent follower of any religion.I don't pray to any god, yet I like some of the slokas describing Hindu gods. It's my idiosyncrasy may be! Every now and then I try to recite some sankrit poems. I somehow like pronouncing all those difficult sanskrit words. Of course knowing the meaning is even better.
Here is one Sloka on Krishna a Hindu God.

kasturi tilakam lalaata palake,
vakshasthale kaustubham, nasaagre navamouktikam
karatale venum, kare kankanam
sarvaange harichandanam cha kalayam, kanthe cha muktaavali
gopastree pariveshtitho, vijayate gopaala choodamanee
vijayate gopaala choodamanee

Meaning of this sloka: 
Oh Sri Krishna ! You have been decorated with Kasturi Tilakam, a beautiful Namam on the smooth forehead; 
You have an ornament of Kausthubham on your Vakshasthalam, the seat of Sri Maha Lakshmi (on the chest); 
On the nose, You have nava mouktikam, another ornament; 
On your fingertips, You have a Flute; You also have a Bracelet on Your wrist; 
Your entire body is bedecked with sandawood paste giving out fragrance; 
Your neck too is surrounded by another ornament; 
You are the giver of Mukti (salvation) to the lady-cowherds who went rounds and rounds around You; 
Oh that Lord, Victory to You -The Ornament to the ornaments of cowherd (meaning, the commonest of the common man too has his wealth in Him) !

The last laugh!

Well, recently a so called beautiful girl took revenge on me. It is because I had my share of fun rejecting doing something for her. One obvious thing is she not beautiful to me so I was able to deny what she asked me to do. Keep yourself in a beautiful girl’s shoes (she a beautiful girl because she is considered beautiful by many) and think like one. Your life will be very easy, boys flocking around you to do your stuff. If you attend an interview the interviewer will talk to you in a very sweet manner on the other hand he will talk to a guy as if he is nuts. Simply, nobody will say no to this group. I knew she was not used to such treatment and she wanted to give it back to me. It was (may be evil) fun talking to that girl in a simply straight forward manner rather than accepting things politely. Situation is this: Our Company completed 25 years and it is celebrating it by throwing a party in The Taj. We are allowed to bring either our parents or spouse/significant other. Significant other here means your fiancé or boy friend if you are a girl or girl friend if you are a boy. Well, in India meanings change and some of the guys / girls wanted to bring their mama, papa, grandfather, grandmother, their neighbors, their childhood friends  and if possible their cab driver, too. So our HR tried to explain how the whole thing works and tried educating them but some vehemently denied listening to her saying she was trying to mislead them by saying some bull crap. 

While this Bollywood scene is going on, a girl walks to me saying her slots are over (may be she is bringing all her boyfriends and ex boyfriends to the party) and starts talking to me in a very sweet manner (if a girl approaches you and talks in a sweet manner she definitely wants you to do something for her. Male brains haven’t evolved yet to understand them) I understood that she wants something from me, but still I smiled back and exchanged some niceties (after all, she is my colleague). Then she asked me if I am bringing someone with me. I told her that I have my own tragic stories and experiences with girls(may be or may be not) and I want to  be in peace for some time. Then she nicely says there is one friend of mine who wants to come to the party and may be if you can take one more pass that will be helpful. Well, I thought if it is a girl that’s not a prob and she can come with me. Because nobody will be having any doubts about my sexuality. I wanted to avoid my manager asking “Teja, heard that you came with a boy is that true?” she in a low voice says it’s a guy, a friend of her who wants to come to the party. I hated her asking me to bring a guy with me without any shame. I already tried explaining to her before  about this situation but again she dared to ask. I hesitated for a moment, but thought what the hell. I told her if I take a pass for her friend I have to take a pass for one of my friends who is waiting eagerly for my approval. I told that straight away to her, few guys beside her were looking at me in a strange way(may be thinking: that’s not the way to talk to a beautiful girl pal).Then I went to my cubicle without giving a second look to her. It felt good! Later, one of my friends comes to my cubicle and asks about my significant other  for which I answered there is none. The same girl I mentioned above happens to sit near my cubicle. She over hears and says well, what will he do it is his destiny! I know I got under her skin and thought I should calm things down, but what the hell who cares! I had the last laugh after all !

The Motor Cycle Dairies

I have been reading The Motor Cycle dairies lately. I feel so close to che Guevara. Most of the guys are like this at heart they would like the concept of being wanderers all their life. Girls please excuse(you definitely don't have the heart to understand anything related to adventure, may be not all of you but most of you).

Che described all the events wonderfully. He definitely has the heart of a poet and courage of a revolutionary.

Right now, I am in love with the way he describes things in this book! I am feeling immense pleasure reading this book! This book was straight from the heart of an young man in love with nature, with women and most importantly with adventure.A paragraph from his book:

Easter Island!The imaginations stops in its ascending flight to turn somersaults at the very thought:"Over there having a white boy friend is an honour";"Work? Ha!the women do everything  - you just eat, sleep and keep them content." This marvelous place where the weather is perfect, the women are perfect, the food perfect, the work perfect(in it beatific non existence). What does it matter if we stay there a year; who cares about studying, work(I am damn sure men are good thinkers there!I wish I were born in this place!In my place getting IIT is the sole purpose of life and I wish this place was bombed in the second world war! women!never mind!), family etc. In a shop window a giant crayfish winks at us, and from his bed of lettuce his whole body tells us, "I'm from Easter Island, where the weather is perfect, the women are perfect.."

My mother and a girl

This is not a dedication or I am not writing this because of any occasion like mother's day. Some recent events that have happened in my life made me think about certain things. I liked a girl (don't mistake it to a marriage proposal or some other kind of proposal just liked a girl like any other guy!), which was a bad choice (of course my friends always make fun of my choice of girls). I was thinking about the reasons why I liked this girl in particular. It made me find out how much influence my mother has on me. Right from the way this girl climbs the stairs (in a jig jag manner so that it will be easier) to the utter dedication to anything she does there were many similarities between her and my mother.  Like a foundation of a house my mother is the most important member of my house. I can't imagine how my father would have managed to control us without her help even for few days. I haven't seen her waking up after me once in my life, not that girls should be like this but I don't know how she manages to wake up so early consistently. She herself a voracious reader used to tell us the importance of education through various examples when we were children, though we never cared about it. She imparted a sense of discipline in us. We used to hate the regular watering of plants before going to play but now I realize how different I am from others because of such disciplined childhood. I never cared about studies when I was a kid. Only naughty and not so docile kids were asked to come to class on Saturdays. When I was in 2nd class, I remember the Saturday when I was asked to come and complete all the pending class notes. My mother too came with me and completed all the class notes for me! I vividly remember the picture of her, through the classroom window, writing my notes while I was playing outside with other kids. I don't remember her comparing my grades with other kids. She never worried about others at all. The first thing I notice about people is they are very much excited about others. How is your son doing? How much does he earn? How is his college? People keep firing all such questions at others. Why do you even care about such things? I have never seen my mother asking about others' kids like that. I have immense respect to that quality of hers. Why do you even want to compare one individual with another? Just don't discriminate any person based on education or on the salary he earns. Good grades and a good job don't make one any better person!. All her life she had been very disciplined, her daily routine used to be like this: waking up early in the morning, cleaning the house dirtied by us the before day, start cooking for all of us while simultaneously listening to radio. At around 7:00 am she would wake me up (mostly my father but occasionally my mother) to make me listen to a program on some famous characters like Da Vinci, Galileo etc. At around 7:30 am she would start making breakfast for us and then we would to be ready by 8:00 am waiting for our lunch boxes which mostly were ready on time. It was like that till I went to a hostel in 10th grade. During nights, she was generally engrossed in her office work. She has never pampered me too much like other moms but I realized the love she has for me when she reached my hostel, far away from my house, just to confirm that I was safe. Probably, she had a bad dream. For the first time, I have seen a woman crying for me on that day. I don't think I will get those moments from any other woman. She has sacrificed so much for us. Though she used to read a lot, because of us, she gave up that reading habit, but she reads often whenever she gets time and gives some intelligent advices to my dad.   Now  a days as we both siblings live away from our home she has a lot of time in her hands and I don't think she is enjoying it much. She got used to the busy life for almost 15 years and suddenly changing it is difficult. Hope she will find her long lost reading habit which was her friend for many years.

The age factor!

Most of the atoms which make up both our bodies were made in supernova explosions around ten billion years ago. During those years they’ve floated about the cosmos, provided fuel for many generations of stars, congealed under the force of gravity into our planet, flowed through mosquitoes, dinosaurs, whales, and everything else. Matter has always been changing forms and we’re nature’s latest creation. We’re very old yet our awareness of this world is what is constantly being born anew. The body’s like a sort of lense through which our consciousness peeks through to experience the world. But it’s just a temporary stage. This human experience is short and fleeting. That isn’t to minimize the importance of our lives, it’s just to say that we’re a part of something a lot bigger. A flow. A development. The world is ever-changing and we’re all a part of that. If you realize this, I don’t think you’ll so bad about your age. You’ll realize we’re all VERY old, billions of years old, connected to a very large process for which no force imaginable could ever separate you.

I find the ultimate contentment and peace in that thought. I’ve studied cosmology and how stars form. I’ve looked into the big bang, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. I’ve cranked equations modeling gravitation. I’ve learned how our planet formed, how the rocks flow, how and why the winds blow, why the rains pour, and why the seasons change. I’ve studied biology and pondered the inner workings of cells, how they duplicate, generate energy, and evolve into larger organisms. I’ve charted the evolution of humans from early simple swimming creatures in the ocean to us today. I’ve looked into history and how humans have formed the first civilizations. What led to our success? Where have we failed?

Take some time and just fly down that time-line, billions and billions and billions of years. It just goes on and on and on and on. Watch the big bang. Watch the space expand, the radiation cool, and let the first atoms of Hydrogen, Helium, and bits of Lithium form. Watch gravity pull them into the first stars, shining bright and beautiful and then exploding in giant bursts of radiance. THe radiance is so powerful that new denser atoms are formed. The entire periodic table of elements explodes off into space. You’re being born. Nature’s at work making you! Now watch our sun form from a giant gas cloud. It’s twirling and spinning, faster, and faster, and faster, clumping into a smaller and smaller ball, and then BOOM. It lights up! Watch little chunks of rock and debris form into larger and larger clumps leading to the planets. Think of the oceans and lightning crashing down from the red sky and the first atoms coming together from the organic materials on the shoreline. They’re replicating, replicating, replicating. They start forming into groups, then larger groups, then larger groups. Life is evolving! Those organisms start to combine and form ecosystems. Trees, plants, and mushrooms. Watch them grow. Millions and millions and millions of years. How many generations of life have gone by, using the same materials on the Earth’s surface? Millions of generations. Our atoms have been every sort of tree, bug, and reptile. Now watch the first humans evolve in Africa. Watch them migrate out into Europe. Watch them build the pyramids and those fantastic temples. Watch them ponder the universe and their origins. Follow them and their search, all the way to today. Now look at yourself in the mirror. What are you? It’s taken a lot longer than hundred years to make you and you’ll be around long after you’re dead!

Love is a beautiful thing. We look into the dark pupil of one another’s eyes, unconsciously recognizing that vast depth of space where the outer world becomes the inner world. That circular aperture extends back into its own world, infinite in all directions. Such a small hole through which to look through, but a person’s eyes say so much. Consciousness is pretty mysterious. That man or woman you love. Who or what is he/she? I’m baffled by the idea that other people see me when I’m looking into their eyes.

I’ve never found love myself. Sometimes I don’t think I can quite wrap my head around it. It’s both wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Emotions are the most complicated aspect of human cognition. They include a deep interplay and flow between every aspect of the brain. The brain is the most sophisticated thing we know of in the universe, and emotions are its most complex form of thought. That makes love and our other emotions the most complicated processes known in the universe. My journey hasn’t gone very far past where I’ve taken you so far. Our timeline ends here. I wonder if love is really something that’s understood? Thought about?

The world has a strange way of leading you where you need to go, if you only follow the cues. You’ll find your way. It’s not over. It’s never over.

Life is Beautiful

 Yes, the title is what you think it is! The movie with same title was inspiration to this. I want to start of this article with a conversation taken from the book "We the Living" -Ayn Rand.

"Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they do-then, I know they don't believe in life."

"Why?"(Andrei)

"Because, you see, God - whatever anyone chooses to call God - is one's highest conception of the highest possibility. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but demand it."

I strongly agree with this argument and one should follow it to be a lively man in this world. But, there are certain instances, when things become difficult. For example, Silvester Stallone never believed in god. He believed in life and he got what he wanted out of life. But, when his daughter fell ill he tried everything in his hands to keep her alive. When he came to know that there is no use trying except praying, he had nothing to do but pray. Suddenly, he believed in god and prayed for his daughter's life. There are certain desperate situations which test a man  and his emotional break point(it doesn't mean that he has to cry). I see it in a different way. I may even go to a temple just to find  out what it is like visiting a temple. I don't believe in any particular form. I don't keep any pictures of god. I don't see any reason why all gods are anthropomorphized. But, if at all I face any desperate situation I turn towards a force, a form less force which gives me solace, a force which is full of life. A supernatural force, which resides in me. There are certain situations which make you more broader and discover certain weaknesses. Like when you didn't do well in a particular exam or if you were not able to get into a sports team you so dreamed of or if you got rejected by a girl etc In those situations people will say a lot around you. They don't know what exactly it is like being you, how hard you tried, how you were unable to concentrate on studies as you are interested in something else or if your health condition was bad. Nothing matters to them, they just come and tweet in front of you randomly sometimes even a single word might have a long term effect on you. So we should try to avoid all such negative people in this world and move towards positive people who are full of life and make sure not to do the same to others like if you get rejected by a girl, best thing is to put yourself in her shoes and see things her way though it is tough at times at least little bit of understanding is enough. You might say she is not worth it and she doesn't have proper reasoning skills, but  why would you have even liked her in the first place. Best thing is to look at fear in its face and wish her good and remain as friends if the girl is broad enough to be so. When it comes to this part, I can't resist writing more on it. I mean what is love? I see it as selfishness of two people. If I find some girl attractive not because she is beautiful but because of her cheerful nature or some other characteristic in her. It is because I have developed a prejudice that I will be happy being with her, but I am not sure whether it will be the same, once we start staying together. I might even sacrifice many things for her like getting ready to even go to a temple because I am expecting something from her unconsciously. If you make her feel happy and if you make her feel that she is secure when she is with you for those some days, when you are trying to impress her, she is all yours. In this relationship, she has her own selfishness for being with you. Will a girl be ready to go out with Stephen Hawking in his present position if he has no money? It is because she is not getting what she wanted in her life! To make us feel better like in any other instance we have a better name called love! But, don't get me wrong I am not against love, I am giving you the reason why people fall in love.  Yes, it is selfishness but still it is beautiful to fall in it. I really doubt  whether love , let us say if it is little bit different from selfishness, exists without selfishness. Does selfless love really exist? That is what Ayn Rand says when an interviewer asks her why she married a particular man!I like her frankness, which most of the girls and boys are even afraid of thinking. I like the intensity in her characters, I wonder whether such people really exist. I don't want to interact with them or be friends with them but just want to sit in a corner and watch them. I just loved reading about Hoard Roark, the ideal man full of life. I don't remember much about other characters. However hard we try to be like him it gets more harder. I believe inherently we have our own characters even if you were able to empathize with such ideal characters (because of certain similarities) and imitate him it will not last long! So I have decided to just enjoy reading and be the way I want to be and lead the life my way and in a beautiful way!

The theory

Loved this argument by a well known blogger:

 I have to say that this society is so male oppressive. It is so biased against the men of the species that somebody ought to do something about it. A woman can stay at home, not work and she is called 'adjusting' and sacrificing. If a man wants to stay at home, he is irresponsible, effeminate, 'dhanda soru', and in general - a madman. Why the discrimination, I ask? Since the beginning of time, men have been sent to gather food, build tribes, conquer tribes, fight wars, build machines, create philosophy, spread religion, kill animals, and now what - go to work. While women have been sitting at home cooking food and having sex. Food and sex - the dream combination that every man wants has been secretly cordoned off by the evil woman. and whats more, the suffragist movement make men feel guilty for letting them have it so easy. They claim that they actually want to do the work and earn food and sex. I'd like them to start all over from the beginning with the invention of fire and wheel and then work their way down to corporate offices. Now that 'work' is being done in A/C rooms - they suddenly want to be a part of it. If a wild boar had to be caught in the dark forest for dinner to be cooked, its time for Asterix and Obelix to do the work. You won't find Mrs Impedimenta or Mrs Geriatrix complaining about the glass ceilings to Chief Vitalstatistix. Can you imagine their ultimate triumph? They've made work look like something special and forced men to dominate it and later made men feel guilty for dominating it. Can there be more injustice? I demand freedom for the stay-at-home guy. Men should be able to stay at home and not be made to feel bad about it. Let this happen and then women can demand equality.

http://hawkeyeview.blogspot.in/2007/09/dear-office-going-people.html