on the bright side

Well, so I lost my phone. Big deal! Yes it is a big deal!
But, with the cold clinical sense of helplessness took me by force and my own ever-present sense of humor, made me realize that it is the fifth phone i've probably lost to theft, and not for my carelessness. And not only that, but that a God fearing employee in a bank tells me, maybe it was for the best, you know the loss of the phone took care of a greater mishap waiting to happen. Maybe he is right. More likely he isn't, but how do I disprove the theory?

Another notion I heard was today is your birthday! You can do anything and nothing bad shall happen. A pitfall- can i stand in front of a running bus and still emerge unscathed?

Birthdays and Cellphones

I was once asked to link violins and transistors, but  guess this seems a little less crazy. Birthdays and cellphones can be quite a link. Friends can't call you, text you and neither can you plan your own party.
For someone who is so deeply integrated into the information world, a day without a phone seems like ten dog years with no contact with the outside world. I mean there is only so much that you cannot do with your phone.

Yeah, you guessed right! Its my birthday today and someone just stole my cellphone from my bedside, a few hours ago. Why, just last night I had my mother call me on that same talking parrot to tell me that the talking box was my gift for this year. And with seemingly no value to that sentiment, the world conspires to take away the gift, which became precious to me after those words, right on the day when it was priceless.

That the talking gadget probably costs as much as my month's stipend was just an irrelevant fact which became the collateral damage to my internal rationalization. The whole point being, the phone had just multiplied in its value to me after the words from my mom.

So here I am today, a nice english afternoon, with beautiful clouds hanging overhead, cribbing about a gift lost in the morning, and trying to imagine what a day will be like.

I guess birthdays make all the sentiments more acute and clear and penetrating. A small gesture of kindness makes you feel on top of the world, and a smallest of slights makes insinuates you no end, the smallest of hurts pierces to the depths of your heart.. and the world conspiring against you... well thats just the last stick that probably broke the proverbial donkey's back. Maybe sarcasm ill suits me, maybe cynicism is best left alone, maybe hedonism is what I lived by, but today might just become a crucible for some psychopathic, clinical sarcastic, hedonistic cynicism that I shall live by.

But hey! Its my birthday today! There's a wide vista of opportunities out there waiting for me and I am naught but just a leaf floating in the wind, willing the wind to blow in the path which shall take me to sea, when I know I am on an island, and every which way leads to the ocean.

And I am probably just rambling because I feel the need to crib on this occasion when just losing a phone, is not "just losing a phone" anymore.

when the world is half asleep

When the world is half asleep, when half the world is asleep, when only people like me are up and about, it is not night anymore, but it becomes a "World of Dreams", a parallel world where things happen almost like they would in the real world, only twisted and malformed by our thoughts, desires and aspirations.

In this world, innocent yearnings turn into nightmarish hauntings, truths are maligned into lies, aspirations become desperations. What was black and white now turns grey. Where there was light, there now lies shadow. In the heart of all this lies our innermost desire to grasp at things beyond our powers. It is malicious particularly at night, when jealousy and hatred dominate the bizarre.

It is only the ones truly at peace with themselves, who are content with themselves and their lives, who manage to evade this ensnaring place - which tempts everyone with the bait of dream-fulfilment, which haunts their failures and turns them into a twisted success.
Those who are truly blessed, exotic as it might sound, rarely step inside this illusionary world and instead of being sucked into this parallel universe grow to dominate it, for nothing can dominate a heart which yearns for nothing, a heart which has no chinks.

Signing off to test my exotic bizarre theory, which came about as an offshoot of reading too many unrelated pieces of scribbled paper from an Age long past, an age they call the Age of Legends..

somethings no-one should read

This is not a blog which I'd expect you to read if your name does not have the initials AP or AT.
And if your name does have these initials and you still don't know if it refers to you or not, you'd be better off skipping this particular post and discarding the memory that you ever came across this article ever.

But if you are reading this line, then I guess you are the one I am talking about, since, I'm pretty sure, I'll never read this after I'm done putting my thoughts here for you to read.

Personally, in my life, I'd gladly choose a happy moment, even with the certainty of a sad moment in the future, to a dull moment with no assurance that a sad moment will not wait for me in the coming days. I'd rather have ups and downs in my life than a simple straight path with no undulations, for the high-points and the low-points leave behind powerful memories that make up the essence of life.

When I am 80 years old, I'd love to think back and remember my life-road's highs and lows, my successes and my mistakes, rather than look at an empty and drab life-road where I managed to circumnavigate the potholes, by taking the safe routes and the middle paths. I'd love to be able to laugh at my mistakes and see a tear or two trickle down at the thought of the happiness bygone.
I'd like to laugh at the stupid castles I had built in the air, and cry joyfully at all the things I'd managed to do right.

I'd love to be able to tell a lot of tales to my grand-kids, if I have them - tell them of the days when I was carefree, risk-loving and accident prone. I'd love to be able to fall back into a reverie of thoughts, along paths that I'd never explored before, and which only then the "old" wisdom would show me. I'd like to be able to fall into my final eternal sleep with enough experiences to relive for an entire eternity, until I'm finally let free, to roam wherever I may forever and ever more..

night outs - nights out

I looked at my watch and wondered where the hours had gone since I had last looked at the white dial. Wasn't the small hand parked squarely at 2?? It seems to have skipped all the other numerals in between and landed stubbornly past 5. Really?? 3 hours???

Somewhere in between, I must have lost track of the time or else my watch has had a serious case of amnesia and malfunctioning. Or perhaps it is just too indignant at my callousness with which I treat time and is punishing me for it..

But then somewhere down the line I realise that the poor watch is a mechanical contraption after all, unfeeling, unemotional and untenable. I feel sorry to have hurled abuses at its steady rhythm and slowly and sarcastically berate myself for having being so thrifty with Time.

In a dark corner of my heart, though, I smile and relive the moments which had seemed so fleeting, and yet I know they are moments which will last a lifetime. I chuckle at the day that spreads out before me, and before you know it, I have already planned to make up for the lost time, for that time holds something I consider very precious to my soul. Under no circumstances will I let that time pass me by, so I make do with being harder on myself, for I hold those times dearer to me than my life itself.

And as I put my thoughts to paper, the morning star winks out, and its soft light is lost in the brilliance that spreads out of the west.

the story of a bright blue star

This is in continuation to the same motivation from a particularly peppy chat today afternoon with a particularly "Pretty" lady friend.
As it turns dark but before the moon and the stars wink in, there is a bright twinkle in the sky just like a diamond only infinitely prettier. It is the evening star shining bright to watch over you, Oh thy sleeping child!
And in the cold mornings, as the stars gradually wink out, the morning star winks again to let you know it'll be back.

There is no lore to this in many cultures, but they are the romanticists delight, the star-crossed lovers' sigh and the poet's sonnet. They are the one and the same - Ishtar more commonly known as Venus, named after the Goddess of love.

serendipity

Serendipity is the lucky discovery of an object that you were not looking for by accident. Our world teems with such examples..penicillin, america and what not...you name it..and it was probably more of serendipity than a focussed search.

Now, I might be wrong, but I believe that our universe is also a result of serendipity. And out of this is born the fundamentality of probability. Everything is not deterministic as we would likt them to be. And whatever we perceive to be deterministic always has some amount of probability intrinsic to it however we may try to ignore.

This leads me to ask, is it the deterministic nature nature of the universe which leads to serendipity or the probabilistic nature?

Had it been a completely probabilistic Universe, it would be child's play to convince ourselves about the serendipity. Serendipity is an embodiment of the chance - the very basis of the probabilistic theory.

So, now the real question is whether Deterministic Theory account for serendipity. Now any layman might raise this very valid question, if the universe is deterministic, there is no chance then how can serendipity be applicable. I would tell him thus, It is the determinism in this universe which ensures that a person does what is expected of him in spite of the million decision he takes to avoid it. All the what if's that could have gone the other way went the other way but still he managed to come back to the right road? that would be the essential nature of the deterministic world again. The end has to be predetermined and certain in spite of any deviations that may occur in between.

Serendipity may be borne out of either universes but it is an essential part of our life and this is what makes our life infinitely more interesting even amidst our drab daily activities.