Living the Dream

If anyone was to make a movie or paint a picture or write a book about wishes coming true, I'd be the poster girl for it. Totally!

For as long as I can remember, I've got what I've wished for - studying Engineering, working in IT industry, living independently, International travel, finding love. Of course they've all taken time and effort - in most cases unconscious effort; because ironically - I've never believed in wishes as much as I've believed in work.

Through all of this, there was this long held desire, which I used to put off as not just ambitious but also vain - of teaching. I'd mentioned it in a few earlier posts and talked about it to some friends in the kind of conversations you remember even years later. I must admit, the idea was probably planted by the movie - "To Sir, With Love". And that may also be why it seemed vain and fantastical at the time, because .. well.. Sidney Poitier! But what was not so (and the credit for this would go to a vast number of people in my life), was the notion of good education being the solution to a whole lot of maladies.

Last year, when a friend told me about "this organization" called Teach For India - TFI for short - www.teachforindia.org; (Yes. I have pretty cool friends!) it simultaneously served as a reminder of all those conversations and an invitation to put my words to action. It was like a mysterious Karmic confluence was bringing all the broken pieces together. And hey, who am I to refuse this crazy, cosmic force when it comes calling?

Ergo - TFI.

So here I am - 2016 Teaching Fellow at Teach For India, about to start my Fellowship in a little more than 2 weeks, and still trying to come to terms with my job description. Thanks to a short volunteering stint, I've seen the perfect trailer of the routine, the challenges that lie ahead and the opportunities that we'll have to bring about a positive change. I've realized that if I am lucky, a student will allow me a glimpse into her life - touching my own in the process.

My occupational hazards have changed from laptop glare to chalk dust and mind-numbing frustration to, quite possibly, heart-breaking despair. But I'm thankful for the chance and proud to have signed up for it!

I think that wish of getting lost and looking and finding something may be on its way home too. I say it's about time!

Love, luck and hope.

~K.

ps: I read this quote by Rumi today - "What you seek is seeking you." Um.. if that's indeed true, someone should probably prepare the kids for what's coming their way. ;-)

Until later,

~K.

Cold Hard Genius

The upside of having time has got to be reading! Yes - I say that because I'm biased towards books. It's the only way to enjoy the company of great thinkers, dreamers, lovers, artists, scientists - all at the same time.

Why do I say this? It's because I just finished reading I, Robot.

Now I have never been attracted to Science Fiction as a genre. Neither in books, nor in movies. Always found it too taxing on my brain. Or maybe my heart. Or so I assumed. It was The Husband who made me watch the movie. So I guess, I owe this piece to him.

Anyway - through the drama in the movie, peeks the concept of evolution of robotic and robots themselves, whose.. well "logic is undeniable". Strictly speaking for myself - though it was initially the drama which made the movie palatable; the actual thrill came from how the evolution theory was built up in the movie.

So now that I had the time and I had already seen the movie, I thought I'd read the book and be done with it.

Let me come to the book. For starters, the movie doesn't exactly follow the story line in the book. There aren't many similarities in the book apart from the name of the corporation - USR, and some characters - Dr Alfred Lanning, Robertson and of course Dr Susan Calvin - who, by the way is the real rock star at USR and certainly does not need a paranoid detective Spooner to deduce any mysteries where robots are involved. No offense to Will Smith or his fans, but it's a stupid, sexist reason to have his character at all in the movie.

The book is a collection of short stories rather than a novel. Structured as a memoir, each chapter is a reminiscence of a mishap at USR. The evolution of robots is evident in the apparent malfunction that is being described. From an emotional, but non verbal mechanical companion to a complicated device that has complete control of the earth. As the capabilities of the robots grow, so does the overlap on the human domains. Eventually, everything that a human being could be deemed capable of doing, could be achieved by the robot, only more efficiently.

And that is what is so captivating about the book. The things that robots are shown to have achieved. From being a companion nurse, to mining on planet Mercury, to Interstellar travel! Top that with human actions like mind reading, lying (albeit to prevent hurt), impersonating, getting confused (and twiddling fingers) and even forming a religious cult, and you find yourself wondering how long before it actually comes true. Because however dramatic it may seem, the cold, hard logic behind it is - again - undeniable.

I feel almost sad going back to the regular, human fiction now. A glimpse of a higher world can be cruel. Well, at least I know whom to blame! ;-)

Read more books. It's not "only words".

Cheers!

~K.

ps: Apparently, these stories were written between 1940 - 1950. While the world was split between the bullies and the bullied, this young lad in his 20's clearly had better things to do.

Ah well - thank god for Geniuses!

Gosh!

I'm almost scared to come to this site now. It might bite, you know. Or worse, it may have forgotten me.

I've been wanting to write for a very long time now. If for nothing else, then just to say that life of a blogger does not get over after marriage. In fact there's more to write about. More people. More ceremonies. More food. More everything!
In fact I did write one day you know. And that too on a piece of paper! With a pencil! Beat that!

Anyway.. I feel like I've been running around the whole country all this time. From Seattle to Delhi in Dec end. Then to Chennai in Jan. Weekend trips to Bangalore. Jan end to Delhi. And then to Calcutta for the wedding. Then to Chinsurah. To my newly wed house :D. Then to Hyderabad. Again to Chennai. And finally to Bangalore. Then some weekend trips.. one to Delhi (more about that later). But mostly to Hyderabad. Because that's where the husband was, you see. Was - until 2 weeks ago.
And now I'm finally settling down in my own life in my cozy rented apartment (which, btw, we are furnishing as if it was Disney's Castle!)

Why am I telling you all this? 1 - as a matter of explanation of my truancy. 2 - because I'm excited. Nervous too.. but basically excited! :-)

Well Well Well... I'll cut this one here. It's 1 in the night and I've been up finishing off some office work. Working under pressure makes me hyper active I guess. Sometimes even I get surprised at what all I'm able to achieve. Like posting an article on my blog for example... ;-)

More later. And not as late as this post. I promise!

Love to all.
Good luck and God bless!

Cheers always. I mean ALWAYS!

~K.

Status call

Remember this - ?
Five Things Planned for the Next Five Years
1. Study.
2. Get into a field of work I can relate to.
3. Read a classic.
4. Fall in love.
5. Stay 24.

Let's see where I am on these -

Study - I vaguely remember something about this... this.. "thing". Studying is now confined to reading the many PDF and document files and more such for my certifications. I could pull out a sigh after this. But that'll only make me feel like a loser. So, sigh suppressed.

Field of work - Let's not even get there. That's out of bounds to everyone (including me). Sigh still suppressed. :P

Read a classic - Well I read Nineteen Eighty Four. And All Quiet on the Western Front. And The Lord of The Rings. These days I'm reading a biography of The Beatles! and Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore. All classics in their fields.
Read a classic - Check!

Fall in love - Here is where I struck gold! I did. And well... not just once. And life has changed ever since. I have changed ever since. I like to think I've grown up. (More on this when I talk about the fifth point in the above list.) I even came to realize that I need not just love but a little sense of pride as well. And while I can compromise a little on the former, there's no way I'd give up even an ounce of the latter! What's more - I can strive to earn the pride, but the love must come irrespective of that.
Oh.. and yes.. I need to see some of myself being transferred to the other person the way I take in some of him.
Anyway... Fall in love - Check!

Stay 24 - I have no idea how to gauge that... While I think I grew up a little, some of my friends claim I never even reached 24. I think I'd be a part of the "Ageless body; Timeless mind" gang. I doubt if I look my age. And well... I never know what time it is... :P I could also be vice versa.. because my mind doesn't seem to know my age. And my body has little clue of time. Never mind. :P
I'll still take it as a success though. Because you see, the point was not growing old!
Stay 24 - Check!

My score until now- 3/5. Not bad I'd say. I have 2 more years to go to get the remaining 2 checks. Do-able! Or so I hope... :D

I owe a lot more to this space. Change seems to be the theme of the year 2008. More on that later. I have a lot of time these days.. I'll keep writing in. :-)

Meanwhile... haffun!


Cheers!
~K.

I quote ...

Mark Twain's works. Excerpts from his travelogue 'Following the Equator' —

"This is indeed India; the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence...the country of a thousand nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition... the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined...Its marvels are its own; the patents cannot be infringed; imitations are not possible."

India is my country. I love my country. And I am proud of it.

Jai Hind!


~K.

The case of the missing appetite...

I wonder what was the last thing that I did because I really wanted to do it. And I don't mean eating or drinking something or something else of the kind. I mean really doing something.

Let me do a quick retrospection - I had really wanted to do engineering. Well, I did it. Only to realize that I could have done better than doing a B.Tech. When in school, I had wanted to work in some nice, big and reputed Software firm. Well, here I am now. Only to wonder what I was thinking when I made that wish. I learnt music, even without knowing how much I loved it. So, I don't know if I can count that as my own achievement. I had wanted to write. Again, here I am, writing, to no real end but at least writing.

I had really wanted to do an MBA, and then get into some field that I could relate to more than these bits and bytes that I am dealing with now. And somewhere in the recent past I thought I'd give up this crazy corporate world and rather study things that I really love - Language, Music, Arts. And maybe sometime know enough of these things to be able to teach a few people about them.

Wishing and wanting is fine. And is maybe the first step. But where is the hunger that will make me quit what I am doing now and run towards these wishes? I remember having that once. I still trust myself enough to know it hasn't completely died out. I still hope that this trust is not a consolation I'm giving myself. I keep telling myself that me having that thought itself is a sign that things aren't completely lost yet. How long will I continue to thrive on this consolation is something I don't want to know. But the way things are going, the answer is not too comforting.

I recently purchased one of those fridge magnets which give you something to think about. This one has a quote by Emily Dickinson which says - "Dwell in possibility". I do. I need another magnet which tells me to make possibility a reality. Maybe then I'll get there too.


~K.

To Pod or not to Pod...

Yesterday, I broke my iPod... and along with it, my heart.

The battery had gone dead. And so I ordered a battery replacement kit online. While trying to remove the old battery, the chord which connects the back cover to the hard disk broke.
Damn!

I'm depressed.

Life without music... is SO not happy...


~K.

Happiness is....

I don't know if anyone can ever really define that... But here's to the innumerable small things that make us happy throughout the day... We may notice them... or not... but well... if you find yourself smiling reading even one of these, you know what I mean...

• Looking at the beautiful weather and spending your time imagining yourself enjoying the outdoors instead of working...
• Having furtive conversations in the office with your friends while everybody else is working...
• Suppressing your smile / laughter in above conversations...
• The traffic signal turning green from red just as you approach it...
• No queue in the bank...
• The store you are in playing a song that you love...
• Singing in the bathroom...
  
• Finding a mail waiting for you when you reach home...
• Getting a surprise...
• Giving a surprise...
• Finding the right snacks in the vending machine...
• No crowd at the gym...
• Having a good workout...
• The TV at the gym is playing a movie / serial you love...
• A nice shower after a good workout...
• The temperature of the water is "just right"... :-)
• Journeys with people you like... (Road trips... bus journeys... flights... walks... just about anything.. )
• Smiling at a kid and the kid smiles back...
• Spending time with your friends doing nothing...
• Laughing your guts out with friends...
• Having a good cry with your friend...
• Stealing books / music / movies from friends and not giving them back...
• Getting back books / music / movies that you lent to friends... ;-)
• Sitting at the restaurant talking with friends even after the bill has been paid...
• Sending messages at midnight and getting a call back...
• Getting messages at midnight and giving a call back...
• Knowing that a friend you haven't spoken to in a long time is doing well...
• Getting a call or a mail from that friend...
• Silly "Girl Talk" with your room mate... (I don't know if boys do that too... and well... it doesn't really matter anyway)
  
• Suddenly getting the words of a song you've been trying to remember for a long time...
• A good coffee... (I am incorrigible when it comes to this!!!)
• Catching yourself smiling for no reason at all...
• Dancing.
• Flowers.
  
• Hugs.
  

And well.. a lot many more... I need to get out of office to enjoy a couple of these small things... else maybe I'd have written some more...

Anyway... if by now you do know what I mean, lemme know some of yours too...

Keep smiling!! :-)

~K.

I HATE music

I hate the power that it has over me. I hate the way it controls my display of emotions. Things that I would generally digest, music expels out of my system like an emetic.

If I listen to music when I'm happy, I get this unstoppable urge to sing loudly and dance. And I cant sit straight in the office anymore. If I listen to music when I'm sad or feeling lonely, I get depressed. I think of all things that make me sad and then I cry. And I refuse to see the happiness that I might have around me.

People who claim that music brings them up when they are down, makes them feel good when they are sad and so on, are either fooling themselves or maybe not listening to the right kind of music. Because when you do, it just intensifies your emotions. Or let me speak for myself. It does that to me. It exposes me to what I'm really thinking even when I am capable of hiding it from my own self. So I keep listening to music as one of those really intimate activities that I don't share with everyone. To me, it is one of the most harmful addictions that I could get into. Though I do claim to hate it, I wouldn't dare to dream of a life without music.

To whoever recognized the first notes and identified them as music, go to hell!! And then listen to music. I hope it makes you feel better...


~K.