Books

The reason for back to back posts is - I had train of thoughts which made me visit the blogger and when I published my last post I figured out that I forgot to include it. Then I went to edit mode but just couldn't fit the stuff there so I thought I would start a new post. What better way to improve on the number count as well :-).

There are instances in life when one is not in the right spirits(bored/lacking purpose/disappointed etc.) And what has worked for me is Books. Though I picked up the habit pretty late (College first yr)I have been avid reader and read any/everything (except the course books :-P). As I said most times in my life so far, whenever I have come across a situation as such, the prime reason has been me being away from books. The moment I get back to my habit things start turning around and the problems start disappearing too. I have a small collections of books some of them personally signed by their respective Authors. Others mostly bought from LandMark store or others.

I would end the post with a number one(1999-UK) single from the album "Something for Everybody" which I heard for the first time last year, through a very good friend/office colleague of mine whom I don't see often since both of us work with different teams now. It sure lifts your mood

Reflections

This is what happens to a post in draft if not published on time. What I meant was the contents has to be modified and as they loose their relevance.As the title of post suggests it was drafted around the new year with just a couple of paragraphs. Well at the start of a New Year one generally tends to make resolutions. I am no different and hence I sat down to figure out what do I need to achieve/do. When I started the exercise little did I realize that it would start from looking back at the years gone by.

Let me be frank, its a difficult exercise unless you have a diary/notebook where you keep a note of events. You always tend to remember the big decisions which you made or major events which happened across the year. The smaller and yet significant events just get lost and its really difficult to trace. When there is train of thoughts running backward that when I connect the dot and see how things shaped up the way they are today.

Life always has plans and as they say it -The only constant is CHANGE. At the start of year I had plans both on the professional front as well the the personal side. Things on the professional side had been really topsy-turvy ride so far. The team I worked in my firm went lean, closed it operations from Gurgaon location and shifted to Bangalore and hence had to make unplanned changes (move in to a completely new team and shift technology back to where I had started 5 yrs back). There are pros and cons of every thing, if I would have been with a smaller firm I might have been thanked for my services or forced to move to new location. But since it a large firm I had option to shift to other team. Its not that I am techno-geek who loves a particular technology but I am still re-working on mid/long term plans based on the current scenario. I have been with the same firm more than 5 yrs now and since I shifted to new technology, I have been put in a month long training. Now to add to all this I met a cousin of mine and we are of the same age-group and by most of the standards she has an illustrious background so far (IIT->ISB). Which forces me to rethink the strategy I have been working on for a while and take the break move to B-school and try to run faster in the rat-race which seems to be trapping me :-).

Though I took time to realize that either I can plan for life, work on it and handle the challenges it throws at me or either sit back give the control to life and see whatever happens. No doubt everyone (including me) wants to take charge and lead it but there are times when you realize that you let off that reins at some instance and hence the things shaped up this way. Enough ramblings for the day :-).

Blackmail

Well I can see a pattern now, I come back to post something only when I am happy or disappointed by events going in my life. No brownies for guessing that today it’s the second part which brings me here.
To cut a long story short, there is sect famous as Nadi Astrologers which some members of my family(sister and brother-in-law) have faith in, since they have already used their services. The method they employ is pretty unconventional as well. All they take is your thumb print and they don’t charge you, now they match the thumbprint in their physical database(set of leaves/papers written thousands of yrs ago by a saint). Once they have found a match they call you back for reading your past/present/future with usual fees. There is no guarantee that they would have a match but if they have they get in touch with you.

I have been a science student and belong to the so called gen-X and hence rational as well and I do not approve of astrology. It’s not that I am expert or something neither does my approval has to do anything with what the world/my family feels on this topic J. Obliviously my Jiju(bro-in-law who is more of a friend) had used the Nadi Centre  some 8-10 years and his life pattern has followed the predicted trajectory. Now my mom and dad want me to visit the center and they want to know how my future looks like. Obliviously they feel that I am good for nothing as I haven’t found a girl to marry yet and am already in late twenties and would tip over the scale and won’t find a good girl once I step in 30’s in another yr or so J.

It’s not that I am against the system(matrimony) or am a rebel/maverick but it’s just that I don’t feel it’s the right time for me as I need to do lot more things before I can start a family. Maybe there is another reason I am still looking for the miss right who will automatically appear out of blue moon :-P. Since I wasn’t ready to visit the center my sis jumps into the picture and starts convincing me that why I should visit this place. This entire conversation is over gtalk since they stay in Fiji. For every logic/argument which I had in mind for not going was silenced by one statement “what do you lose out of this, if it makes mom and dad happy?” Now how can anyone defend something like this? And I guess this is just the start of things to come in future where these arguments would be repeated over again. Hence the title of the post.  I know am a strong headed individual (my family calls me stubborn) who has strong opinions for and against issues and generally prefer doing things my way.

Now let’s get back to the point, why I don’t want to visit this Nadi center. I guess it takes courage to admit that I am hypocrite but maybe I am (at-least on this topic). The entire incident made me re-evaluate self and I figured out that though I do not believe in astrology (horoscopes/numerology/Nadi etc.) I do not mind reading weekly horoscopes which the newspaper print in the Sunday edition and laugh about it. When they print something nice be happy if it’s not nice just forget about it. Being the rational self I am, I can endlessly argue as how could the entire world (8 billion) be divided in 12 zodiac signs and something for them can be predicted for all of them together. If something fits one person it’s a probability and if it doesn’t I come back to where I stated “I told you so”.

Now let me defend myself J irrespective of how logical/rational one can be, if your life starts following the patterns predicted by someone you might end up believing him, even though there is no proof of such scientific system in these studies. I guess this would be right reason why am averse to visiting such a place. And probably I am person who puts in effort because I don’t know the end result, so if you tell me how things are going to be maybe the effort would go for toss. I prefer taking life as it comes and dreaming on how I would want it to be rather than getting just the perfect excuse someone on the earth could ever invent(why put an effort when I know things are not going to change since someone had written it that way for me).

Though I did enough research on Nadi now I can definitely write couple of pages only on them but let it be for some other day. Enough for today I guess I do need time for myself more frequently (“Main aur Meri Tanhayee”) types which make me feel calmer and penning my rants sounds like a good idea J.