What was the question again?

Don’t they know the answer is 42?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Universe-on-PC-to-solve-mystery-of-lifes-origins/articleshow/4746484.cms

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Purani Jeans series - Yaari hai imaan mera

Yeh Dosti...
Friendship is a crazy thing. So much more common and more complex than love. And yet, so little is said about it. It is a blanket word that covers a range of relationships - for each friendship is different, and changes at different stages of life. It is more of a catchall - if it's closer than acquaintance but not as close as love and if it is not family, then it must be friendship.

In otherwords: Acquaintance < Friends < Love, all of which < > family

Hum nahi thodenge...
Coming back to friendship - this one is about those friends you make in school or college. Those really strong bonds and shared memories. People who knew you when you were a different person. People who are different people now...

Why is it that we cannot make the same kind of friendships later in life? And why can't we hold on to the ones that are made, except for the very few?
Those who have lived in a hostel always think of those days as the best years of their lives. But if they were so good, how come no one's tried to replicate it later in life? Why do people leave that life behind and go on to build their own families, acquire their own homes and cars and pets?

Perhaps this is something to do with our development as people - the older you get, the better defined your personality is , the fewer the number of people you can tolerate .

Or maybe it is that friendship is in conflict with the family and love relationships... and friendship must of course lose that battle due to afore mentioned heirarchy.

Maybe the very friendship is based on the fact that it is not as binding or close as love and family. It is like hostels - tolerable and even cozy, but only because you know they are temporary.

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Purani Jeans series - Poorer n Happier

This isn't about the old line 'Money can't buy happiness'. The lack of money can sure lead to some unhappy times. And knowing you have the money to pay your debts, provide for your loved ones or just splurge on a big fat wedding can give you some moments of joy.

Most people I know remember a time when they were happier - coincidentally, those were also times when they didn't earn as much. And strangely, back then, everyone thought that all they needed was more money to make them happier.

Is it really money that saps the joy out of your life?
Or is it the very process of making money? The barter of time and effort in exchange for money and all the things it can buy.
Or is it the accumulation of things - things that need to be cared for and protected? For after all, you spent a lot of money on them.

Isn't it so easy to lose track of what you really want - give away valuable time and effort to get money that you spend on high maintenance clutter that just saps you of the energy left to you?

Money means nothing - it is just the link binding the two... it could so easily be taken out of this equation. What you are left with is 5 working days in exchange for a teak wood sofa that needs to be polished and cannot be moved without hired help. Was it worth it?

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Purani Jeans series - Choice

A friend and I were reminiscing... The usual 'purani-jeans' talk of how things were so different in college - poorer, yet happier. And he mentioned how they used look at fancy restaurants (or the newly launched Pizza Hut) and say 'When I get a job, I'm going to have a lunch here!'. And another place which got the response of 'They require formal shoes!!! How will we ever go there?'.

Now, he wears leather shoes to work everyday, and hates them. I've never known him to go to a place that required shoes, he's vetoed them every time they've come up. Sometimes he's traveled for an hour, just to get back home to change in to comfy shoes and then go out to eat.

When I was in college, I'd made a list of the things I would buy when I got that wonderful job. I don't remember the whole list, but I do know it included an Ipod, a Sony Vaio and a Scorpio. I have none of these things and now think buying any of them now would be a waste of money.

The fact that I could possibly afford them, but don't want them, has made all the difference... That's what choice does - it doesn't necessarily change your life, it just lets you decide that this is way you want things to be. And it's amazing how much happier you can be in the same circumstances, just knowing that you chose them.

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Orwell's pigs

Funny thing about equality - you cannot give it to some and not to others. And you cannot take it away from one and let the other keep it. Which is why I find statements like 'equality for women' a little strange. What you are saying is 'equality for everyone' - and that doesn't sound too bad, does it? 

My mom used to tell us of this old Brahmin lady who was our neighbour around the time I was just born. This lady was a big help to my mother and had a heart of gold. Apparently, my brother would always go to her house to eat, because he liked her food a lot better. My mom did not want to impose on her, but she could not repay her in kind. Being Brahmin, she could not eat food made in our house - it was 'madi' or 'unclean'. Having grown up on a diet of anti-casteism literature, I was stunned to hear this - we had a neighbour who thought us unclean? And my mom was friend's with her? To which my mother simply said 'In her case, she had earned the right to be superior'. Of course, it took me a few years to realise that this lady did not really think of us as inferiors. The madi doctrine has been handed down to her and while she did not believe in it, in principle, it was ingrained in her and she could not refute it either. 

I remember thinking at the time, that we were so lucky - my brother got to eat at both houses, while she never had the chance to eat our food. And I remember thinking that she really missed out on a lot :) 

This is true of all inequalities - one may be superior. But even superior is still unequal. And somewhere or the other, you are losing out.

When we talk of women's lib and equal rights, I don't understand why men don't stand up for equal rights too - an equal right to be a house husband, equal household responsibilities. Or when some others complain of gender baises, why don't they see that those are all due to this same inequality - in college, most women got more interview calls. But that was because there were only so few women - a product of our society that does really like to send daughters to MBA college. If we had an equal number of women as men... it would be really difficult to differentiate. 

No one can be equal, till everyone is. So to all of you there on the other side of the inequality divider - stand up for your rights to be equal!

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If the kids knew!!

As a child, I believed in an orderly universe. I believed that the centuries the human race had spent on this planet had been productive and the adults had sorted out this world and how to live in it. All our interactions with each other, what is right and wrong. It was all figured out and I just had to grow up to enter that world. Which was why I obeyed my elders - they must know what they are doing. You don't spend 25 odd years here without learning something...

Now that I've entered that adult world, I've realised that I'm just about as smart as I was at 8. Maybe a little dumber in someways. What has changed is my confidence - and self assurance and stupidity are a deadly combination. Scarily, we see this at work in too many politicians and corporate leaders. Attaining majority does not confer enlightenment....

Also, I've realised that the world we have and the systems we have were made by staggering and stumbling about for the last so many centuries. We still depend on brute force to decide rights - as kids we called this a scruffy fight, as adults we have wars. We still squabble about superiority - as kids we said 'my daddy strongest' and now we say "my religion/language/country/caste/colour strongest'. And anyone who drives on these roads knows that it is the same jostling, pushing and jumping lines that happens when you are walking - except now you do it with vehicles which could crush you. 

Watching Star Trek yesterday brought it back to me. The childish faith that we had a fool-proof adult world. In movies, things are all well planned. The challenge, the drama comes from the unexpected human error or frailty. But that actually just the opposite in this world. We have a little too much human frailty, it is order that comes as a surprise.

Perhaps we take adulthood too seriously. What we need is someone to come and smack the presidents on the head when they go to war; and say, go to your room! And no dinner till you apologise!

If I knew that the world only has overgrown kids, and just how stupid they can be, I wouldn't have taken them so seriously. 

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