As Term 1 rushes to a close!

A good friend of mine from Star Vijay dropped into college campus and got shocked at the kind of books I had to read as coursework... he just cracked up when he found out that I had to study Financial Accounting, Business Statistics etc. considering the only Finance we ever did in our office was trying to ensure we had the correct change in paying off Shekar, the friendly neighbourhood tea 'master'.

Its been quite a shocking ride from where I was 2 years back to where I am now. Been constantly trying to cower behind the fact that I did not do anything remotely close to Mathematics - probability, differentiation, integration, algebra etc. - for 8 years and using that as an excuse for some of the shoddy performance. Truth is I should have worked harder or rather I should work harder but there is no motivation for me to get the top rank or the top grade or to have 3 extra alphabets assigned to the start of my name. I am not a part of the rat race, because I am much more the mouse! The only worry is about going to the slow track which would only result in me spending an extra year in college. Not really something which is on top of my priority list to say the least ;) (another soul like me)

What's even more bemusing to me is the way the people over here fight and struggle for marks. Some of them learn and study, most of them just study and I am still trying to figure out how many learn. I am not the only one who is in the campus with work experience. In fact, majority have work ex here but I wonder if they ever contemplate things the way I do. I guess they are too busy putting fight (college lingo for working hard) to get the best marks they can to even pause and think for awhile.

I look around at people and wonder how many would I want as my manager. Some of them cheat over time limits. Most of them get jealous or have petty arguments or raise questions just to put off the presenting student/group (when students make presentations). Maybe the behaviour is just a representation of the business world and the society we live in... or is it?

I have been living in the society for 25 years now and it is competitive no doubt about that but at the same time it is fair. Those who succeed either deserve it or want it more and that is all it should be. One man's freedom ends where the other man's begins. Maybe I am a type 2 error at college (one of those concepts that I learned or think I learned from Statistics) and have way too much time to have such thoughts and blog about them.

Life is going to be somewhat hectic over the next week with the first term drawing to a close. I have heard the second term gets crazier than the first. Hoping I would like the craziness more as I think the craziness is related to summer placements which is not really something I am too worried about (or so I say now)

Second term will start with me moving to a new room and more importantly a single room so it has started off in the right note and I am sure by the time I begin to loathe it, it too shall end the same way Term 1 would be ending in a week... me being battered and bruised but still standing tall!

Reacquaintance

I am sorry for not visiting you more often... its just that I am faced by this scarcity of subjects to write about. Actually there are tons of things I could post about... just mundane straight forward things... I sleep for lesser time than I used to which would then imply that I stay awake and see more of what life has to offer which would then directly imply that there would be more things that I could blog about... right? WRONG!

Have been awake all right... but not been seeing much of life. Life restricted to IIMB campus. Great buildings and architecture. Joined a couple of clubs - Cultural Committee and Merchandise and Retailing Society (CulCom & MARS respectively) - and tried to do some useful work. Been awake to study but not been learning much. Finally getting the hang of Quants and the reason why it is being taught in a B-school. Wish I didn't suck at it so much though.

Been Tweeting more though and have tried to indulge in a bit of creativity here and there in campus life but still not been able to get around to logging on here and making a post. Shall be more purposeful and try hard to get back in touch with you over the next couple of weeks. Will not be able to break off from my affair with twitter though. Affairs of the shorter and sweeter kinds are a lot of fun... I guess blogs are like marriages, once the honeymoon period is over you just do not know what to say!

Monologues on God, Religion, Identity etc. - 3

How was it decided that God is above us? Why cant God be beside us? I guess he or she can not be below us as having to look up all the time would obviously cause him or her a major pain in the neck. How far above us is God anyways? Stratospheric levels or a mere 3 feet above head height like Lord Krishna was in Doordarshan's Mahabharata when Draupadi was being stripped.

And since God is watching us all, does he/she ever get biased? Which IPL team would God support? Are Jesus Christ and Allah neighbours? Would the Hindu Gods invite Zeus for dinner?

I have lost the plot of this thread... truth is, I do not really mind if God existed. To be honest, it would be quite nice if God existed but just one God. Not different manifestations or different religions and different identities.

Speaking of identity, over the last one year or so the circumstances have been such that I sometimes wonder what my identity is and what the relevance of an individual's identity is in the grander scheme of things. In Bangalore, I am a Chennai guy who has to be mocked when the Super Kings lose. When I go to Chennai I am a Bengalooru guy. In Kerala, I am a Tamilian as my Malayalam sucks. In Chennai, I am a Malayali as my Tamil sucks. In any state above the Vindhyas, I am a Madrasi as my Hindi sucks and also that for some reason the North tend to be poor in Geography and think Madras is the name of all the South Indian states.

I also cant quite fathom astrology and horoscopes. How can one's time and day of birth be an indicator of what will happen in his life or what kind of job he should be in, what name he should have, whom he should marry etc. A learned man once told me that if you are ignorant about Astrology and you do not know what goes into it you should not comment on it. He proceeded to tell me that there are numerous mathematical calculations that are done to come to a result in astrology and hence its not just mumbo-jumbo being told by men wearing 3 rings on each finger. My take on this is that no matter how many calculations are made the answer would still be wrong if the base of it is the time and date of birth as this is decided by when an individual was conceived and these days in most cases the doctor decides when the baby should come out into this world. Even the whole conception of the child could be induced by excess liquor and a faulty condom. There are too many stupid reasons that cause conception and a person's entire life can not be based on the time of birth. Right?

I am not quite the eloquent one and I fear that I have not put my point across quite clearly and convincingly but I just like to wonder why one needs to complicate life further with all the permutations and combinations. Live for your needs and wants and be happy... wishful thinking for a life more ordinary!

Monologues on God, Religion, Identity etc. - 2

Things started to change and transition was almost sudden but in truth it must have been gradual. I am not sure if anyone can change his/her principles and beliefs ingrained over years of existence in a matter of days or weeks or months.

I guess the truth is that I was never really convinced about religion in general and the interpretation of religion and God that I had grown up adhering to. I never understood why we had to walk around the Sanctum Sanctorum only an odd number of times and never even number. I never really got a convincing explanation. My mother didn't really know the answers to these questions. I was perplexed as to why one had to break coconuts or promise to break coconuts if something turned out the way they had wanted. This seemed like a bribe to me and bribing to me was a crime.

For me God and Religion were means to keep Man humble and accountable to the society at large so it seemed quite an anomaly when I read that the Tirupathi temple was getting a large amount of black money. Could God be appeased by black money?

Monologues on God, Religion, Identity etc. - 1

Been meaning to be more regular with my blog posts. I wonder if its a testament to the direction the world is moving towards... the testament being how I am more regular on Twitter than I am with my blogs. There is no creativity in me. There is nothing new that I feel like contributing. Truth is there is not much I can contribute to the world at large.

A man asked me a couple of weeks back if we are consumers or we are contributors... I told him we are both. But that isn't why this man has been brought up in this post. I will tell you why he has been brought up. This same man, thanks to the seat he was occupying at the time, proceeded to ask a few of us are take on religion and God. I told him what I have told quite a few people and bored many others with... "I dont believe in Religion and I am yet to find God!"

The question that followed was, so you dont believe in religion and does that mean the millions of others who do are idiots and who are wasting their time... the only reply I could come up with was that I am the idiot who has not been able to find a religion that I can believe in.

I was not always like this... I have to confess... I used to be the one who lit the lamp everyday... took a bath, lit the lamp, said my prayers and off I went to school. This was a daily routine till some 5 years back. My dad was an atheist ( his line was - I believe in God, but I dont believe there is God. I was confused too when I first heard this line. To make it easier for me to understand he said - Communism exists, there is communism in the world, but I dont believe in Communism... and along these lines I believe in God, but I dont believe there is God... how I wished he hadn't tried to make it easier for me to understand ) and so was my brother, I think.

Needless to say, my daily routines and my weekly visits to the temple made my devout mother really really really really happy. Then things started to change....