Monday, April 02, 2007

Re: My resume

Hi,

I am his resume. I have been getting almost everyday now. For that matter, I have been getting edited every hour of the last three years, roughly the time I got christened or corporated should we say?

Sometimes entire parts of me get deleted, to be replaced by something completely new. Sometimes I run for up to five pages. But right now after all the things he did, I am only four fifths of a single A4 page. Can you believe that? Not being a full page after four years of graduation and working for some five jobs?

I got a lot of accolades from time to time. A lot of his friends say, "boy do you have an impressive resume", "you have a lot to write about", "you have a strong academic record" etc. But there are times when I get completely revamped and am not revised. This results in a lot of typos and errors in me. I even end up looking ugly and crowded.

There are days when I really shine, thats because of a lot of his friends who proof read me for him. Nice friends this guy seems to have. To visit these friends I travel a lot over the internet from town to town and country to country. Too bad I can not get outside the computer, just imagine all the beautiful things I could have seen.

A lot of times, I am uploaded on to a place and am there for the entire world to see. Just imagine all the places I was shown up at, across the globe. Imagine all the people that thought I was impressive, these people are somehow grossly outnumbered by people who are not at all interested. I simply do not seem to have what they are looking for.

All said and done, the person who edits me seems to have something bitter about me. He seems to be using me just because he has to; he definitely does not have that interest he has in other things of life.

I am sure all the edits he makes to me are forced up on him and he really hates it. But I am happy to be up there doing my job. I am excited about today's major upgrade, I am sure I will look good :)

love,
Resume Raka

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The thing about "cowards"

There is this definition of cowardice:
"The past is for cowards. You live in the past, you die in the past"
At least thats what Coach Ditka says in a Coors' Light advertisement.

There are a lot of famous cowards that fit this definition. Like a lot of southerners in the American Classic "Gone with the Wind". People who sink into themselves and slowly implode unable to adapt to a new world, that is not as beautiful as the old one.

There is a similar group of cowards. These people blessed with a great imagination, or creativity, or just a beautiful heart, form a very beautiful view of the world from what they see and experience in their childhood. These childhood fuel can be a great culture they are born in to, or a set of great people they were with, or a great system that surrounded them etc.

I have a friend Madan, or Maddy as we call him, in spite of his requests not to. After all, Maddy sounds softer if not cooler than Madan, which has an abrupt and unfriendly end.

This chap is one of those guys who can not survive in a practical word. He has major issues with 'The Man'. To better understand the man, here is Jack Black's description in the great classic 'School of Rock'; if you did not see the movie you should. Maddy saw it a twenty times at least.

This chap has a problem with everything from 'Shamu in a Chlorine tank' to 'burning up the ozone' and even infomercials.

But unlike great people like Bruce Springsteen, Maddy does not have a channel to express all his pent up anger in a divine way. Forget Rock and Roll Maddy does not even know SaReGaMa.

Maddy and a lot of his friends live in this world afraid to really think about all thats going on. They repress; some of them implode. Some of them get used to it (a euphemism for suffering silently). Some of them try to do their part; some of them even emigrate, but you can not run from yourself can you? These 'cowards' have their own way of dealing with this crisis. These ways are so ingenious; well after all the cowardice is born from beauty, remember?

Maddy has his own way of dealing with it. He uses love to fight the ugliness. He is constantly in love with someone or the other. Sometimes with an imaginary woman, sometimes with Kali, sometimes with Norah Jones, sometimes with his statistics teacher, sometimes with Emily Dickenson, sometimes with Sita, sometimes with Sharapova, sometimes with Kajol, sometimes with Nicole Kidman, sometimes with his friend - with whom he never confesses for what ever reasons, sometimes with Bangalore, sometimes with Santa Barbara - Maddy went to UCSB, sometimes with a Jane Austen heroine, sometimes with his other friend who is as strong as a rock, sometimes with Mongoloid girls, sometimes with Blondes, somtimes with girls from Africa, sometimes with brunettes from Persia, somtimes with Lata Mangeshkar, sometimes with Mother Nature, sometimes with his Grandmother and all the great tradition and ideals she represents, sometimes with India. Oh I almost forgot, sometimes with the Past.

Like Paulina in Dostoevsky's 'The Gambler', Maddy is a passionate person; very unlike people like us, I mean gamblers like us, who are so addicted to glory.

What does Maddy have to say about all this?
He simply quotes 'Gone with the Wind'
"A Glamor to life, a Completeness, a Perfection and a Symmetry ... like Carnatic Music".
(Maddy sometimes weeps when listening to Tyagaraja or Annamayya Kritis)

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Comparison between India and China

Well the age old comparison goes on.. and I do not want to add my drop of fuel to that fire.

Here is a quick ironic snapshot of THE comparision

Firstly you will be surprised to see that the comparision between the big I and the big C is one of the most popular in the world. Rubbing shoulders with other great 'rivalries' like
xbox - ps3 - wii
christianity - islam (unfortunately)
Intel - AMD
pointers - integers
etc..
(Source Google Suggest)

And among the google results for the same, you will notice that the first hit is from India and the second from China.

And the funny part is that in the Indian article resents about how China is much ahead of India.

While, in the second hit, the Chinese article tells in spite of everything how Indian Economy is still better (especially in terms of Management and Corporate Maturity)

The Indian one seems more desperate; but the hit from the Chinese paper which is actually a more mature and neutral perspective just tries to be informative.

Like all comparisons, this one is also not worth while.
I mean the comparision between the countries!
Wait, I also mean this post comparing the articles...

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Women in Love: The Cloud Analogy

Well I decided I include the word 'women' in all the titles of my posts, may be that way i will get some readership.

prolouge:
I was talking to this very knowledgeable friend of mine a few days ago; the kind that has read everything there is to read about philosophy from Socrates to Jung from Sankaracharya to Tagore. Who gave me the analogy of the cloud (with respect to what I do not remember exactly)

Then I was also talking to another couple of friends who had this great honor of being chased by women madly in love; something I could never imagine happening to me, which I really believed never happens to normal guys.

not so pro louge:
Ladies it is not at all a good thing to go after a guy; even if you are madly in love with him, it is better to try subtly to convey the message across. The moment you tell them how passionately you love them, they look down up on you. That ruins any chance of success in your love.

Clouds and the Sun:
Sun is the life giving force.
On a fine day, you can see the Sun. On a cloudy day you can not.
So the Clouds obstruct your view of the Sun.
But how is it possible for us to see the Cloud?
Ofcourse because of the light shed on them by the great Sun it self.
Is n't it ironic that the Sun who gives you the power to see should be obstructed by the clouds; which you can see only because of the Sun ?

Guys who are not sure:
Normal guys do not know how good they are! Seriously.
The surest way for them to know it when a girl falls for them.
So for these blind pathetic guys, there is this long awaited Sun in their life.

Getting to the head:
Once they realize how good they are, thanks to the lady; the entire thing gets to their head.
So these cheapos start feeling that the lady is not good enough for them.

Analogy:
Sun - The lady
Clouds - A false sense of self worth
I hope you got the analogy.

Epilouge:
So ladies be subtle in expressing your love, especially to guys who are not sure of themselves, that is all of them!

Monday, January 22, 2007

Back to women

Was going trough the previous post. Or poem should we say? "Not bad" I think in retrospect "especially for a bunch of short lines that sound like a nursery rhyme".

Right now I am in Chicago. Pretty darn good here. The snow and all. Something always told me that snow would be beautiful but I did not know it would be so beautiful. Its the kind of thing that can make you say "Thats all honey, you, me, the snow fall, let the time freeze like this".

Whats interesting though is that I wrote the 'poem' before I saw the snow fall, but I can really mean it now "Let it snow as we dance to the Lindy". Can't wait till the day I will stand on a snow board.

Its also interesting to realize that there are things that one can look forward to more earnestly than sex. Well given sex is an eventuality; your parents unable to accept failure in their ability 'to hook up two complete strangers' will get you a 'nice' girl with whom you can do the thing in an 'acceptable' way. Also, not all things can be simulated !

On a similar note, in a dream the other night, I met this beautiful girl, you guessed where, in bed (well may be you did not guess where) ! Attributing undisputed validity to Freud's theory of dreams as wish fulfillments; I would say this girl was the girl I was looking for. If not 'me' exactly, this girl was at least what my insecurity and '10 years into puberty loneliness' was looking for. The surprising thing was that she was nothing like all the girls I ever met. She was uni-dimensional. What defined her was that she loved me. Also, she was young! Young as in; all the girls I liked were older or arguably more mature than I . This one was not so; she had something that was very vulnerable.

Good thing I am reading Freud; got to complete the book soon though, haven't moved a page in ages.