The 'Pretty' bias

For reasons which are beyond the scope of this blog, yours truly has joined a gym and furthermore has to go there and work out daily. I consider it one of the absurdities of our'evolved' society that you drive 2. 5 kms to that stupid gym and pay them 2.5 k just so that they'll let you walk on that treadmill for 15 min or so.

Anyway, In this gym that i go to, I have a 'trainHer'.  Thar's right. He has so little interest in training 'hims' that I thought it's only fair that I give him an extra 'h' and make his name suit his preferences .He is 6 odd feet tall with all the right bulges and cuts.The first day that I went, he asked me to do pull-ups.In a moment of haste (and in hindsight, a very forgettable one), I asked him how many? He just motioned me to start. All I managed was a pull-up and half-dozen microscopic movements and twitches. So my trainHer patted me on my back with probably the most condescending look I have ever received. He has watched me over these few days and whatever I have done over these few days has only cemented his opinion about me or the lack of it.

So the other day I really felt like telling him, that I am not the scum of the earth after-all and I .. well.. could be good above average in some other field for all he knows. Like I have cleared Vibrations in my first attempt, have heard of Kafka, Achebe  .. and so on...

But I realised I would have to first tell him who isAchebe, why it is good to read him and so on... Infact to explain any so called accomplishment of mine, I would have to give him an elaborate background as to why I think of it as an accomplishment.....Nah...not worth the effort.

So it suddenly struck me that Intelligence( or in my case, the pretense of it) needs to be explained. Beauty, however skin- deep or muscle- tight is self explanatory.

So next time, you have the sorting hat asking you, ... think what you want to shape.

        

The Sun in my________

I have been...how do I put it...amused, by people who come to sun-set points and try to catch the sun in any natural or artificially created hollows of their body.They slouch, crouch, squat and do the awkward likes in full public view just to make sure they make appropriate openings to create an illusion of the sun going into or out of their bodies depending on their inclinations. You know what, I don't think they intend to gulp / hold/ pinch or whatever action they threaten to do with the sun.They know sun is not tasty.don't they?... It'll give them gases at best. The action probably is deeply symbolic.I am sure Freud would have had something insightful to comment on it had he been privileged enough to to see a few samples. May be he would have referred to the fascination of men (and perhaps women) with huge round objects and intense desire to.. well.... do something to it.

We just cannot let them .. i mean it... peacefully pass by. 

'Inspiration is Dead'

Yours truly has finished reading Sophie's world and after 300 odd pages of philosophy( including juvenile humour), meant for 15 year olds, thinks he has understood all there is in philosophy. Sartre's "Man is condemned to be free" suddenly has started revolving in his head too much.The 'Existentialist' has suddenly awakened and demands answers to vague and what many would call non-existent questions.
But something like this happened after I had read a grahically illustrated book on relativity also. I stared at the distant 'horizon' but it was un'eventful' and nothing 'special' turned up. I read a couple more wiki links and found that physics( more so the popular science part of it), I understood, but Maths tangled me up. The only thing I still do is look wistfully at the Physics books displayed in the British library, every time I go there. So I have sufficient reasons to believe that this current infatuation will die down.This brings me to the question- What inspiration is inspiring enough? or whether any inspiration can be inspiring enough?

I wish I could say things like my uncle brought me Meccano and I liked it so much that I decided to become a mechanical engineer. I really wish I could. But truth be told- Beggars cannot be choosers and often become  mechanical engineers.

Perhaps I am inspired by so many things that I can't get inspired by any one thing ....sort of "condemned to be inspired' I guess.....
P.S- Ironically, inspiration-challenged yours truly, had an email id - inspire-world@yahoo.com , before some pervert decided to hack it.  

If....

If you can keep your tail-up when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can get others to trust your when all men doubt themselves, 
But make allowance out of their doubting too; 
If you can cheat and not be tired by cheating, 
Or, being lied about, or dealing in lies, 
Or, being hated, but don't stop taking dues, 
And  don't spend too much, nor charge too less;
If you can call a spade a spade and
yet get the other fellow to dig his own grave out of it,
If you can boast - and  have others raise a toast  to it, 
If you can think – or even otherwise
 make others think you can do so for them; 
If you can meet with triumph and disaster 
And show those two imposters just the same balance sheet; 
If you can twist the half- truth you've spoken 
and catch them in a cycle of words, a  trap for fools, 
Or watch the things they gave their lives, breaking, 
And stoop and sell them the same thing in a different packing;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and tell the winner you’ll settle it minus taxes in his account, 
And never breath a word about your gain to the government; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve the different colored heads of the old man,, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "two more rupees";
If you can mingle with crowds and keep your margins, 
Or walk with kings - nor lose your volumes; 
If neither foes nor loving friends like you; 
If you count all men  with debts they owe you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of  ROI - 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Business -Man my son! 


P.S-Apologies to Mr Rudyard Kipling ,who is turning in his grave.

Relishing the humble pie

I have had a creepy feeling since a long time that life,as mean as ever,listens to my innermost thoughts and decides for some vague reason to show me the middle finger and makes me do the exact things that I feel I detest.I have an ego as elaborate as the Large Hadron Collider and it gets worked up pretty quickly .So I have adopted this strategy wherein I secretly say to myself that I would really hate to work in Google or that I would not like it a bit to win a Nobel prize for proving String theory.(For those of you who want to say it might not be possible to prove strings,well that's precisely my point !) .Though it has not worked till now,I rather give it some time.
Now the other thing that I am doing is telling myself to enjoy whatever previously I had detested.So i listen to all my colleagues now and like my work.The point ultimately is to make life loose interest in what I hate and make it to focus on what I like.

Till then every humble pie that I am made to eat is well... delicious.

P.S - I am indebted to the two gentlemen and the lady who have benevolently put themselves as 'followers' of my blog.But in their own safety and to help them in avoiding any possible public humiliation,I am not going to disclose their identities.Thank you. ;)
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Cynics of all-weather,sulk together

I have often felt that I sulk too much.My father has told it to me several times,my mother makes it a point to mention it once every fortnight.So,  of late I have really been  trying hard not to you know..... sulk.For about a month or so I felt I was doing reasonably well.I was getting to hear absolute non-sense and yet I kept quiet. Thinking that universe as a whole isn't that bad. I brushed aside the most wily insinuations as unintended innocuous remarks and life was pretty much ok.It was then that I met a colleague who was also giving the GRE.The first thing she said to me was"Isn't GRE absolute rubbish".If only u know how hard it was for me not to ramble on...I just managed a feeble "I don't know".Next she comes up with "Don't they treat us like some laborers at this place?..I mean we are highly qualified".That was it ...a tinge of conceit always makes people look attractive...you know and that's how the girl with the irritatingly, strong mother tongue influence, became my friend and we have happily sulked ever since.In fact i now realize most of my friends are unmistakably bound by this common 'sulking' thread.People with added disdain and sarcasm become friends i admire
I guess that is why friends are there...each individual is unique and hence a friend will give you new perspectives from which you can crib. and it's so much better to do it together...

Snide(r's) List

Warning-This post has no intrinsic value in the true tradition of this blog itself.Self obsessed readers with the rare ability to read about others, stretching the limits of snobbishness might read on.

        For quite a few years now,I have been maintaining a mental list of people who are more intelligent than me.Needless to say given my excessive conceit,I have managed perhaps conveniently, to keep it really small.Of course my sample space is a relatively small set of people with whom i have had substantial interaction with.Currently the number stands at 5.I am willing to concede that there have been atleast 4 more potential entrants whose candidatures were shelved only because of lack of further evidence.The system broadly works like this.A one member jury ( I ) am on the lookout for people who have managed to do better than I or what I would have done.Once on the radar,the person is carefully scrutinized for "Innate Intelligence" which is the single largest important quality being evaluated for.Innate Intelligence is characterized by a uniformly superior perspective the candidate brings upon any and each topic he discusses.Once the Jury has grudgingly accepted that the candidate indeed is innately intelligent,the Jury compares itself with the candidate in every possible nonsensical way to see if he is holistically superior.This procedure can take as long as a year to complete.It is here that regrettably, many deserving people drop-off.The procedure,is absolutely harmless and care is taken that no overt embarrassment is caused to anybody concerned.For the candidate,as has been observed,it can at utmost, lead to obtaining superficial answers to some unsettling questions about the Jury.The fact that inspite of  such idiotic and ludicrous criteria,5 people have been chosen,is a testimony to their abilities.If you are one among the elite,apart from hats,you have the following (given)off to you- You have  undivided attention whenever you speak.You have a backing in your every endeavor as long as it does not indicate a sudden cerebral desolation.You will be spoken of very highly to all who care to listen.You will experience an unheard amount of congeniality and optimism during your interactions.Perhaps most importantly you are free of any insinuations that "others" are usually subjected to.(If you had expected anything better,you should have looked carefully at the test itself ).