Reflections of a restless eccentric

*Title Credits: Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath The inspiration for this article is twofold. I'll tell you about both,in due course of time. Earlier this week, somewhere towards the beginning, I called my friend on the way home.She asked me what I was doing, and my reply was,no prizes for guessing, traveling. She was surprised at that, because the hour was quite late. When do you get home? she asked. I told her, and added with it the sad afterthought: I don't have energy left for anything once I reach home. It's dinner and bed,and I don't care about anything else ,not even my phone.  That is so sad, but all our lives are like that, she says. But I remember my parents. They used to do so much, and still have energy left at the end of their work day. I'm not exaggerating here, because this is completely factual. My mom would work sometimes for three continuous days with as little as 6 hours sleep through that period, and in parallel take care of me and ...

Marked personal.Reader's discretion advised. *My first thought was to call this article "Somewhere between Solitude and Company". When I googled that, I stumbled upon an article titled Somewhere between Solitude and Loneliness , wherein I came across the phrase that is presently the title. It captured succinctly and beautifully everything I'd planned to write about, and I could not have thought of a better title myself. However, it is not my own, and therefore, I duly attribute it to Edgar Allan Poe, who is originally supposed to have voiced this idea and/or the multitude of people who might have paraphrased him this way.(Can't figure out if this was a Poe original or a good paraphrasing,hence the ambiguous credits!) Sigh! Where do I begin? It has been a nightmarish week, and even that would be an understatement. Somehow, these individually insignificant(and I'm being really really generous when I say insignificant) incidents of my life coalesced int...

  Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone? Tried to convince them to your perspective on any particular topic? I'm sure you have, and it would be fairly reasonable to assume that everyone on this planet has, at least once. Indulge me for a minute and imagine that you are in the middle of one such discussion now. Let me paint that picture a little more vividly for you.Assume for the moment that you are right in whatever you're saying.If it's not too much of a liberty, let's also assume that you articulate your arguments eloquently and coherently, using facts and statistics to validate the truth of what you're saying. Now, can you tell me without a doubt what the conclusion of this argument would be? Are you sure you can win over your opponent and change their beliefs merely by being factually correct? No. It could happen, but it's not a certain outcome. But why is that? If you're correct, it makes sense for the other person to accept your ideas, r...

NB: I write this with the collective frustration of not days, not months, but proper integer years. Therefore, pardon me if the satire is a bit too much. I am only human! Today was one of those days where my journey was excruciatingly painful. I was initially planning on narrating that verbatim,but hey,who wants to hear me whining? Presumably no one, and therefore, I will choose a rather roundabout and hopefully humorous route of getting my point(and my frustration) across.:P Have you ever travelled by BMTC, Dear Reader? If not,consider this your formal initiation, and at that, by a veteran in the field. Let's get you started on a few basics first! Heard of Murphy? Back in the times when I was a pessimist, I used to treat his laws as my holy commandments. I suggest that you treat them the same way, at least for the period of your commute.Here we go: When you are waiting for a particular bus,you will see every other bus except that one. If you decide to travel to a differe...

This is an attempt to chronicle the unforgettable madness that was this weekend:D Around last Monday, the upcoming weekend seemed something to look forward to,because Siva,a much beloved member of Wolf Pack, said that she would try to visit us. Those of us who were shuttling between college and home decided that this was our cue to put in an appearance to college this weekend.Monday turned to Wednesday and our plans seemed to be masked in cloudy uncertainty because of some issue that seemed to make travel across the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border dangerous.Since Siva was coming alone from Chennai,none of us thought it wise to force her to travel in such conditions. We nevertheless came to college on Friday, with just a sliver of hope that she would somehow come. Saturday was here and we had settled into the thought that she probably wouldn't be here,and this made our day all the more drearier. When suddenly around noon, she texted, telling us that she was on a bus and would be re...