Killing of an Immortal

Stephen Cave in his ted talk talks about 4 ways we live on after death. You can see the video below.

Stephen talks about how when people are confronted with the fact that they are going to die get ready to believe just about anything that says it is not so. These people would (all of us)once aware of this immortality then try to make themselves immortal. He goes on to summarize these efforts to be of 4 types, namely; Elixir, Resurrection, Soul and Legacy. We all believe to be immortals in one way or the other.

My Idea occurred when I was thinking about legacy. For many people like me for whom it is very important to create one. But the question arises what if I fail to do so or what if I during my pursuit of immortality meet death, not a biological one but one of thoughts.

What if the people whom I want to remember me forget me?

What if the pages of minds where I want to write my story shut themselves tight?

What if I can’t write my immortal story?

And the most scary

What if I am there to see my efforts fail?

The question is what then?

 Do I let myself die an anonymous death?

The answer is no of course not, I mean that’s what we have been taught isn’t it? “Never give up”.

Then I think to myself have I done this to someone? Have I closed the pages of my mind when someone wanted to write on it.

Well maybe I have, Maybe all of us have.

Gotta Have a Plan...

It’s been 6 months since I ceased to be the ordinary college guy. The journey in the corporate world has been good for me so far thanks to the great support from my Bosses who have made it very comfortable for me.

There is never nothing happening

Ever felt that there is nothing to do, ever felt bored and felt like nothing is happening. Ever tried to look around and see what is happening.

This thought occurred to me when I was watching a movie ‘peaceful warrior’. There is something to learn from every moment, let alone learning it is a great experience just witnessing the world at work. When was the last time we just sat by and witnessed the world go about its business. Ever watched the curtains fluttering in the wind. Ever witnessed two people in conversation; or a group of people watching a cricket match in the canteen. There is much to learn from everyday happenings and no need for books and other things.

The sheer joy it gives to know what is going on around you is very soothing. Why sit around lazily and waste your life. Why not get up and make the most of now. Do something, experience the other. Live every moment be thankful to all those have been kind to you, Kind to all others. Make new friends. Make the most of now.

 This moment is all you have make the most of it. Learn to let go, stop worrying for what is to come live in today, live free.

Emotional Connect

The last few days for me have been full of emotions. Some of the emotions I have never felt before in my life. At a point of time I almost cried which one of my friend describes as “how men cry”. There have been people who have been a lot of help and re-kindled my enthusiasm for this new phase of my life. There have been people with whom I have mend relationships. Some who I have discovered a new one. There has been an emotional connect that relates me to all these people.

simple bloody silence

A question that I have to answer most of the people nowadays is why I am so silent. The question that is so irritating that I loose my head over it. And dedicate hours on the trot thinking about the answers which I have found hard to find even after months of it.

Well this post on the contrary to the belifs of the answer seekers, does not answer the question.  Read on for knowing what it is..

Idle Scribblings

This post is nothing about what I had thought before. This post is all about writing what comes first to mind and putting it out on the paper.

The first thought, when I think of blogging that comes to me is about my blog the ordinary college guy. Few months from now and I will cease to be a college guy. What happens to the blog then? A few thoughts that come to my mind regarding this are:

1.  Should I conclude this blog and it here?  (Was this supposed to run for just five years)
2. Should I start a new blog to carry on my writing interests? ( The current blog just has a handful of posts)     
3.   Should I contribute to the “e-waste”( the dormant web pages like mine) by creating one more such page.

All these thoughts and more are what come to my mind.  Hope I get back to blog writing. It is something that I have cherished doing.

Good Books

I have many friends and much more acquaintances. When going through their facebook profiles I saw a common thing in most of these profiles. They said they hated books or in a much general sense disliked them. I for one am different I like books I love reading and a good book is what I love and cherish.

One of the questions these friends ask me is why should they read books. Well here is my answer.

Happy faces

It’s been more than a month that I have started with my summer intern now and the daily commute in the Bombay local gives me enough time to think of new and interesting things. Here is one such thing that I feel like sharing here.

What’s the next big migration?

So I am back from home. Seeing your mother after a long time is great and so is having stomach-full of her cooked food. (maa ke haathon ka khana ) But then the vacation ends and you are back. The same is what I have been doing. Now that I am back in Mumbai time to get back to work and make good of my time.

Why hold back?

Another one of the ideas that I got when I was on the think-pot( that’s what I call the toilet seat when I am on it thinking).

And the bulb lights up!

We all have heard the story about how one fine day newton who was sitting idle under the tree was hit on the head by an apple and he came up with the ideas which led to the genesis of the laws of motion. It is usually when our brain is idle that we come up with great ideas. Well most of us would have had this experience and we would have thought to ourselves “what an idea sirji”. This is what happened to yours truly.

The free advice

Being an ordinary college guy who has a lots of thoughts and advice to share and very few people who listen I'll keep my blabbering to this space. Small pieces of advice coming up 

It’s time for advice giving some simple thoughts of how to do simple things in life a little differently. Try them if you like or just poke fun at them.

Listening to a song

Whenever you listen to a song just take some time to respect the effort put in by the artists. If you can listen to the song at least 4 times

1^st time:         just enjoy the song without paying much attention to details

2^nd time:        Take a look at the lyrics and listen to the song again

3^rd time:        Listen to the musical instruments.

4^th time:        Hear the song as a whole, you will enjoy it better.

P.S. these thoughts are the outcome of personal experience and are put up to keep things going on the blog.  

Learn for there is no need

It’s all about realisation isn’t it? I just had this realisation when I finally sat down to study. It was after so many days perhaps since my schooldays that I had sat down with a textbook and was reading it to learn not for exam but just for the fun of it. Learning can be fun I had forgot that in the run to get good marks which I could never achieve and in the process I had lost my love of learning. There had been days when I thought to myself that I could never be able to do that again. But it was today when I finally sat to study for my term exams that I reignited that love of learning in me.

Where are you from?

Hullo everyone it’s been a long time since I posted here.  I guess it was back in January. These months have been busy as TOCG had moved from New delhi to Mumbai and took me some time to settle in and get in the groove of writing. 

Coming to Mumbai and meeting up with new people and making new friends is an amazing experience, it always is a great and happy experience to meet new people, share experiences, and ultimately make new friends. Though these friends may not meet you ever again in your life but it always is a great experience making friends.

The two days- The first day

Well hello mango people as says thechaiwala happy new year and I am back to writing after a month of exams. Hope you like this post

A regular day can be fun if you are TOCG(the ordinary college guy) and this fact was emphasized as the new year turned up to my rescue since I was thinking how I desperately needed something to blog about and out comes from the bag of my regular day goodies these two days.

After CAT

Today I took CAT and yes it was a significant day it had been one and half years of preparatory time in which I had learnt a lot and my life had revolved around CAT and now that I am finally over with it for some time at least. Here’s a short narrative of how the day went.

It all started with my colossal effort to get up on time, being in a habit to be awake until late into the morning it was a great deal getting up on time. And sleeping at 4 in the morning my two morning alarms did play on my side and I was up (although after a few hiccups) at 6 am; I have got to say it feels a bit strange to get up early in the morning and have a look outside the window and see all dark outside (especially if you are in habit of waking up to the bright afternoon sun). Thankful of getting up on time I got my coffee and myself ready. By the time I got ready the morning sky had lit up but the sun was nowhere to be seen it was overcast and the sky seemed to be sweating and showered light drizzle, I got my raincoat on and got out to brave the cold wind on my way to the testing centre I had got only halfway when the state of Indian roads and traffic came to haunt me while stuck in slow movement of traffic I noticed that the wind was blowing quite swiftly from my right side across to the left side and by chance I happened to be besides a puddle of muddy water when a speeding car came to pass me by from the right and as it passed me, my windward side was now to be known as ‘waterward’ side, and just as I was drenched head to toe in the muddy water traffic seemed to clear up and I rode on towards the test center and got to the center just before 8(the time we had to be at the centre.

The security check at the test centre was multilevel and had to go through scrutiny 3 or four times after I had been checked thoroughly I was introduced into the test room which had above 50 computers and I was lead towards my cubicle amidst these systems here I had to wait for another one and half hours before the test would commence without speaking a word and having nothing to do; these ninety minutes I guess are to make the candidate feel worried about the test but that could not make feel worried and I had the ninety minutes all by myself in the cubicle and after I bored myself looking in the welcome screen of my system and counting the number of tube lights in the hall(26in which 2 were not working)I decided to sleep for a while but that was useless and then my mind started to wander .I remembered the first day I started my CAT-10 coaching at tathagat and how kumar sir who happened to take our introductory class dismantled all our beliefs about CAT and how my life in the past was affected by CAT and also how I am going to write all this down in my blog. All these and a number of other thoughts went through my mind before the test finally started. And finally the testing times began, the test went by good and the 2 and ½ hours seemed shorter than the 1 and ½ hours before the test. After my test was over I got out of the test centre and thought I would feel relieved but what I felt was emptiness inside it felt like there is more to it but it wasn’t this was all it was. So I drove back home and end my day’s encounter with the CAT.

Inflation

Yesterday evening while I was riding on my bike back home, I was all wet and cold and my left hand ached from the consistent pulling of clutch(Delhi traffic huh!) and during one of the traffic jams a thought came to my mind and that was high prices and inflation.
‘Inflation’ a word that the common man has started to use in his daily vocabulary in the recent years. I tried to remember what I had learnt about inflation in school and through my blurred remembrance covered by the smoke of laziness I could remember that inflation was a situation in which due to high demand the price of goods and services elevate at an alarming rate; so now why do the prices of daily goods or the things that we buy at our local kiryana shop increase the reason is because the price of the raw materials is increasing, now what are these raw materials they include some primary sector products and labour so the price of raw materials also increases for the same reasons as the end product the increase in the price of inputs now these inputs . and these inputs compromise a high ratio of labour costs and I have never seen the salaries or wages of the labours increase?
On the other side of it at the time of recession the price of goods should come down but it seldom happens like in recent times recession which was by far the worst in my life saw only a few negative changes in terms of price the goods that had increased by rupees 10 at the time of inflation only decreased by rupees 2 and talking about salaries where our spending powers come from; there were high level job cuttings and decrease in salaries.
So where did the money go I am no economist and I may be wrong but this sure makes me think where did the money go?

Well I’ve got nothing to write

I know it’s been several months since I blogged. There are many reasons for this for some time now I have been thinking a lot, doing less and writing even lesser. Yes there were times when I thought of picking up writing again. Once it was when I saw the blog’s stats on Google analytics; another time it was when I came to know that someone liked my posts very much and wanted me to write more. And in between it was just me who felt the need to write up stuff.

And yes I did try to take to writing; once it was when I tried to remember something funny that had happened to me and realized that I was leading a pretty boring life(in terms of funny incidents)other times I was too lazy to write. Once I tried to take to fiction but I couldn’t get beyond the first line and then it was brother who said “I think it’s a burden for you to write, you should stop doing it” and I thought to my self maybe yes he was right, so I stopped thinking about writing and this was two weeks back.

And HOLLA!!!!! Just a few minutes earlier I did not even know that I was going to write this.

P.S: I will try to come up with more interesting stuff soon until then please comment

The Missing Pictures

It is well past midnight today (June 8^th, 2010) and I was going through the literary review page of the Sunday edition of The Hindu. I stumbled onto a review for the book ‘venomous touch’ and gathered that the book was very pathetic (at least the reviewer says so and I’ll take her word for Rs 650 is a handy some to spend when you are a student.) The book has three protagonists but the center stage is captured by a photographer. ‘Photographer’ my mind echoed (It always does when I read something that excites me. No wonder my mind is quite switched off when I study.)

the lost wallet part 2

It had been a year since I lost my wallet and now after a year had passed on I stood in the middle of nowhere with my wallet lost. I searched frantically an soon all the passengers in the bus knew that a boy had lost his wallet but all in vain I had been pick pocketed for the first time in my life. Too much for the firsts I said to myself ‘now what?’ The nearest place where I could go was to my father and it would cost 15 rupees but I had no money “wait a minute” I thought to myself I just shoved some change in my pocket. I put my hands in the pocket and took out the change and started counting; ‘I had been lucky this day too as I had been all my life’, it was fifteen rupees complete. The next thing I did was to call up my father and ask him to stay back for a bit at office as I had some important issue to discuss with him. Well after securing my ticket back to Karnal the next thing that came to my mind was that I needed to block my ATM so I called the customer care and put in a request with them. By this time I was seated in a blue line and after I had made that call I felt a sudden impulse of being carefree I had no worries whatsoever. It had been a while since I had felt this way and was enjoying every moment of it. In some time I was with my father and he asked me what was the topic I wanted to talk to him about I told him that I had forgot my wallet back at my room and had no money on me and as the generous person that my father is he gave me more than I needed and after spending some time with my father I headed towards ISBT to catch a bus home and to add to the series of events that were happening I boarded one of the last buses and it had no seats so I had to spend the rest of the journey standing and as I had no means of passing time I decided to talk to the person standing next to me. He was an middle aged person and we struck up a nice conversation comprising of topics ranging from politics to sports and society to health I felt pretty good as I alighted at the bus stop it was about half an hour past midnight and I got home to find a nice and clean bed waiting for me and that was it for a day in which I had lost my wallet but found a new life in me