Hit and Run

You know, You kind of know it all along, but the moment the epiphany hits you that you're just one of the many, I mean, what ever the feeling you experienced, it had already been experienced by billions of people before, what ever makes you feel good, made billions feel good before, what ever made you cry, made billions cry before.

That you are just one of the several billion other people in the universe.

That moment of self-realization (excuse the pun here), That sucks.

In a way, God hates us all.

American Gods and Indian culture

One of the two books I finished last year was Neil Gaiman's American gods. The basic idea of the novel is, Gods exist because we believe in them. When people migrate, they'll take their gods and demons with them to the foreign lands. Thus elves, dwarves, leprechauns, pixies and other gods/demons all came to American soil.

Now leaving the plot aside, this idea of people taking their gods to the foreign lands really made me interested in the book.

I've never been one of those people who worries about this country's cultural degeneration. After all, its happening to every culture. Trying to fight the changes to superficial aspects of the culture would make you a mere fundamentalist, like those VHP and Bajarangdal guys :)

But I did care about the linguistic and artistic heritage. I grew up with Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata stories and learnt Telugu grammar from "Pedda Balasiksha". Studied in Telugu medium till high school, read enough Telugu books to call myself a "Pustakala-purugu" :) (Which I gladly renounce, I am nothing compared to some of the folk here).

I just felt sad that the future generations wouldn't know anything about these things. The only culture they'll know about is dancing in these reality shows.

But a couple of the things I witnessed in last two days made me connect to the plot of American gods. I went to this event "Thyagaraja Aaradhanotsava" conducted at my Music teacher's and surprised to see People from Western hemisphere attending it via Skype. Apparently, Sir is taking violin classes to them on-line :)

The other one is, a youtube video of a 4-something girl reciting Sumathi Sathakam.

It hit me, Culture may change into dancing in reality shows here, But people who leave the country are taking the real culture with them and nurturing it. Atleast, Its alive somewhere :)

On a related note: This girl I know described a typical Telugu guy like this. "Zero class, No hobbies, A total dud" :)
Unfortunately, She is right. All the generation-X cared about is grades, ranks in competitive exams, MNC jobs or US Visas. Where' the time for Class or Hobbies :)

My Perfect Woman

I'm very choosy about women, atleast about my fantasy women.

The perfect woman for me has to be bright enough to discuss anything, but dumb enough not to see through me.

Sensitive enough to treat me well, but insensitive enough not to be hurt by me.

Kind enough to sympathize with me, but unkind enough not to fall for my pity routine.

Beautiful enough to thrill me, but ugly enough to repel other men.

Actually, my perfect woman may be TWO women.

-- From "Dread and Superficiality", Woody Allen as a Comic Strip by Stuart Hample.

Meaning of life

When Woody Allen says "How can I possibly find the meaning in this finite world, given my shirt and waist size", he is not just being funny, he means it.

His point is, Life is inherently and utterly meaningless, So, instead of discovering and creating real meaning/value for our lives, the best we can do is, distract ourselves from this awful truth by all means(through love, relationships, art, career... what not).

While it may seem as the pinnacle of cynicism, at some level, its true. The universe is fleeting, its all random, it exists aimlessly out of nothing, and eventually it ceases to exist. So, nothing is permanent, since everything is part of the universe. If there is a real value/meaning, it has to be enduring/eternal. Since the universe is not eternal, and you are a part of it, your life is likewise ephemeral and so, meaningless.

I now understand why people believe/want-to-believe in God. Belief in God, creates some meaning and purpose to our lives. It makes you believe that you can exist in some form or another for an eternity. Thus the things you do in life would have some meaning. As Allen describes in "The purple rose of Cairo", Without God, our lives are like a accidentally made movie, with no intention/purpose behind it, with a series of random and chaotic scenes which don't mean anything and don't go anywhere. We might as well commit suicide if we know for sure that god doesn't exist. A seemingly funny line in "Love and Death" tells, "I'd hate to blow my brains out and then read in newspapers that they found something up there".

Anyway, now I started to believe that this question is beyond our understanding, and I do not want to waste my time worrying about it.

So, the next time I miss a deadline and my boss wants an explanation, or somebody gives me an advice on my lifestyle, I would quote the young Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall", "Whats the point, the universe is expanding, so one day it will break-apart, and thats the end of everything" and get-away with it :)

PS: This is a summary of the first essay in "Woody Allen and Philosophy" and now I'm scared to death reading this book any further :(

Weaknesses

"We never get comfortable with people who don't have any visible flaws", The book I've been reading declared.

Funny observation. We always think the reason we hangout with certain people are their "qualities", but what makes us associate ourselves with them are really their flaws. We may not realize this, but this is what happens at subconcious level. The moment we meet someone, we keep them under the radar, scanning for their qualities and weaknesses. We don't really make a connection unless we find atleast a weakness in them.

That explains the concept of love easily. No matter what we say the reason we love someone is their attractiveness, sense of humor, caring, blah blah blah, cliché cliché cliché, deep-down, the real reason why we really love someone is not their qualities, but their weaknesses. The little imperfections in our personality are what makes us endearing to someone over the time. They keep us stay in love, and these are the things we miss about someone when we say we miss them.

Weaknesses are what makes us, should I say "Human" ?

Clean Slate

Got tired of my old blog.

Reasons ? Plenty, but I won't discuss them here since I swore to the devil.

But, lets just say, I am here with a clean slate :)

I wonder what Jack Nicholson would say about my blog title.

"Cliché, Cliché... but true"