Reflections of a restless eccentric

This is not going to be one of my abstract posts. Or even one on psychology or philosophy. So fret not. Following the true blogging style,I'm going to be talking about my life as such. Whenever I tell someone I'm from Bangalore, the first and most common reaction I get is this:  Wow, you're from here. That means you have the best of both worlds. You have your family around, and you also get the best infrastructure in terms of academics and career. How lucky! We guys leave everything behind for our education or job. While I do not disagree with this, it isn't really that rosy a picture. Let me repaint that for you now. Recently, I had to make a tough choice: a good job and a great job. But the good job was 16 km away from home and the great one 36 km. A true Bangalorean will tell you this and vouch for it repeatedly and staunchly:  Distance, especially here, is always measured in terms of time.  30km in certain parts of West or North Bangalore may be completely fine...

I'll start off with a confession. I've always been a breadth person. I love learning new things. As a kid, I was interested in a multitude of things. I loved singing, reading, writing and a dozen other things. It wasn't a spurt of interest that quickly fades away after the initial allure, whatever I liked I genuinely had a passion for. I found serenity and a sense of higher fulfillment in them. Up to a certain age, let's say around high school, I was able to actually devote time to all of these and even pick up a few other hobbies on the way. But then, somewhere after that, I realized that breadth and depth are mutually exclusive. If you want to be an expert at something, then you have a better shot at that if you devote the majority of your time to it. Another sad realization was this: People, in general, frown on breadth. 'Jack of all, Master of None' says it all. If you want to be taken seriously at what you do, single-mindedness is what is demanded of you. ...

Dated 6th Aug,2018 This is something I'm doing for myself and not for my readers. Therefore, pardon me if I'm vaguer than usual and also if everything I'm saying doesn't really make sense to you. You have been warned. :) There are those times in your life when you arrive at a crossroads of sort, when you are supposed to make a decision. Scratch that. When you are supposed to make a multitude of decisions which are a cascade--your first decision would influence your second and so on. You spend a lot of time thinking about it, and then you reach the point where you decide to ask people who have been there and done that. That's where it gets complicated. People's perspectives are colored--by their own circumstances, experiences and primarily by who they are. Now you listen to all this information, try to compensate for all their biases and get to just the kernel of their opinions. But despite all that, sometimes, it feels wrong, you know? You wonder if you'...

"Circumstances make a man". "Circumstances do not make a man, they only reveal him to himself". Right. Wrong. Black. White. Easy concepts, wouldn't you say? And if you have a strong moral compass, you would always want to stay within the line that separates right from wrong. But as you grow up, you find that things aren't that easy. Right by whom? Wrong at what cost?  For the greater good or for your own? Long term or short term? If damage is unavoidable, which option would you choose? Permit me a digression here: This is not only relevant to our own moral quandaries, but also to present day tech--autonomous cars is one example. You might have heard of the trolley problem: If a trolley is hurling down and is bound to either kill a single person or a group of five, which would you choose? This might be a slightly exaggerated dilemma, but self-driven cars definitely need algorithms capable of handling such ethical questions. Anyway, going back ...

This quote is something that I find extremely simple and also extremely profound. The first, most common interpretation of this would be in today's consumerism based market. I've always hated those sales, you know. They ever so subtly rob you of your perspective--from questioning whether you really need something, you move to debating whether it is a steal at the numbers on the price tag. And more often than not, you buy it and carry your conquest proudly home, under the delusion that you've walked away with a really good deal. After the initial glee though, it remains unused, because you never really needed it in the first place, and worse still you didn't even like it all that much. Now look at it this way. If you're giving away a piece of your life in exchange for this product, would you actually buy it? Do you think it's worth it? Is it a good enough investment of your life?  Here's another take. The choices you make in life. The paths you ...

Dear God, I write from a place of utter darkness. I see a single ray of light from really really far. But you know the world outside, the one from which that ray of light emanates? That's what I've aspired for since a very long time. I have worked towards it, given it everything I have. The path was never easy. Sometimes, I did not even dare to hope, because it seemed too audacious. I just took a step, and then another, and yet another. Today I stand at a fork in this road--the one that always seems to confront me--complacence, the safer sibling and progress, the riskier one. (This is so very similar to a post I wrote a few months ago:  The Waterfall Dilemma .) I don't really know about the world outside. For all I know, it may be as dismal as the one inside. Yet, it could turn out to be just perfect. I ask myself, what do I lose? At worst, you would end up where you were before. But today, I have something to lose. You see, the last time I made this choice, I had som...

I was making dinner this evening, and Dosarius( My Dad and I have christened the God of Dosas thus) frowned upon me, mauling the first dosa as his offering. I scraped it from the griddle, and following the path of my scrupulous do-not-waste food mother, put it on my own plate for future consumption. (Before you conclude that I am a bad cook, in my defense, the batter used in my house is some pro-diabetic rice-free thing invented by my Mom. And it can be tricky at times!) Anyway, this incident only added to my feeling of moroseness, and I sighed in abject despair. The anxiety of uncertainty was eating away at me, and I could not find peace anywhere. My Dad watched me, offering to help with dinner, which I refused by launching off into the first random question I could think of. How was your life after college? What did you do? Now my father is a man of very few words when it comes to himself, and most of his life is a closed book to me. So it should come as no surprise to you tha...

Why is normalcy the costliest commodity in my life? It remains unattainably pristine, serenely smiling at me While I drown in the quagmire that is turbulence Clutching for anything that can serve as a stronghold Only to find myself drawn in deeper, staring at despondence in all its dark glory Normalcy is only five breaths away,  Close your eyes and breathe deeply You shall open your eyes to absolute peace And all your suffering will seem like a bad dream I delude myself with these nectarine lies But lies they are and lies they shall remain Every step is fraught with pain and sorrow Someday I will probably sigh and stop fighting, let the current carry me away But that someday is still not here,  And I breathe like a creature only half alive Wearied as I am, I still struggle Not wanting any part of my misfortunes to be attributed to lack of initiative Anguish follows me like a searing shadow I use courage as a salve, and wear those sc...