The Alien Feeling

I cannot stop thinking about this theory my brother told me, about how we are the true aliens on the planet. That we are so different from everything around us, its not clear how the jump in the evolution was made.

I am not a specialist in any of these subjects but I must say this view point is turning me off Zoos, Museums etc just when my son has started enjoying them!  

Its strange we just collect samples of animals put them in a Zoo, so we can take a peak at their world. More eerie when I accidentally ended up seeing a huge display of  stuffed animals in the Museum. Actually I never verified whether they were just models or stuffed animals, birds and fishes. I am kind of scared of finding off the truth. I spent all my time there running after my toddler who was thrilled to see bigger versions of animal pictures he has seen in a book.

But if they are indeed stuffed, then what a strange fettish for humans to have! Why do we want to see what other animals look like while we live in cities.  Over time we have lost all ability to truly live in wild, we got rid of all the animal hair, we cannot survive without clothes, eat only cooked food. In fact, most of us would not know how scavenge for food in a forest. We have shed every animal instinct we may have had (barring a few I suppose!) and surrounded ourselves with things that keep us busy.

Its almost as if we created work so we had something to do! In the event of eventual distruction, perhaps some people will be transported to a different planet and would start from scratch !!

The art of doing nothing

I think I have finally excelled at it. I can sit for an hour not even day dreaming, just with continuous flashes of what I should be doing and next thing I know a huge chunk of time has passed. I decided today was my day to take a break. How is different from yesterday , you ask me? I do not know. Except perhaps yesterday the goal was to have fun, enjoy ride into the city, eat out watch a movie. One gets tired when having fun.

A break on the other hand is .., well it is the ability to sit idle and not feel bored, not feel the urge to be somewhere else, feel the need to talk to people. A break is sheer contentment in the present, not feeling stressed out about work piling up as I sit here blogging away after years ... A break is cooking without putting your mind into it and discovering halfway through lunch that hey, am a pretty decent cook! A break is being able to sit down and write what one feels like without worrying about the quality of though that I am professing.

There have been other Sundays where I have spent the whole day without seeing a human face...ok am exaggerating a tad bit there, but lets say spent the whole day without having a real conversation. Usually by evening I am at my wits end about what to do with the rest of the Sunday other than get back to work.

Today, I must say has been pleasant, there have been short spurts of work being done feeling and yet I have managed to while away time without being bored.

Its been a good day; a break from the everyday, from the stress of underachieving, from the desire to be elsewhere, from the thought of wrong turns one has made...from the dread of the ticking clock, its been a Sunny day, a day for bad puns :)

Thin films

I was going to write about how life is like a thin soap film, sometimes, it just looks so perfect that you think that if you touch it or change anything it will just break it :(

And then I see my last post it seems to be on same subject. No wonder I haven't posted much on this blog lately. I have only been having the same thought every month!!

So its Spring now, the air is still chilly but its sunny today. That just makes everything better. Spring brings flower buds, small green leaves, my plant seems to have made it through the winter and finally I see new leaves and I think, this is going to be a good year after all.

perfection

Its hard to imagine that life could be perfect. The second I think that my life is perfect now and I don't want to change anything I assume I have jinxed it. Cause otherwise it would be strange. I have done nothing in my life to feel happy or content for very long, because one is supposed to earn it and its not clear what one did to earn it!

If I am saying everything is good, then of course something will mess it up. Cause otherwise that would be too easy. How can I be happy knowing that I am happy and there is nothing left to yearn for?

Cause if somebody discovered that there are very few wishes that have yet to true then this life may not last very long. Don't they say that there is a calm before the storm.

Of course they don't say every calm has to be followed by a storm. But you cannot assume that. Cause if you did, as luck goes, there will be a storm following the calm.

So in anticipation of the storm you spend you happiness stingily. You would rather have bouts of small sorrows rather than a big long lasting sadness. So when there is nothing to feel sad about you create it. You create imperfection there is none.

In all, i am always in state of almost happy, perfection. There is always that craving for one little thing if it were to come true life will be perfect..

But that is life haan? else what else would there be to live for?

one liners

I have been recently thinking about changing my profession. I would like to be an advertisement critic. There probably are people who get paid for doing that. Part inspiration is the TNT series Trust me, which gives an idea about how much work goes into making an advertisement. Partly its the few adverts that took me by surprise and the others which made me bang my head to the wall.
Let me start by telling you about the latter first! Fortune Oil,
The tag line? Compare the oil to dishwashing liquid, why? because when you make food in Fortune oil you will lick off the plate cleaner than the dishwashing liquid!
OMG, I felt like pulling the hair of the person who came up with that idea. Chances are of course that person is bald by now anyway.
The best one recently I saw was Max New York Life Insurance.
Tag line : Karo Zyada ka Irada
Plot : Child repeating everything father says
daddy dada
banana banaana
chechslovakia brrr Kid makes a face!
It was brilliant and well supported.
Whats a good advertisement? Context, (which precisely means that you dont have to throw in skimpily dressed women in each and every ad you make!)
A good tag line which relates to the product, and then a sixty second spot which brings it home!
Dont overthink your audience, just think!

slumdog millionaire (spoilers warning!)

So I finally saw this movie in the theater. Friends visiting for the weekend was excuse enough to go watch a movie.
The first half hour of the movie was so depressing that I was almost ready wait outside the theater for everyone. In fact, I would have done so if I was sitting on the aisle. I spent at least ten minutes closing my eyes. More so because none of background they showed was totally unbelievable, except for the first bit where he jumps into shit. That utterly gross!

Anyway, as the movie progressed into a fantasy mixed with reality the tone changed. No more gory scenes. It was still sad but the worst was over. The dialogues were funny, especially bit about Taj Mahal being a hotel and the king dying before any of the rooms being built :) Fully points to all the actors and even for the casting directors. The character roles being played by bollywood veterans did the trick.

Street children talking in english was a little wierd at first but after while it just felt like a movie in english, thats all. All the hindi usage was indiscreet and at least not noticable to me..but then again they didnt put in subtitles very often. So am not sure how the non hindi speaking people liked it.

In the end, it was a well made/written fantasy tale of rags to riches.

The only thing is it probably had a sum total of the bad things that can happen in India to the poor. So not a fair representation of the reality, but neither is the commercial indian cinema anyway. I walk back home thinking at least I cannot point my finger at anything in the background which was untrue.

Final Verdict : Worth a watch.. with a strong heart...

my point of view

We were talking about healthcare system in the US at lunch the other day. And someone was telling me about the argument against having the government take care of it. One of it was it will become like DMV and my response was maybe I am used to standing in lines in India so I find nothing wrong in it.

But then, it occurred to me later, if that was the flimsy argument against it then I am not sure privatization is the way to go either.
Think about any non-essential companies like cable, phone etc... I have had to spend hours on the phone to order, cancel, fix any service I have had. Even though it might be in their interest to keep me happy, if they are the only company providing the service they won't care.

I know its not an argument for having the government take care of it...but I just had to mention it. Actually I my experience at the DMV at recent times has been quite simple. I have never had to wait more than an hour for anything. It was quite systematic last time I was there. For the amount of people they cater to, they do a fair job.

I have one more argument against the logic that private is the way to go. In all honesty, ever since I have come to this country, I have stood in lines to get coffee, to get food, at the checkout counter and, I have learnt to become patient.
Everybody seems to take their own sweet time to do things. I had always thought that its in the businessman's interest to get these lines cleared up quick. But no! you can stand in line for 20 minutes to get a cup of coffee, to check out your groceries..

Then again, I have never really tested out the health care system in this country and I am thankful for that. So I have no way to verify any arguments for or against government.
All the same, I hope the next decade brings new ideas, open mindedness, gives the "government vs private" a rethink.