Questions

Iam having new questions in my head. What is  "individuality"/ "self reliability"/ "Extent of mutual dependability" in human relationships . The amount of individuality needed for survival, self respect and equality among the sexes in a relationship ?
Modern working woman, is she there where she ought to be or is she still evolving? What does it take to share equal respect among the sexes despite the fact that world is unfair and biased ? How tightly bound are self respect and self reliance in such a skewed scenario such as ours in the current world and times? The assurance or self realization that she can survive on her own like men? What defines your Independability ?
This is a very insightful article about self reliance and relationships. http://theconfidenceguyonline.com/2008/06/solo-lifers-why-successful-women-remain-single/
Take a  housewife, should she on the basis that she is not self financed be eternally bonded to the 'earning' independent husband in a master-subject relationship, and submit to "earner heads the home"? The husband might not collapse immediately without his wife, but the wife certainly would, atleast in this skewed world, where the fairersex is almost always disadvantaged for a number of reasons, chances are she wont even last the night on her own without the husband, forget about striving to find a job to support herself. So then, earning money alone is not enough to wield power over the family, ability to keep self safe, secured and financed is. Only then can there be a demand to equal power, as you share no extra vulnerabilities than your male in the relationship and both can share power and co-exist . Well this is getting too confusing a track, the basic question is if i stop earning should i compromise my freedom and independence, is "independence" really possible in this society and there by "freedom" ? If i am a woman, i should compromise with the extent of freedom I can enjoy? Whether or not i am earning, i have to atleast rely on someone for my security, there are things a woman cannot do, like fight with someone for safety, or run to police for protection or walk alone in the night safely. Does it make the male a facilitator if he enables her to do things she cant on her own, like escort her and keep her safe? Should she be thankful to the "facilitator"? similarly should she be thankful to the 33% reservation? is it enough, if so, why can i not go on my own without risking my security? having availed the 33% and yet why do i  find myself disadvantaged? can the gap be plugged by numbers such as these?

Like the last time, i wanted to attend a social function and my dad was not ready to drop me because it didnt amuse him. Only option i had was to hire a auto at the risk of my security. The risk is only because iam a female. where is my self reliability. Now is my dad a facilitator ? he was not willing to drive me, i was at his mercy and had no free choice in whether i should attend the function. How fair is it? What does equality stand for here , should my dad go an extra mile and ensure my security because society fails ? It offsets my inequality, my dads sacrifice of his choice to remain at home. Can men be arroganct about this "given" independence and refuse to help offset the inequality for the opposite sex ? Replace the function with any destination or place you want to be and cannot because the male person you depend upon doesnt agree for it.

You can see a detrioration in chivalry among men for women since women began to fight for their self reliance and freedom and individuality, the chivalry which was devised to offset the decreased freedom of living and power among the sexes  for the 18th century woman. Doesnt chivalry sound archiac now, should it ? are we there yet to throw it away?

But unfairness is everywhere, in racism, in economy, everywhere.  But why shouldnt my father, or for that matter any male in my life bother to offset the unfairness for me??  What is  mutuality in a relationship then??  should it not also include getting the two parties to equal footing? making the unfairness void by going an extramile for another as a balancing act ? Isnt it understood? should the female in turn feel gratitude for the fairness that is insured by the opposite sex or should it be her right for being born a female and for the male a duty for being born a man?? where is the fairness then if its not given as my right and accepted as a duty towards me that they are obliged to as males and protectors ? Does it compromise my feminity and self respect? Should it, should I act as if it were so in a meek submission and gratitude?

Bird Watching

yes, my latest preoccupation! Bird Watching.
I never knew my hometown, more known for its draught conditions, had so much of 'Bird Watching' to offer! A little more reading about it and i came to know that deserts are one of the worlds most richest bird treasures. India has got a national bird reserve in, Jaisalmer (located in the central thar desert region) No wonder the ever so arid climate of the poor Anantapur too attracts varied bird species.

Flower Shower

Inspired by the mood lifting , heart warming flower carpets adoring the huge conopies, elaborately decorated  with  labyrinthine branches of  trees on the Bangalore's congested  roads ( giving an increased feeling of congestion if you happen to be claustrophobic)  iam taking home a Jacaranda sapling to plant at my home in Anantapur . Hope it survives the hardy drought climate.

more about Bangalore's avenue tree varieties : http://www.thehindu.com/mp/2009/06/08/stories/2009060851080300.htm

July 2010: It is still going strong :) Successfully surviving one summer and one long vacation, left completely to my maids care!

Inexplicable

Did you ever feel that what just happened had happened before too, but somehow in different time or in somekind of a parallel universe, somebody said the same thing they said before to the same situation you experienced before ? iam sure most of us have come across this feeling and most of know this as dejavu( with a tilde ; ) )

Compare this with,
Did you ever feel while writing a word and contemplating on the spelling so long that it actually appears that such a word never existed. And this happens with even the most commonplace spellings such as "word" itself?
Do you feel as if something that your reason says cannot be true, but you feel as if you have never seen it before, like it came out of a total oblivion.

Try this and iam sure you will feel it to. But you must be free of any selfmanipulation while doing it and do it with open mind.

Take a piece of paper, start writing "word" continuously for 10 to 15 times.
Now at the end of writing the last time, you would feel that the spelling isnt correct and that it cant be "word" as you perceive it.

They have a word for it like Dejavu , see the wiki entry for this .
Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before Jamais vu is more commonly explained as when a person momentarily does not recognize a word, person, or place that they already know.

Chris Moulin, of the University of Leeds, asked 92 volunteers to write out "door" 30 times in 60 seconds. At the International Conference on Memory in Sydney last week he reported that 68 per cent of the volunteers showed symptoms of jamais vu, such as beginning to doubt that "door" was a real word. It has also been said that a similar brain fatigue underlies a phenomenon observed in some schizophrenia patients: that a familiar person has been replaced by an impostor, they could be suffering from chronic jamais vu.

see this below explanation for this. ( wiki excerpt)

From a linguistic perspective, the phenomenon that a word after frequent repetition seems to lose its meaning is connected with the very nature of words. A word as a unit of language has three characteristics:

• It has form, i.e. it is shaped out of sounds or, in the case of written language, out of letters (characters).
• It has function, which (among other things) means that it operates in a meaningful sentence.
• It has meaning, which implies that it refers to a certain unit of thought (a concept or an idea) within a context.

However, when a word is repeated over and over again, it is in fact only the form which is repeated. There is no sentence, so the function of the word is eliminated. Its meaning, too, is effectively eliminated, because there is no context. A few repetitions will leave the language user's memory and expectation intact: he remembers the meaning and expects a meaningful reference. Continued repetition, however, will more and more foreground the word form to the exclusion of function and meaning, until the word literally "makes no sense". It is not the word that is being repeated, but only one of its aspects: the word form.

Interesting isnt it ?

Witty

pic: The Hindu 'cartoonscape'
Labour union doing social work , saving AI ;)
No wonder jet is so anti to creating a NAG (National Aviators Guild) :)

Art - Why Abstract ?

Some how today i stumbled upon M F Hussain . ( i cannot retrace how i got here) .
Something about his paintings stirred me into writing this post. This in context with all the controversies surrounding his paintings. Well, that( the controversy) is not the point of my interest, but merely an input point as to why an 80 year old artist should endure so much resistance and still do what he wants to do. why is it imperative to him to be this rebellion and why is it important for his art. And thereby arrive at why does he do "art" in the particular way he does. And is there not any other aimless reason to do art? ( apologies, but I am not against or for him, i don't see any need to make either of the choices, i just want to look at the reason for this) Or probably to answer my question about, whether art could get boring, could i get bored of doing paintings and leave it ? hmm fancy thought.

If you see, well the first links i got to his paintings were all the controversial paintings( though i did'nt find them controversial , well that was'nt my aim, to get offended by looking at his paintings, also they didnt seem to be intensional to me. ) They were good, different, not the type i have been seeing so far. They were "expressionistic", well, i had wikied and googled impressionist style ( especially Monet, coz he was the pioneer of this style ) quite a lot and do have my own fair idea of what it is and that all it has to do is with how a thing "looks" , or how it impresses upon ur eye and eye alone . These type of paintings strictly stick to your visual senses. While expressionistic, come a lot further from this and attempt to "express feelings" in an abstract way. Like all the words put together to express your feelings, cut short by a bizarre spread of colors and abstraction of things to depict your feelings as art form. While the Monet impressionist did the same, it was restricted to only "visual" feelings. Not abstract feelings in your mind. Like thoughts.

Grainstacks in the Sunlight, Morning Effect, 1890. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

Haystacks, (Midday), 1890-91, National Gallery of Australia

Wheatstacks (End of Summer), 1890-91. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago

Wheatstacks, 1890-91. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago.

Haystacks at the End of Summer, Morning Effect, 1891. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.

But why did they do this, why did art had to evolve and has to evolve further ? For this lets take three paintings which belong to different periods of art. Check this link it might help in understanding what I am trying to say and give a brief background to the point. http://www.harley.com/art/abstract-art/index.html#hahn
Please read the above link before going any further.

First , (coz i cannot trace back art beyond this, well thats the scope of my post and i decide it :D ) the photographic "representative art" , something like da Vinci's Last Supper or Monalisa or imagine anyother "portrait type" photographic art which were replaced by Photos during the modern era. The general need then was to reproduce visual input as it is as it was lacking then and was not easy as it was made in the later years by "cameras".

The next period of painting, the passage of time, or the Monet. Take the Monet Lillies, the main aim of the artist, as gathered by various accounts of great analysts, is to depict the changing light on the subject or rather the "time effect on the subject". It still stuck to the visual aspects of the subject. Could it be because of the lacking of an easier way to capture the "passage of time" like as in a "movie" ? This type of art persisted like untill the late 19th century, precisely the time the "movies" came and the ability to capture "passage of time", motion picture was invented. The general public and the artists lost interest in this aspect of capturing "passage of time" and this type of art form became boring.

Then the new need came. The need to capture "feelings", so far as i am concerned there is no "visual" media to capture feelings and express it (1). Like it was with how things look and how things are perceived to look visually by the artist. But "feelings" alone were never expressed visually. or could be captured visually. This great medium is only possible through the mind, no gadget could make this possible. Atleast till now. So hence evolved the "abstract expressionism" . Depiction of feelings.

Vincent's Starry Night was one such,

stuck in transition of two periods of painting, i could not understand what the artist wants to express, but clearly it was'nt a Monet, it was'nt impressionist, it wasnt expressing the visual impression of a subject, but something else. Then there is this more evolved, "scream" painting, expressing the feeling precisely.

Artist	Edvard Munch

Coming back to MF Hussain, why was he obsessed with Indian Gods in the first place, even after so much resistance? what was its importance in his life, the dominant hindu community in which he lives ( India) could not have escaped him though he was a muslim. So the fact that he is mocking Hinduism for his own religious agenda as an outsider has no weight. He is as intrigued by the whole Hindu culture as any nonfundamentalist, objective, not blinkered by bigotry, Hindu would be. His art wouldnt be any different if he was a Hindu. It merely is his feelings and the countless stories he heard about the culture during his life which did not escape him though he was a muslim, and that depicts the uniqueness he portrays of India, the authority with which he painted about core Indian culture icons, of Gods and Ramayana and the like, as if he was part of this culture and has a right to absorb this into him and not merely be an outsider. or be bound by the religious borders. I refuse to attribute anyother reason for his art and more importantly refuse to just stick to the visual offense ( of nudity and the like) and color it with religion bias, if there was any, in the first place.
Clearly, if you understand abstract art you can see that it was not the aim of the artist either!
"Blue #1" [2000] by Harley Hahn. Perfect "abtract", if you see what i mean ;)

Its fun to watch how painting as an art form has evolved so "obviously" :) . My aim of the post was to try drawing a parallel to the need of the change and the corresponding ability of the humanbeing to "capture" things and give it to another sentient being. The complexity of what the artist wants to pass, evolved overtime, it was pure visual to feelings of visual sense, to pure feelings alone. Could a parallel be brought to the evolution of gadgets to achieve the same? no still images to still images to moving images ?!... so keep musing on what is yet to come....

Please pardon the digression if any, somehow it cannot escape me :( ( i could write a whole new post as to why digression is inescapable ! ;) )

It might sound totally crazy and un-understandable to some, but i enjoy it, so please dnt mind the "rubbish" if u so think ! FYI the analysis is not exhaustive and only superficial. :D ( oh yeah! I am protective and defensive about myself even before you comment :D )

P.S : 1) well you might argue, the movies could do it, express the feeling of the director . But is it efficient? 3 long hours to express, compared to a very personal medium of expression which takes hardly a moment to be passed on to anther being unlike the movies ?

funny

P.S: Inflation and Fuel Prices

Terror here refere in the "terrorists" context. This was immediately after 2007 mumbai attacks, coincidentally the same time around skyhigh fuel prices came down due to less demand on oil in the oil producing companies.
It was the beginning of the coming of 2008 economic depression and one of the factors along with the housing bubble in the US.

Memories

Do you remember things which you have forgotten, though not totally, when u were a kid ? Those little guilty desires and unreasonable convictions.
One such things, a inheritance from my father, i had this weird funny uncommon habit of underlining the place while writting the address on a letter/postcard/envelope ( yes i was an avid postcard writer back then :) ) twice or thrice,and sprinking an assortment of funny decorative characters to its either ends, left and right. A cross with dots on each of its corners. One such cross on either side. As if such divine characters gave the word an air of uncommon importance and divinity and instilled a sense of security/accuracy on the letter and pronounced its due success in reaching the place it is addressed to. It feels funny thinking of how common i thought it was and how weird it feels to think of it now. To test it, i just wrote it down on a piece of paper, trust me, i couldnt belive myself of doing it if it was not for my vivid memory of doing it !!. Not just me you know, even my bro used to do it ! :D well, I got rid of the cross thing later on, though, i still underline the place :D

This bizzare family ritual was not confined to the pale blue inland letters and postcards alone, but also on my note books. The perfectly poised letters of my father's adorned the front of all of my notebooks. These compensated for not having "labels", and often spilled a sense of confidence and bravery in me to stand up against my teacher's unreasonable tyranny to have labels on the books compulsorily along with the "brown only" cover sheet, probably thats where i began my journey of being a nonconformist. Thank god, me and my family were blessed with such logic by virtue of which i could never understand why a beautifully structured and tapered "information" listing ending with the "place underlined" (and decorated with the divine characters ;) )and the whole thing which often ran into some 5 6 sentences could not replace those (enviable ;0 ) "labels".These labels, if i can bear the guilt of liking and missing them on my notebooks at times, did feel cute and often sported cartoon characters, aeroplanes, cars, the variety and aesthetics of which depended on how deep your parent's pockets were. Some even sported my favorite cartoon character of those times , 'Mougli' from Jungle Book. i still remember, how sometimes unable to stand up to the logical world i was born in, i gave in to the guilt of wanting to have those labels on my notebooks :D We, me and my bros( for my sake), used to collect the labels which were at times published in the newpapers, perhaps for kids like me, to satisfy my own guilty desire and to pander to the silly whims of such rare teacher, who often could be spotted in most schools.

holi:
The very first memories of everything i did, when i was living them, strangely, it always felt as if it was not the first time n that i have already experienced it and knew of it. Like the very first holi i remember. I wasnt aware then that it was my first time, perhaps coz my brothers behaved as if it wasnt the first time and i accepted to it as a fact on the face. Perhaps kids dnt doubt things much, they just believe. I was in LKG then (4 years? ). (It has to be my first, the logic in me says :D)
I dunno if all of you remember not just things external, but also about things inside your head at that young age? the fears you had of homeworks and friends in kindergarten? The first time i realised i was singing? when i didnt know a song is lyrics and words and music, When all a song for me was "la la lala" ?

Funny, i still remember things like that. The time when my mom was surprised at my knowing a particular word and using it correctly! i even remember that i was offended that my mom was surprised at it and tired to explain to her my secret smartness ;) . I remember the word too, its some marathi word so u wont understand even if i put it here, the word is just a conjuction not used so often .

The last post was a bit too jumpy right? :) he he yeah, iam sometimes like that...

Bizarre

Sometimes iam quite surprised by the sheer bizarrness about things that intrigue me and which leave me unconventionally happy at the existance of such uncommon perceptions about things arround. Like for instance, how many of you have thought homosexuality as a nature's own idea for population control? Wait a minute, one might agrue that homosexuality existed even before population explosion occurred. Ok, so shall we say, the publicity of its existance and openness in discussing about it is unprecedencted? So then can we further proceed to say, the exposure of this concept of homosexuality to this unprecedented levels is related to the increase in the number of homosexuals ? Or is it the changed social circumstances which empowered people to demand for more flexible social laws and values and distance oneself from diktats and doctrines stipulated from centuries old that has brought this topic to the foray?

In what ever way, can we say this as a new "nature evolution" to contain human expansion beyond sustainable numbers for its own successful existance in the universe? and similarly can we conclude that there is always a "nature" force deciding and thinking for us, innovating ways to save what ever exists by reinventing and "changing" the existing nature? Can we apply this same self protective "nature" incase of global warming and other such apocalyptic problems worrying the modern world? and imagine that it will be solved by "itself".

So what is this nature? The hackneyed "mother nature" which we are supposed to conserve ? Arent we a part of it? If so has not nature learnt to protect it given its existence is beyond any human existence in this universe? Iam not an opposer of global warming nor a supporter of alternative sexuality or a total right wing conservationist denying global warming, but somewhere somehow i feel, its supposed to be this way, that we too are part of this solution. ( if iam allowed to digress more :D , sounds similar to the notion that all past present and future are predestined and we are supposed to do what we are doing ) And its how we "evolve" and progress. Had it not been for global warming, we would never have tried to tighten up our technologies to be effective and efficient and hence thereby improve our "human existance". Extend this to the global level, universe level, we are part of the nature, and thus it is in the nature that we are supposed to respond to global warming and thus "evolve" and better ourselves as part of this force called, "Nature".

All that noise, and All that sound, All those places i got found!

Why do some songs always make me positive and so overwhelming? Pulling me out of however deep depths i drag myself into? :)
Speed of SOund - Coldplay
Its just not the lyrics. The passion in the music? and the voice?
Puts me intantly in love with the song and with myself everytime i listen to it. Not just this song, there is a list of them. The fact that they are not some drab lyrics typical of a bollywood song, but actual thoughts put in words( atleast as close as they can get to it). Feels as if they are directly talking to ur mind,not even you ...

Everytime it feels like it is a different song that iam listening to, a theme so personal to me and specific to the state of mind iam in at that time. A theme that iam so in need ...

Iam instantly drawn out of the whole location where ever iam, be it colleagues, office, work, time... nothing can hold me back.

The theme that i now see, fighting with my ownself to start to begin to explore to believe... yet unsure, frail .. a push ...then cringe..then start out ....then win .. then fly ...fly at the speed of the sound ... fly along that bird that has shown you how it all began, how its gonna be all smiple and easy ...

Chrismartin( the author of this song), could he have really meant all that? or is it only me ? Could anyone be so poetic? O:-) Can anyone talk so perfectly to someone so out of time, out of place, out of mind, and yet make them feel as if they know what exactly you feel like, and know what you are thinking?
Is it the music that is done before and later the song is woven into it? or is it the other way round, lyrics first and then music? I really wanna see them create, see them have these thoughts in their minds and then put it in words, may be then i will believe. he he no, i still believe.

How long before I get in?
Before it starts, before I begin?
How long before you decide?
Before I know what it feels like?
Where To, where do I go?
If you never try, then you'll never know.
How long do I have to climb,
Up on the side of this mountain of mine?
.
.
How long am I gonna stand,
with my head stuck under the sand?
I'll start before I can stop,
before I see things the right way up.
.
.
All that noise, and all that sound,
All those places I got found.
And birds go flying at the speed of sound,
to show you how it all began.
Birds came flying from the underground,
if you could see it then you'd understand,
ah when you see it then you'll understand?

Everyone can have their own take on these lyrics i guess and solve that puzzle how ever they see fit.

Follow this link for the lyrics with minimal ad distractions : http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/coldplay/speedofsound.html

Again

Keeping up appearances
Keeping up with the Jones'
Fooling my selfish heart
Going through the motions
But I'm fooling myself
I'm fooling myself
Cause you say you love me
And then you do it again,
you do it again
You say your sorry's
And then you do it again, you do it again

Everybody thinks you're well
Everybody thinks I'm ill
Watching me fall apart
Falling under your spell

But you're fooling yourself
You're fooling yourself
Cause you say you love me
And then you do it again, you do it again
You say your sorry's
And then you do it again, you do it again
And again and again and again and again

All alone went she ...

O Mary, go and call the cattle home
and call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee...
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
and all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand
and over and over the sand,
and round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land;
And never home came she.

"Oh ! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair -
A tress of golden hair,
A drowned maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea?
Was never a salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee".

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
To her grave beside the sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
and call the cattle home across the sands of Dee...

and then , i had to come back....

To avoid those wires, i should have focused it to infinity, but then its all about wires and life , isnt it ? why keep them out of focus...

the water droplet theory ... :D

That only rain droplets are almost spherical and that artificially sprinkling water does not cause that effect and hence one has to wait for the rains for such photographs. That was my brother who took the pic. We both missied to see the droplet at the top, else we would have focused more on it, it would have made a great photo.

and the continuation...

inquisitive we were ( me and my bro) about what the bunch of some 20 30 butterflies were doing at the plant... we both had different opinions, he surmised it would be sh**t, i, said could be eggs :D ... i should have gone home the next weekend to assertain if it indeed was eggs that they were depositing. he he .... our own little animal kingdom at home..

latest addition : June 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_White
species of the butterfly and they were infact eggs.

a few more...

Home

Back after a fresh dose of "home"otherapy ;) I like going home even though it aches when its time to return to the boring office life and disturbs the adjustment i have made with life here alone as one more single IT professional. It makes me yearn for that life full of essence, with ppl caring for you and proud of you, ofcourse, in vain. This certainly does not mean iam complaining about my being single, and definitely not about a missing life partner. It beats me to think that the only solution to this, so some think(like my mom and brother), is marriage! can you have no more of your family, of mom and dad, now?

I still want to be pampered by my mom and fight with my dad and feel iam a kid. Still want to spend lousy weekend afternoons setting the home right, dusting off the old book shelves, rummaging after old memories meanwhile. To run after the insects in the garden pretending as if they still fascinate me the way they did a decade back (may be they still do :) )trying to interest mom and dad into this, to play (yes play!) with myself and involve everyone at home in my merry playing. To expend the senseless time in a rather senseless way, hOme is one place where time does not scare me as often as it does anywhere else. This gets all the more merrier with none of my family members missing and beyond compare when it rains, especailly if its a home like mine surrounded by the dense green brazen moors of the city outskirts.. somehow reminds me of the homesickness JR tolkien had mentioned about the hobbits having it upon leaving their cozy hobbit holes.
Seems like iam still not out of that reverie, and still not struck by the blunt office life yet. Its time to wake up from my dream and work! for money? :O ? :)