Mind over matter

Last week, one of my client meetings took an unusual turn. I was meeting one of the biggest legal firms in UK. In the midst of discussions, my counterpart who was approximately my age or bigger asked if we could go down and discuss in a more informal way. And he took me to this:

We played two quick games of rapidfire chess and tied the scores at 1-1. It made me wonder if there was something else to it but I had a great time. I plan to make more visits to Primrose street. It's great fun to play chess with strangers. Social networking at a different level unaided by technology.

Current music: Erasure: Always

The Apple store in the Big Apple

Although I am a user of Samsung, I follow Apple's marketing strategy quite avidly. So a trip to their largest store globally was on agenda during this trip. In one word, the impact on the raw mind would be overwhelming was my first thought. It reminded me of the fish market back home in a slightly upmarket sense. El superbo!! I love their strategy but not the product. So I clicked the below with my Samsung SII and moved on ;)

Current music: Aerosmith: Pink

The Big Apple again

I am here again after a year. Seems like I visit this part of the world only in the summers. Not complaining mind you. A pity I am not in touch with many from NY who visit my blog. Anyway, everytime I am here I end up making a new pal. Let's see whats up till Sunday.

Current music - The Eagles - New York Minute

This morning was scary. I woke up and couldn't remember my blog url. I lost interest in posting after I remembered it.

Anyway, I am dead tired for no reason.

Current music: Ekla Cholo Re

Sometimes Mumma Nature does the talking for you

It's a good thing there are lies
Lord help us
if everything that was said
was true

Current music - *********

Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin (This Night Has No Morning)

Darkness has a peace of its own. London had its first taste of snow this evening. And the Cindrella hour turned out to be 'Silent Night'. A perfect time to put those hanged boots on and trudge through the white landscape with the wind sounding strange whistles in the air. You could sense the silence or perhaps it was the lack of activity on the path. I have been waiting for the snow for a long time now. Last year was my first experience with it and I fell in love. For me snow is a state of being 'undisturbed'. You see people out only cause its necessary and with a purpose - whether its kids building a snowman or someone rushing to the grocery store.

Tonight turned out to be worth the wait. After spending the evening viewing Foxy's 50 Ultimate Slow Dance collection and reviving the yesteryears joined by Uncle Jack Daniels, I stepped out after judging it had inched enough. It was beautiful. I can imagine how Alaska must be in its glory. It was icy all around but not cold - if it makes any sense. The usual ten minutes around the area took almost 25 with a couple of missteps thrown in. I realised I had never sat on the park bench at midnight before and certainly never in the snow. Lighting the Benson, leaning back against the snow filled bench and Pink Floyd's 'Wish you were here' filtering through the pods, it was pure bliss.

Current music - Jann Arden - Insensitive

They will tell you you can't sleep alone in a strange place
Then they'll tell you can't sleep with somebody else
Ah but sooner or later you sleep in your own space
Either way it's O.K. you wake up with yourself

And so...

Touched the song after more than 365 days..Is it the route back again to self discovery?

Ya Allah..aise hi ho

The Other side of God

Breakie

In Mumbai for a month from 6th..Didn't feel so excited earlier to return home!!  Meeting so many new people and old friends..And then back to the cold..Gonna make the most of it.

Current Music:  Madonna - Holiday

Profound

I typically don't like to publish words by people who are alive. That's because immediately others start throwing words at it. We usually tend to love people when they are no longer with us. But here I go off tangent again. This is profound and I wanted to share it with the oddballs who still read me..

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev - Positive thinking is about trying to escape reality. It’s about wanting to look at one side of life, and missing out on another. You may ignore the other, but the other will not ignore you. Right now, you can choose to ignore a black cloud in the sky, but it’s not going to ignore you.

Because you do not know how to keep your systems in balance, because you can’t handle reality, you succumb to positive thinking. You want to skip the negative and just think positive. What you pursue will not be the strongest point in you. What you try to avoid becomes the basis of your consciousness. Positive thinking can have some psychological relevance, but no existential relevance whatsoever.

Current music: Bhagwan Ali Akbar Khan - Marwa

It's true. Mostly.

Love always has to start from down. And then it moves up.

Current music - Bjork - Play dead

And I Think To Myself

Human skin is an organ. The biggest organ in the body, it comprises the dermis, the epidermis and a subcutaneous fatty layer. It it were to be removed intact and spread out it would cover an area just under two square meters. It has weight too: with all that protein and adherent fat, it has enormous bulk. The skin of a healthy adult male would weigh ten to fifteen kilos, depending on his size. The same as a large toddler.

The skin of a woman, on the other hand, would weigh marginally less. It would cover a smaller area too.

Most middle-aged men, even the ones who live alone in a remote part of London, wouldn't have given any thought to what a woman would look like without her skin. Neither would they have cause to wonder what her skin would look like stretched and pinned out on a workbench.

But, then, most men are not like this man.

This man is a different sort of person altogether.

Current Music: Louie Armstrong – What A Wonderful World

Experience it once - Boesmansgat

Somewhere in the middle of the remote Kalahari desert in South Africa, nestling among the dry ochre veld, is a small weed-covered pool at the bottom of a crater. Ordinary except for its stillness - the casual observer would't pay it much attention, wouldn’t give it a second thought. Unless they were to swim in it. Or dip a toe into it. Then they'd notice something wrong. Something different.

First they'd notice the water was cold. Freezing, in fact. The sort of cold that doesn't belong to this planet. The sort of cold that comes from centuries and centuries of silence, from the most ancient recesses of the universe. And, second, they'd notice that it was almost empty of life, only a few colourless canefish living in it. Last, if they were foolish enough to try to swim in it they’d discover its fatal secret: there are no sides to this pool and no bottom - just a straight, cold line to the heart of the earth. Maybe that’s when it would come to them, repeated over and over again over in the whispered ancestral languages of the Kalahari people, This is the path to Hell.

This is Bushman's Hole. This is Boesmansgat.

Current Music - Adele - Chasing Pavements

Arrows and words

What did Heraclitus say 'You can't step in the same river twice'. But you can sure step into the same shit twice. Or bigger shit. I am referring to the spoken word. Usually I am slow to anger and even slower to take offence. Especially if it is with someone really close. But this time the self control tripped like a bull on steroids. What do you do when you are aware that if you say certain things now in your anger, the words are going to rob a certain piece of your life, and still say the same? The end result - feel like shit (aware shit which is hilarious). Like throwing away your wicket when you are batting on 99. 

I am usually the follower of Gurdjieff on anger. He says hold your horses when you feel angry for at least 24 hours. 99% of the time you wont feel the same in the 25th hour what you felt in the first minute. But in that 1%, if you feel the same anger then murder is allowed too. And I usually dont feel angry et al over whole lotta gigantic issues but this time ah... Show must go on..At least I know I did wrong. .

Current music - F R David - Words

What happens, happens

I was in US last week. New York, Atlanta, Florida and ...Maine. New Jersey I didn't mention cause I somehow think it's part of New York itself. And Philadelphia is part of New Jersey. And so the stupid reasoning goes inexplicably in my mind. The best part was of course New York. Vibrant is one way to describe it. Felt just like Mumbai. 3 o'clock in the night but something is going on. Some part of the industry is rocking on in full spirit. It made me realize - there is something for everyone - you only need to find when's your right time. The time when you are at your peak, where you function better than anyone else.

On my last day, a girl chatted up with me in the train while I was on my way to a client meeting. Perhaps she was lonely or felt the need to just talk. Jung called it synchronicity. I don't really believe in coincidences either. Or that this happened at random. Anyway, she kicked off saying I looked nice. It turned out she was a editor of a fashion magazine and could make out who was stylish and wore well. Small talk apart, we 'coincidentally' got off at the same stop. Later she pinged me in the afternoon to catch up since we both really had nothing to do. We had a great time just idle chatting, roaming a bit around the city, not interested in the personal lives of each other but just feeding off one each other's random rants. Sometimes it feels good to just do something without any motive. I needed just that dose considering a lot was going through my mind - one of the thoughts being I dont know if I want to come here again. In the end, she dropped me to the airport and we just bid adieu without any talks of staying in touch, take care etc. It was as if we both knew how frivolous such things are so why waste time, yeah? Not that we dont have each other's contact details but why bother? One thing  in common was we dont plan anything at all.

So back to London. And in a couple of days, I fly to Mumbai for a week. For some reason I feel it's going to be an epic one. My instinct is never wrong in these things. Well, as the song goes..

Current music - Que sera sera

Pretense - pre tense is actually continuous tense

Pretense. Pretense. Pretense. The first step of any change is dropping all pretense. Like peeling off the umpteen layers of an onion. So what is pretense? According to me, not taking action on any thought or feeling however compelling the reason. Basically, if you are not going for it, it means either you dont have the balls or in the end it's something feelgood. Or a sneeze. Believe me, being stark naked is not a goody good feeling but a responsibility towards no one but yourself. If you are not willing to act upon your feeling or thought, walk away. Save yourself and others involved in what if. It's not about the other but making a decision about what's probably right in the situation. 

Current music - Drop the bomb

Triangulation!!

It's so important not to fool yourself into thinking you can cause a change in anything. Person, organization or even your kid whom you probably can twist the most. Trying to change someone or something is like flogging a dead horse. You can only change yourself and probably create the environment for things to blossom if they are supposed to. But the most important commodity I find stretching across everything is 'time'. What is it that you want to do? Truly.

Alice came to a fork in the road.  "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I dont know if it's just me but I find time speeding at twice the speed once you are past 30. Add the information and options overload these days. I find this overwhelming. Just a simple search for finding hotels in New York gave mind boggling options. It scares me in my solo times in the night when I wonder once in a while if I am making maximum utilization of myself. That phrase 'so much to do - so less time' it hits you in the thirties. Once you are on this rollercoaster, you get down only when you kick the bucket. Explore spirituality, explore the world, do those three social causes, be a good father, mother, son, friend etc, live up those sexual desires while you still can without guilt, impact the lives of at least 5 people in your life and eventually have the money to do all this and make that retirement pot too. And all in 'time'. 

I didn't think I would come to New York for a long, long time. But a certain amount of deviousness at work forced me to play my hand. There are some chapters here that I would either like to solidify for life or close forever but how do you squeeze it in a short time? It's not instant coffee but you can't deny either. One person I WANT to desperately meet once and I dont use this term  at all. This discourse could go on forever but let's cut this short. I want to not confuse anymore.

Current music - Alan Parsons Project - Time

Keep walking!!

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success" - Swami Vivekananda

I love this quote. Especially the part - just leave every other idea alone. I think this is the most important part when we are trying to achieve something in life. To stay on path and not get distracted by wayside temptations.

Current music - Pink Floyd - Keep Talking

YEAH!!

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

It WAS a long weekend. I had kept three days aside to visit different showrooms, see different models, evaluate what works best for the pocket and thrill combined et al. All in vain for what do I do? I buy the first one I lay my eyes on. In the end, I saved three days of thrill seeking and actually thrilled myself. I got my first Audi. Actually she bought me I guess. I knew there was no more to see the moment I saw her and parked my butt in. And the purr egging me on to go and see another car. It's nice to be thrilled again like a kid. I spent more time in the car than the house over the last three days methinx. The music filtering through the BOSE speakers is absolutely mindblowing and I can't seem to get enough of it.

The stressful part is unlearning the Indian driving habits. It IS painful to keep an eye on the lane, the needle, speed cameras and enjoy the ride as well. Not to mention waiting at the roundabout and LET the other guy drive ahead before you. Grrr!! Hopefully this shall grow on me soon. The tomtom scared me with its 5 beeps indicating speed cameras ahead till I realised I hadnt broken any rules unknowingly. 

I wish my cousin was here with me. At times of thrill you tend to remember the people with whom you had most of the fun in your life. Even though this cousin is 9 years younger to me, we have a special connection untainted by distance, time or age. Like minds et al. I introduced him to Metallica when we used to race NFS III on the Pentium II almost 13 years back. He went on to learn the drums and now is one of the best drummers on the Indian scene for his age. All I can do now is point a direction. Some of our best trips in India have been on the spur of the moment with me honking my Palio below his building at midnight and us scooting into the night only in our shorts and tees. Be it Lonavala, Goa, Bandardhara or plain ole Madh island. Memories are for life.

Hmm, what next? Roger Waters plays here next month. I'll be there is a no brainer. Already saw Nile live in London and it was pure LSD. Seeing George Kollias in flesh on the drums was a three hour hard on. The mosh pit drew blood out of a lot of 'em. Also saw Eric Clapton which I have only dreamed of since I was a kid. My heart was tripping with Eric's strings for a few moments. It was unbelievable and not likely to be repeated again.

Lots to do in London and in life. Feeling good. This song - one of my extremely favourite trip songs says how I am feeling right now. If this doesn't get you moving, something's definitely unscrewed. Peace!!

Current music - Sa Trincha - Sa Trincha