life status

Spoke to a good friend, and the takeaway from the conversation: 'Live life with respect, and not in retrospect!'. Probably one of the most trippy profound statements ever made.Till now i was walking on the boulevard of broken dreams, thank you Mathur for bringing me back on track. At the risk of sounding like the title of a self help book, moments finally seem to be shaping my life for the better.


Sign offffff............

awesome

                                  now that's what i call a true geeks watch 

curiosity

“Curiosity killed the cat,”

                                                                                   “And satisfaction brought it back.” 

If u say me it was curiosity that killed the cat than I can only say the cat died “nobly”.

This topic popped up during a chat with one of my friend a curious way to strike upon a topic as curious as “curiosity”, sounds too rhyming...but that is the usual way for a curious mind to find what it requires, even at the times when it is not even thinking about something but out of nowhere the revelation strikes down.

Even before Newton apples used to fall & Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why? It was the curious mind of Newton to discover gravity, even though the guy was a clever thief who stole many of his students work & other theoretical physicists, but let’s not take credit from him for some of his original work. Curiosity is an important trait of a genius. I don’t think you can find an intellectual giant who is not a curious person. 

 Curiosity is an encouragement for doing work, when I am curious about anything and I want to find the answer it makes me more efficient; I do my best and I put my brain into it.  It inspires people to invent, even to think!

Curiosity is a hunger to explore and a delight in discovery. When we are curious, we approach the world with a child-like habit of poking and prodding and asking questions. We are attracted to new experiences. Rather than pursuing an agenda or a desired set of answers, we follow our questions where they lead.

Socially, curiosity let us really listen to other people because we want to know who they are. We open ourselves to the morsels of knowledge and experience they can share with us. We relish having discoveries of our own to share.

If a person is bored than I suggest the cure to be curious. In this case I feel I have special powers as I am passionately curious, it’s an eager confession I am particularly proud of, basically, I have been compelled by curiosity.

Guided by my blind impulse of curiosity, I am a vagabond..

Sign offffff..........

RENAISSANCE

Every now and then you find movies that beg to differ from the pattern. They start a new genre all together, and redefine the ways the movie experiences are meant to be.

This movie is not one among those. It is their grand daddy!

 This movie changes the way people perceive when they watch something. The art work is godly and the ways the motions have been conceptualized and eventually implemented are mind blowing. Take it from me, you will not pause the movie to do something else during the movie. You just cannot. But you may pause, a large number of times, to appreciate the art, to appreciate the way the sequences have been put together, to appreciate every inch of black and every half inch of white. And you will definitely pause, to stop, and stare at the screen in awe.

  I might have made it sound like I was doing a piece as if I was Pablo Francisco. But this movie definitely deserves and calls for all the attention.

  And when I say that, I say that out of experience. I had not slept properly the previous night, and it was already 12 midnight when I decided to try this movie, and my eyes were totally weary. For the next one hour forty minutes, I could barely blink.


Don't be confused by the poster that it is just some movie of 1960's, this movie was released in 2006 and as a matter of fact Renaissance took six years to complete on a budget of 15 million dollars.


 As an aside, the plot gives you the feel of a regular sci fi, but everything else just steals the show. So the plot eventually does not matter.

  A user comment on IMDB -
''First things first, this movie is achingly beautiful. A someone who works on 3D CG films as a lighter/compositor, the visuals blew me away. Every second I was stunned by what was on screen.''

Watch the trailer if you have the time right now -

   Unfortunately, I do not see these kind of movies coming to Indian screens any time. So if you want to watch it, get a DVD and make sure that you watch it on a really nice screen and really good speakers. It was my luck that i saw this movie in a movie library while randomly surfing through the contents there & what particularly caught my attention was its cover & title so just thought of giving it try, who says you cant judge a book  or movie by its cover, as a matter of fact sometimes you can. TRUST me, you will find it worth your time.

Good or Bad?

Ladies and gentlemen (though I have always wondered why 'ladies' comes first! probably because of the saying 'ladies first', but then, why ladies first?) anyways lets rest the thought for now.

A lot has been happening in my life and lives of people around and close to me of late. A lot has always happened, but the recent happenings appear to carry more significance even in the short attention span than most other events did in their short term attention spans in my life. A lot has been learnt, and there does not seem to be a bottom line per se, but only learning, and more of it.
I had started believing firmly that the reason why people start pursuing materialistic pleasures is because pursuing relations or human beings is just not worth it. Parallely, I was contradicting myself, because I wanted to still pursue feelings, and the pain and pleasure they offer.

Amidst all this, it appeared to me that things are just not the same anymore. Most things around seem like a farce. I had begun trying to read between the lines with every person. I had actually begun implementing an advice given to me long ago on a jovial note, and had begun telling people what they wanted to hear and not what I wanted to say. I was losing my genuine behavior, the true me. Slowly, I had begun forming a protective shell around me. Is it good ? The wall that I was trying to create, and not letting people penetrate it and at the same time being scared about the shell enveloping me completely, was a kind of a contradiction. Was the act of two timing my own mind bad ? I had begun to firmly believe that nobody is genuine and the best thing is to avoid any situation where I would be vulnerable and would end up in a situation where I would get hurt.

All said and done, it was chaos, and usually things get sorted out, but this was increasingly becoming a trouble.

Recently, over a chat on a drive, with one of my friend, he gave me some food for thought. He did not particularly classify people as genuine and not so genuine. People are different. But if one starts to create a shell around himself, he/she ends up portraying a character that he/she isn't. The perception offered to people is an illusion by itself, hence the judgment that people make of one is a completely distorted one. This in turn leads to a false circle being formed around oneself, an infinite loop within another loop.

One would be blocking the only window that one has to the outer world : Oneself. In the longer run, the people who get filtered and eventually stick with you are the people who know the true person in you and are similar to you. Hence, by pretending to be someone else, you are taking away the possibility of similar people coming towards you.

In any case, cheers to genuineness.....

Human Beings

Are rarely smart.
The problem is that most never want to believe that they are dumb.
 

PS: I am too tired of labels. If you have the time, suggest some better ones..

The Pursuit of Happyness

Well I kept this title because it was a movie of the same title which made me to write. Well, a million dollar question- How many guys get their eyes moist while watching these sad-ending chick flicks?? On the internet , mainly in forums with anonymous or pseudo names many guys do admit  that  these movies move them a lot and a little tears can't be helped but we all  know we won't ever admit it in real world . Of course we are men and we don't cry, right?

                                            With me, honestly I can't help the tears fall back if the movies are that sad. Generally movies are meant to be enjoyed which is the sole purpose why me and most other people watch it as there is no better way to spend 2 hrs.  So basically I am getting cheated with the sad movies because I am not a happy man after watching it. Why do you need a sad ending??? This is fiction; you are supposed to have control over the story line unlike in real life. Why can't we always have a happily ever after? When I was 14 or 15 I saw the ‘the green mile’ and goddamn it, it was moving. I thought getting your eyes moist is only a phase but I was wrong. It continues, be it A bridge to terabithia or  the green mile. But as a lover of movies, you have to admit these kind of movies have a storyline which has quality written all over it. I guess we do need such movies to make us realise that life is not always a bed of roses

A Walk to remember - It shows that love can save anyone, teach us to live, and yet in the end make us cry!

Schindler's List - A truly exceptional piece of cinema. You have to be truly heartless to not cry in this film.

The Pursuit of Happiness - At the of end the movie we come to know what happiness actually means. When there’s happiness truly can you control the tears?

The Bridge to Terabithia - This movie shows you that how the kid’s imagination and his friends are almost his life so we must respect him and the things he loves.

The Notebook - It touched my heart and made me feel something I have never felt for movies ever.

The Green Mile - This is an incredibly powerful and sad movie, if you don't cry by the end you aren't human!

There are many more, but for now I guess this much is enough....  

Ah! Goddamn it these are my vacations I must remain happy,but the only person I am trying to make happy is myself, life ain’t all about happiness, is it???

Sign offffffff.......

How the money works... part 2

So folks I am finally back on my blog, sorry for my apparent absence..here’s  continuation to my previous post titled ‘How the money works... part 1’.......

I think the inequality in the world monetary system is quiet apparent. The system clearly reflected the beginning of Capitalism at the world stage after the Second World War. This further led to the cold war because the Russians did not want the American dollar to rule the world. As we all know, they lost. 

I am not against Capitalism or Communism. In this case I take the middle view. Capitalism is a good idea, excellent in fact, when put in an envelope called Democracy.  Democracy - that granted everyone equal rights and freedoms. There is no democracy at the world stage. Countries are democracies but the world is not, as the assigning of quotas shows. 

Countries had to grant their citizens equal rights ....but with whatever quota they were given. 

So equal rights in US and Europe meant - Free Health care, Unemployment pay ( very capitalistic !!), Free Education,  Pension Plans , Big Mortgages, Social Security. They had, they borrowed, and they had more.

  

And equality in Africa meant- Maybe someday everyone will have water and electricity and polio drops!! They couldn’t fulfil it, so they borrowed!!

But things are not as hopeless as they may seem. Many Asian countries including India and China were able to attain rapid growth, thanks to Education and Infrastructure development. 

The US consumer’s total consumption per year is $ 9 trillion. China's consumers spend $ 1 trillion and Indians about $ 600 billion a year. This is mainly because Chindians have a higher savings rate. ( Chindians is an accepted word in Economics nomenclature for Chinese and Indians it’s just amalgamation of the words ....)

The US can print cash and they have to pay about 1 -1.5 % interest on their bonds and countries like India have to pay 4 -5 %. So the US had access to a lot of liquidity. Which in fact led to the whole credit-crunch and sub prime mess.

 People were given loans, who should not have been given loans. The lending rates were so low ...that it was always assumed that the percentage rise in price of the property would be much higher; hence the loan was always safe. The real estate brokers sold homes to people with absolutely no documents. These loans were called NINJA loans (No Income, No Job, Asset). The brokers made these loans because they dint care if the loan would be paid back or not, they only had to hold the risk of the loan for a few days, till it was "securitized". Then these securities would rest with banks in their balance sheets. These derivatives were so complex...I'm sure they were some highly complex y= f(x) equation that mindle came up with when he was interning at Lehman. Then they were "sliced" and "diced", assigned arbitrary ratings by rating agencies and sold left and right. When the prices fell and hit the fan, the ones who had created this crap were left holding most of it themselves . A dozen or so HUGE corporations collapsed or became "financial Institutions" that were deemed too big to fall, for the sake of Mankind. This is a whole different topic of debate and there have been many good articles on the subject. 

I don't know if the current credit crisis signals an opportunity for India and China and other Emerging countries to play a larger economic or political role in the world. But there certainly are signals from many countries that they want to negotiate a new world monetary system. The world monetary system is always changing...the introduction of Euro for example has given the governments of the world an alternative to dollar reserves. I think the current crisis certainly means that the role of the US will be diminished in the long term but I don't know how effectively and quickly India can increase its importance in the world stage. 

I hope Manmohan Singh is PM when/if the monetary system is "renegotiated". 

Anyway in conclusion, I think the Entire concept of money is flawed. There is no point on putting a cap on the wealth of the world and then dividing it disproportionately. Yes, there is a cap on the total money because even though the money supply is always increasing, inflation ensures that the value of money is always eroding at a certain rate which keeps wealth constant and people senselessly  going about the Rat race. In fact a big part of the slowdown in the US can be attributed to the higher number of educated adults in Asia who are a cheap source of labour, both in the Services and the Manufacturing Sector, as a consequence, the virtual collapse of the US Auto Industry (both due to credit crunch and losing to low cost Asian rivals).

 Almost all manufacturing jobs (Factory Jobs) could be lost to technology and automation (Robots) in 30-40 years, the technology will exist. Thanks to excessive automation, Mankind has lost many jobs to computer programs. A company's point of contact today is the Internet website and everything can be done online. The only thing that motivates corporations is profit. The term "Corporate Responsibility" is clearly a paradox.  Excess food is destroyed by producers to drive up food prices and hence profit. How can this be allowed in a world where people die of hunger.

So my point is ... The current monetary system will lead to a situation where many human beings will lose their sources of Income and their lives,  as there will be less and less jobs because of Man vs. Technology. Right now we are in the phase of Man vs Man, because it is one country over another trying to divide wealth. 

In this scenario, it is the duty of the world leaders to define a minimum level of equality for the whole world, for every person. In my opinion at least food, clean water, electricity, primary education and basic health care must be provided to everyone in the world. It is possible. But does Mankind have the will and the Integrity to provide basic equality to everyone in the world?? Judging from 2000 years of human history, I highly doubt it.

Folks at least have some basic courtesy I have put in lot of effort to write this... I know many people are reading my blog, I can see that from number of views...at least write 1 line commenting how the post was.....it will hardly take 30 seconds...

I am backkkkk.......

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. -Oscar Wilde