2nd day of August 2010. . . . . . .

Its been a while since i posted something on my blog. Well not really long if you consider that a fortnight to be a short period of time. While I was looking back at my diary to choose from a long list of articles, I thought this post should not be one of those cooked up stories revolving around one of those people I met somewhere or I saw or my perception about others or whatever. It been a while since I've been a li'l philosophical about the li'l things that have always enticed me. . . . . So here's a li'l twisted perception of a conversation with a friend that's been morphed to differ from my first article in my New diary.

Looking at all the empty pages in this new diary, I can feel the excitement already. Excitement to see what fills into these pages in sometime, even though I am not sure how long is this sometime.

I remember writing this somewhere yesterday, "Re-Reading Your own book is like time traveling to a place and time you've been before". I can't remember all the responses which few of my friends made when I posted it on a social network but one them was very interesting and well framed, It caught my attention. She said - "We are not exactly time traveling - but it's the memories of the past which replays in front of you, while you're being a spectator. Your past does the time traveling to meet you in the present".

While I am writing this thinking about that, I wonder, what I am writing in this page now will go on to be memories of today for tomorrow. Since time only knows to pass to be left behind, it's up to us to pick up those moments and move forward. What she said  makes perfect sense in here. Every time you open the book, you make these moments part of the present at that point in time.

But this acceptance of memories traveling to be part of the present, makes me wonder once again if the past really deserves a place in the present. May be it all depends on what memories we have captured in past. Do we really want those memories to be part of the present. Do we have a choice to make - whether, to let something from the past be part of the present or some part of the present be left behind with the past, every time we reopen the pages of history of our own lives. . . . 

Today, if I look back at the memories of My yesterday and let it be part of my today, only to make it a memory of the today for my tomorrow, which, when I look back once again, will only be the yesterday. My today may well be missing in the tomorrow for its filled with my yesterday. So every time I re read my own diary, I am letting my past overwhelm my present. . . . . 

On the contrary, When I time travel to the past,  to revisit those memories of yesterday, My present will be part of yesterday and once I am done with the rendezvous with my past, I am back in the today and my Today will always remain Today as Tomorrow's yesterday. . . .

Why we live the way we live . . . .

This is all but a copy paste post that i am about to present to you all. . . . its a story of one boy on road to being a man raising this question at the world. Let me start the copy paste act and see where this thing leads.

boy - small doubt - why we live the way we live ? ? ? ? ?

few people along the way liked it . . . yeah rite. they liked the question. 

I am not in mood to highlight the key words like the other posts . . . you have to bare the brunt of having to strain your eyes a li'l more to get the details.

Because we have learnt the art of living over million years...and not ready to go beyond our comfort zone to explore more - she said. . . somebody else liked what she said.

may be because we like the way we live :) - said another . . . 

boy goes upto the former and says - does that mean, we are leaving behind nothing new to learn for the future generation, for we are living the way we learnt from our past and our past doesn't belong to us . . . . Are we living somebody's life or is it ours? ? ? ? raises few more questions. Too many contradiction in my mind, its just one of them. . . 

one more comes up to him and says - Has Howard Roark gotten into you? - He was a famous character that most of the architects would be aware off and want to be like. . . . 

In the mean time some one who seems to be very content comes up with this - Its too much of a risk to explore other ways of living !!!!

Now the boy decides to  raise few more questions irrespective of knowing the answers - how did one learn to live the way he did live when there was no past to learn from? ? ? ??
did one live to leave behind a legacy for the rest to follow? ? ? ?
well few more questions ? ? ? ? - then he says to all - looking forward to more questions than answers.

She comes back and says - over years we have learnt from our mistakes and we still are learning. our way of life has been changing slowly, so slowly that its difficult realize during our lifetime. Its a never ending process so its more like we learnt from our past and are still learning. so we are leading our lives and not someone else's.

One of his friends who heard his question came up with this piece of information - Darwin's theory of evolution says, Every species carries a trait of previous generation of species.(GENETICS).Similar with actions, life, philosophy everything, even design. ....There is a TED talk by Ar.Bjarke Ingles, he explains it towards design. So again its the same old philosophy "Life is a journey".

When there is instincts you need no past - says the content soul.

Then another one comes back to say - Principle of life lies in these 3 words Past, Present, Future.
Past is history,
Future is mystery ,
the workmanship required to link History and mystery is the PRESENT...
PRESENT- can be fun if u like mystery and equally miserable if you don't. does this solve your questions boy.....

The boy listens to all and in a hurry says - The journey of life is it's purpose - "A great man" once said . . .
believed it so much that I put it on my profile. . .
Will elaborate later. .. . got to go now.

In the mean time there were few like the one here, who just heard the conversation and silently had fun - finally said - ‎:) and it was fun listening to all that :).. good question boy :)

And she says - why not ???

sometime later the boy comes back after doing a lot of things that is unnecessary to be known at this juncture and says - let me just move away from We to Me, Why I live the way I live.
Is there a way to live or should i live to know the way to live and If I have lived to know the way to live then Is there any point in knowing the way to live for I have already... lived the way I didn't know. . . . ? ? ? ? MIND FUCK. . . . 

That's the confusion. Is living the way YOU want to live the best option then? ? ? ? ? 

A young girl listening to all the big talk comes up to the boy and says -  U should mainly Live a Life to confuse people like dis..!!! Hee he hee.. :D

So the boy says - do not consider my words seriously, especially if you're confused. . . :) he walks up to the girl - makes her feel she's too small for the conversation by saying - A friend of mine used to say this in college - The more you learn, the more you know, the more you know, the more you forget, the more you forget, the less you know then Why learn ? ? ? ?

Haa ha haaa... I'm already confusd..!! :P - says the young girl and runs to momma !!!!

The boy thinks of all that people were telling him and responds to all - 

I would say the same to the way we live. . . . we have to learn n we have to live. . . .

'my dear friend' - what darwin said was his analogy of the way man lived till the time darwin could see . . . he never prescribed the way to live for the future generation. . .
I've seen the talk by Ar.Bjarke Ingles and the way he design is his way of designing, its not universal code for design. . . 

May be we just have to figure it out ourselves. . . . 

'howard roark' - Had he got into my shoes, I bet he'd be psyched out. . .'another one' - Just trying to figure out the same, the relation between the past, present n the future - Searching for the thin line. . . :)

'the silent listener' - Have more fun . . . 

'young girl' - don't be - you'll figure it out someday.

Indeed Boy,  it is going on like you said... :)
I n t e r e s t i n g  - said a friend of the boy.

an intellect comes up to the boy and says - Hey, listen boy, very interesting and diverse, how all of us think about living our lives, considered that we LIVE each n every day.
" I live the way i live my life", coz thats d way i design my life to be with the choices i make. I dunno if its a gud or... a bad design, honestly it doesn't bother me as much as it matters that I AM DESIGNING IT. :) and thus my learning happens.

Boy continues to raise more questions - Are you really making the choices or is it the choice is being forced on to you. . . . . Can't we live with all the choices, why choose one. . . . :)

LIVING is a way of being. and only u can choose how u wish to be. Or that you are a certain way because u already made the choice, else it woudnt be in you life. U can choose as many choices u want. (I dunno where this choose 1 comes from) Its easy to choose but can U live up to it is the question ??? Will u go the extra mile to make it happen?? Dats d reason your "to do" lists do not get done, our resolutions are so brittle , and worse in total denial. :)  - she says 

boy now putting on a fake mask of a mature man says - well coming to the bucket list - its always a never ending one atleast in my case. . .
I would definitely love to go for "that" extra mile - Provided the petrol cost doesn't rise any further. . . .
PS : Petrol - not to be read literally ! ! !

All in good vain, the girl says - LOL. Well. No one said it would be easy. Its a process of LIVING N discovery.
Agree wid u on the petrol note.:-)

A cynical optimist as she prefers to call herself says - A question to your question ..Why CAN'T WE LIVE THE WAY WE WANT TO LIVE?

Like a gentleman, the boy walks upto the cynic and says in her ears - another question to your question - Do we know the way we want to live? ? ? ?
In fact, it is these questions and the process of us finding the answers that's exciting than the Answer itself. . . .
remember- journey of life is its purpose.

Another girl walking past the two of them overheard the conversation and said to the boy who was, well, almost there at the threshold of manhood - of course......everyone does....thats a pretty easy one....for guys the most easy and the lazy way...girls usually varies with the type ......tumbaa tension bedaa boy!!! life and all events in life just happens u see.... no need to think too much....

At the end of it all "the man in the boy" says - yochane yaar madtha idaare - yellara thaleyaloo hula bidtha ideeni ashte . . . you've got the point but - I agree that all events happen by itself, then why is it that we end up our lives preparing for those events to happen. . . . :)

Just trying to keep the mind busy - not mine. . . . 

Rendezvous with strangers........

Well its been a long time i wrote about one of the strangers from my elite list. When the thought struck to address one of them, it was hard to resist the temptation to remember "the li'l girl on the highway".

Li'l GIRL on the highway...

Every time while talking to people about my passion for photography, I am quick to recollect the story of how I found this girl on the highway, on our way back home from pondicherry.

I have always believed that this pic of the girl which i clicked on that sunny day in black n white mode in my Nokia N73 camera phone is still one of my personal favorite and best picture, that I've been able to frame till date.

I shall post the picture of the girl at the end of the post for my description of the girl and your imagination of the same will be impacted by the visual.

In fact I was shocked at the final picture, as I was clicking it with a camera phone and had to force see the frame on screen due to bright sunlight.

We were working at CnT at the time of this trip. A gang had already gone to pondicherry and it was an instant decision, like most of the times, that me n savan took, to travel to pondy on my bike. We woke up early and started our long ride, one of the earliest bike rides. We were on our way to surprise the rest of the gang.

 I'll not be elaborating much about how we got there, what we did there, where we stayed, though the trip will be remembered for what happened to kiran [churan as he's famously known in CnT]. On the night when we reached pondy, Akbar suggested that we pack him up into a sack and bury him somewhere in the CnT campus. You must know that CnT is privileged to have a huge campus with lots of vegetation, more like a mini forest if you would like some exaggeration. All of us were stoned and high while Kiran was fucked up. . .

That's all about the stay at pondicherry. It's time to begin the return journey and meet the girl. Well, there's no hurry, She'll get to the place where we stop by to wash our car and bike, only once we reach the place. She's not waiting there. ANYWAYS, I cannot resist to be at the place as soon as possible. . . .

I must add a li'l bit about the fight to grab the handle of my bike by the members of the other gang. Me and Savan make a gang too. . . Mr. and Mrs. Patel were not interested in the bike as they were "the Santrowaale", the smart ones. That leaves only Akbar, Suraj and Kiran to fight it out. Kiran some how managed to get to the steering wheel of Santro and that sort of took him out of the competition for the bike. . . Now you must have had a clear Idea of Who, When I said "We" were still working in CnT.

Me n Savan were never willing to give away the bike to anyone, though our backbones were craving for those cushioned seats of Santro. So we decided one of us would always hang on to the bike. When Akbar was riding, Savan was inside the car and when Suraj took to the handle, it was Savan's turn to sit behind the Man. Where am I? ? ? I am either sitting behind Akbar or resting on the cushioned seats in the car. Quite obvious, yes, it is. . . . one of my silly pleasures, to simply confuse people.

While writing this, I realized that I was always in the illusion that I had taken the picture of the girl in My Nokia N73 but here I stand corrected, It was this picture that I shot in Akbar's N73 that inspired me to buy an N73,  for the impression that the clarity of the picture made on me. This was the reason I have the pictures of the return journey from pondy and not the otherwise. 

As I told you earlier, while akbar was riding the bike, I would take the pillion seat with his camera in my hand and shoot anything and anyone. . . . At 100kmph speed you don't expect clear shots, especially when you are sitting behind on a bike, that's not just going fast but flying low!!!!

Please don't charge of plagiarism, I picked that line about flying low on one of those days when I was stuck in a traffic jam. It was written on one of the bikes - hold your imagination rite there - he wasn't flying, remember the traffic jam. It was apt for this situation.

I think I'll just plug in something that I had written about photography sometime back, which was never touched after wards. Its about what I felt about photography and the frame that was captured. "Each shot framed tells me a story and the moment in the frame helps build a story before and after the moment. The picture itself tells the story that is beyond the moment captured in the frame. Each picture becomes a point of reference to the origin and the end of not just the narrator[cameraman] but also the subject.

Well on our way back, Mehul spotted this small water body and stopped over to clean his dirty santro. The man was good at that, I mean spotting these beautiful serene locales along the way. You see larger the surface, more prone you are to dust accumulation. It is here that we came across this girl who was with her friends, baring it all to the hot sun with only the modesty covered. I remember savan n suraj pulling my leg saying - there he goes to shoot his Kingfisher calendar for the season. . . . Well, when I did decide to make my calendar - I used her pic for my birth month. . . . .

What happened after I shot the girl and showed it to her and my friends, as they say the rest was history, Remember I told you earlier the picture is a point of reference between today and yesterday and the moment in between. . . . 

That's for now. . . . :)

chocolates n a li'l money n volleyball net n wrap. . . one more session all that and more.