my subtle percepts……

In the words of Lewis Carroll – I like children… except boys.

Last night I was blessed with a beautiful incident which almost took away my ability to sleep for a night. It was dinner time almost and I picked up some Chinese and few Idlies and then got into a super market for some flour. As I was picking up things, I heard a sweet baby girl voice behind me. “Mommy mommy, Nutties Nutties……..” a baby girl mewled. Such a cute thing with her jean and a cotton white t-shirt awfully large sized for her 15 kg body, a chili bowl, fair skin and a squeaky feet. Squeak squeak, she grabbed her mother’s sari and went “Nutties Nutties mommy pleaseeee mommy”. Her mom nodded off her wish and getting that, the cute-lil-girl got a little bit disappointed but still looked nonchalant. Her mother finished her shopping and came to the line at the counter, but the girl was still staring at those chocolates in the rack. That moment, noticing that her mother was busy looking elsewhere, the girl made her move. Sneaking off to the chocolate rack by carefully placing her steps so as to not squeak and alert her mom, she grabbed as much as Nutties as she could (poor thing was able to grab only 3 with her puny lil fingers) and lurked her way back to her mom’s shopping basket. Successfully pushing in two of those chocolate bars got caught going for the third one, “mommy please mommy only one i swear…. please” (although she had already pushed in two without the knowledge of her mom, that lil devil). Her mom scolded her and asked her to return it. Like a good girl she returned it and got out of the place with her mom(of course with her favorite Nutties). All of these happened right in front of me and was so damn cute to resist. Looking at this scene, almost forgot why I came inside the supermarket in the first place.

I love baby girls.

Every minute detail of them.

Am a guy in my early twenties, trying to get all rough and evil, neglecting anything thats soft, PRETTY, pink and braw, but you know…….when you see a 3 year old with a pony tail, wearing a Pink(once again) frock running towards you, screaming “bhayyaaaaaaaaaaa” with all her milk teeth showing….. such a marvelous sight, just makes you loose it there a lil bit…

” And though I can’t guarantee there’s nothing scary hiding under your bed I’m gonna stand guard” – Paul simon

There is nothing more cherubic and supernal in this world than a relationship between a father and a daughter. If you want to completely get a sense of what a father-daughter affection is, have to observe a nuclear family like mine closely. Back then, when I was little, my sister completely took care of me. She is 3 years elder than me. All through kindergarten, I used her as my gunslinger, scaring away boys who picked up fights with me. My mother, who perfectly knew the psychology of kids by the way, always used to tell my sister “hey, your brother knows nothing about the outside world, he is immature and gullible. You stay with him all the time. You have to take care of him” and particularly she used to tell this in front of me every time, not to impose a feeling of inferiority or vulnerability on me, but to make sure we both did just fine and had no ego problems. But it came out anyway, the ego. Lets face it, take any relationship between two siblings for granted, say bro-sis, sis- bro, whichever, at one point in time somewhere around the 9th or 10th age of the younger one in the relationship, he/she will get a irrepressible need to judge the love that his/her parents are showing to the elder one or to simply say, the kid will do the “u love him/her more than me?????? well thats just crazy….here, get a piece of me” thing. I remember myself doing that in my 8th year. Made a hell lot of mess doing that. My dad had to buy me awful lot of stuffs to prove me wrong (but I was actually right). I strongly believed that there was something else, something much more special, naturalistic, pure and fun in my father’s relationship with my sister when compared to the one that I had with him. Something there. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I once hit a point where I was literally able to see am not treated with partiality compared to my sister, but there was something else, a factor to say, that greatly differentiated me and my sister, factor that I lacked which was the sole cause for all the differences. Feminity.

PS : the above written were too damn subtle to share with my friends, thats y i posted em here(dats wat blogs r 4 righ? )… hope i did not waste ur time…

Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self by Rosalene Glickman

BMW – The ultimate driving machine,

CNBC – The world leader in business news,

KELLOGS (i like chocos) – The simple things in life are often the best.

Optimal thinking: be your best self, the most easily comprehendible book I’ve ever read in my entire life. The core concept of this book is Optimal thinking, which is all about getting you the best things and giving your best efforts in almost everything you undertake on almost every occasion. The Australia’s most successful woman and the recipient of the Woman of the Year award for National Business Women’s Week® (NBWW) in Hollywood, is the author of this book, Rosalene Glickman. The most successful inspirational speaker who has trained people in almost all the sectors(including the US army) admits that she used to speak on optimistic thinking in her early days and later on realized its inadequacy and created this new theory of optimal thinking.

The book starts with proverbs and inspiring quotes on optimal thinking, next you are asked to evaluate your current thinking process with a simple questionnaire. Then comes the bashing and thrashing of optimistic thinking from the author. The author’s neutrality becomes questionable when she talks about the practicality of optimism. She hits hard but with less practical reasons putting forward her very own examples suitable to vote out positive thinking and its outcomes and this goes through out the book. The section named “why positive thinking falls short” is an utter waste of time and totally deviating from the purpose of this book. I think the author intended to particularly specify what thinking pattern she wants the reader to get into as far as optimal thinking is concerned, but I personally found the first chapter boring and circuitous. Probably, people who hate or have fluctuating beliefs about positive thinking might enjoy it but I have read the concepts of positive thinking by various authors and they are just fine and once again, a guy who has deep understanding in positive thinking wont interpret it as “wishful thinking” because he knows its not. The explanation for all types of thinking in the above chart one by one in the name of Sub-optimal thinking puts u to bed and even sings a bedtime song. Observing the first chapter one can construe the author’s inability to introduce the brilliant concept of being the best self in its sole anatomy and the brazen ineluctable need for a relative concept to prove the superiority of the one at hand is so deliberate end-to-end.

Moving on. The second chapter with the left brain decision making explains how one should analyse the pros and cons of a system or a way taken to solve the problem at hand and take an optimal decision in the end thus giving out the solution thats in your best interest. This way is followed by the entrepreneurs while decision making and is so mature and logical and is wonderfully presented in the book but at the same time this left-brain decision making system awfully resembles the goal setting methodology already written in lots of books(ex: the ones from the pocket mentor UK). Logically approaching a problem and analyzing it in its original form from an outside stand point and then taking the decision thats in your best interest, thats all. The definition for the right-brain decision making totally contradicts the former. This one is all about visualizing what the best means to you in detail. wishful? no, a clash between intuition and the former analytical left brain decision making, fuzzy, I wondered which one should I take to. Exasperated, I went on with the what optimal really means section. I answered all the questions about what the best means to me. I really don’t think I will remember all of those answers I gave as my best, because my best changes everyday. Only a handful of people wont change their mindsets and will refuse to change their likings about stuffs, not me for sure, I change for every impact that life throws at me. Till that point I questioned everything that the author presented and was completely disappointed from not getting what I expected.

“The key to the optimal answer is the optimal question”

The book finally takes pace here after a very long distance from the starting point. A whole set of optimal “what why how who when where” questions, really useful in grooming the mind for optimal thinking. This is the core. Author beautifully explains the experience of optimal thinking. She puts forth four stages of transformation that are involved.

Unawareness of incompetence.

Awareness of incompetence.

Awareness of competence.

Unawareness of competence

and three steps to achieve them gradually by monitoring ourselves constantly, choose optimal thinking volitionally and overcoming the old pattern of thinking and beliefs.

These concepts are exposited and presented in simple language that anyone can understand with a single read. According to the author anyone can play optimal by adhering to the simple rule or a saying if u will – “be the right person at the best place best time doing the most important activity in a best way”. This sure puts the reader into a direction and makes him concentrate on the concept with no interruption. Onward and upward to the optimize yourself part, number of optimal questions that helps oneself to define his best self are put forth. Even the most infinitesimal details about your lifestyle are asked to you that somewhere down the lane you get tired and miffed. This book thoroughly plans your lifestyle, your career, your goals, your preferences, your emotions, your communication and believe it or not your work mates too and everything is made possible by only one instrument, the appropriate optimal question to elicit the best answer and this whole process sure demands a great deal of patience and persistence from the reader. The process of self-assessment and optimizing the options that we have at hand and using them to make optimal choices in our lives to bring out the best in us is the sole concept of this book but It so happens that every time the author comes up with something new in the book she compares it with the sub-optimal thinking. The sub-optimal guy is a loser and the optimal guy is the winner in her perspective so to say. And the concepts are never explained in their sole format as I said earlier. This book has an impeccable selling record and almost every corporate base uses this book to teach their employees lateral thinking but it just did not do the trick for me.

(Thank u sis, for getting me this book)

THE POWER OF NOW – ECKHART TOLLE

It was a rainy day, me and my pal had a big fight in the morning and I was all brooding over it till the afternoon. As an attempt to take my mind off the mess, I went for a drive in my car which I shouldn’t have as it was so rainy that even the roads turned swimming pools. It was pouring cats and dogs so I had to roll up all my windows. I started thinking about the issue again ” He is right, I am obsessive about that stuff. no no am not, he is the idiot who brought up this whole stuff, we both are idiots, oh my god ” . My mind kept construing this dustup from different vantage points as I kept sequencing retrospects from our past fights and did some predictions of what might happen next time when we meet. I thought I should talk to other guys in my circuit and hang out more with them or may be I should rethink this whole stuff in a disinterested way or I should go apolog…….. baaaaaaaaam,,, the car automatically got turned off and wont start, I kept pushing it and no use, wont start. The taxi guy behind me started honking stridently and screaming at me asking me to get down and push it near to the side-walk. Thats when I realized that my car was half submerged in water and I was in the middle of a gridlock which I don’t know how I got myself into. I got out of the car and started pushing it towards the sidewalk. I stumbled and almost got ran over as i was pulling my car with its bumper and didn’t know what I was stepping on because of the water up till my knees.Then I parked it in a safe place out of the traffic and started walking home which was like 2 miles away, all the way getting drenched by the violent rainfall. Reached home. Sat on my couch after drying myself .There came the realization of certain stuffs.

I was surprised to notice that shift in my thinking pattern, the way my mind stopped thinking after my car wont start(after d baaaam) and everything good and bad, pure and evil, beautiful and ugly, high and low I considered or that I would normally perceive in stuffs just got obsolete and vanished for a temporary period of time. All I could think about was going home safe and not stepping on any electric wires lying on the road hidden under water. Its the exigency of the situation that made me quit my thinking automatically and turned my attention to reality and what was happening in the now(at that time). Such a wonderful experience. But then, I wanted to do this stuff all by myself and whenever I wanted, not just during the time of emergencies. So i googled the phenomenon and ended up at this wonderful book, “The Power Of Now”.

Before reading any book on philosophical concepts I generally do a research work on that book in the internet. I go to forums in which people post their opinions about books. I really got mixed reviews from people for this one. Some said this book is from the spiritual genre(am not Christian and I don’t believe in Christianity either). Some of them said this book is anti-Christ as it goes about the concept of not surrendering to god(new age haters). Some said this book gives an illusion of well being but actually not so. whichever may be the case, I inferred from them that this book is not just another self-help junk for the ADHDs or the depressed and was some genuine philosophical concept which has gained good popularity and hailed a classic. So, I picked it up from the local library.

THE POWER OF NOW: A GUIDE TO SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT – ECKHART TOLLE.

A shot from the film Matrix – when that bald guy says “Welcome to the real world” and we all go like “oh my god, it all lines up and makes sense, cool. But still its just some crap from a movie”.

This is kind of similar to the feeling that I exactly got after reading first few pages of this book.

It is obvious from the title what this book is all about. The author terms the constant thinking process as “mental noise” as it gets intense and disturbing at times and says that this thinking process has been consistent in people from their childhood and it conditions them by creating definitions for the self like how to behave, what to hate, what to like and all and makes them act out those definitions at the same time not allowing them to go out of it. He teaches how one should detach himself from the chronological time and get down to the unlimited time(?) of the now. He also states how people are peripherally aware of the now and how much they are identifying themselves with the thinking process which according to him is just a tool of the mind and should be used only for practical purposes. He defines the painful past memories as pain bodies and gives ways to dissolve them in no time. Ever came across this situation in life where you stand in a bus stop thinking about when the bus is going to come and what works do I have today to finish off at my workplace, what is my boss going to say about me messing up the last one , once again baaaaaam, a hot girl passes by staring at you and you forget everything, and say to yourself “oh my, would you look at that”, things in reality sometimes excite you and drag you into the now temporarily just like my experience. But this taste of the now is short lived and so momentary and people usually climb back to their mind-identified state in no time. He also explains that, a person who lives completely in the now and here acts so alert and conscious than a person in a mind-identified state.

I am basically quite fast in the uptake, but the whole concept of Eckhart was so hard for me to comprehend in just one night read. The complex sentences explaining about the pain bodies and emotions just made me dull and some of those deep concepts were too difficult to comprehend even after a repeated read and I just got plain exasperated. I thought I would cotton on as I go down the way and I did too. I was able to understand what happened to me on that rainy day too, I got a taste of the “no-mind” “all in the now” state temporarily as a result of the emergency. Eckhart asks you to do this voluntarily by following two methods, to get into the visuals that the Now gives you and submerge yourself into its details, and second, let any disturbing compulsive thoughts flow freely with you observing them without any restrictions.

The overall meaning of this work of Eckhart Tolle is that “you are not your thoughts” which to some extent contradicts other concepts which i once used to appreciate, like the famous Cognitive-Therapy(for therapeutic purposes), positive thinking, optimal thinking(in line with Eckhart’s concept but slightly contradicting).

Eckhart Tolle says at the start of this book that he got his spiritual experience during his late twenties on one bad day he drove himself to the very pinnacle of pandemonium inside his mind and thats when he came to understand the true-self and the false-self. He once explains in this book that one who experiences a near death experience in an intense manner knows the value of life. Dying before the actual death is the enlightenment in his terms, which metaphorically said , dying here means killing the ego and detaching oneself from the mind and thoughts which is exactly the concept of Buddha, Christ and kind of a specific part of the Advaita vedanta from the upanishads. But from my standpoint, I would say this book is not that much spiritual and the abstract explanations are all solely referring to the practical working of the mind and its interpretations of the reality.

This book came out in 1999, millions of copies sold, a New York best seller(now his new book A NEW EARTH is doing the rounds) translated to 33 languages or so and oprah’s favourite. A good read, I would recommend it to those people who are so caught up with the chronological time of the past and the future. Am through with his STILLNESS SPEAKS. Yet to read A NEW EARTH.

That is my car…………….yeah right!

Every time i log on to the websites of BMW to look at those convertibles and roadsters, gotta say i get worked up to the point of self-annihilation. The attitude of the car(above) with its wondrous phantasmagoric look on a summit presented in an adroitly crafted flash setup with funky music just signals you to go string up. I don’t have enough money to request a brochure for this 3 series convertible that i gawk at all the time, may be later.

Amongst motley of roadsters and convertibles that are available for the monied i personally feel that the ones by the BMW are the first picks(for me). Their roadsters have such a sculpturesque look that seduces you straight off and the technicals are impressive too as most of the street racers burn with these cars. BMW Z4 roadster, the 3.0si 43 grand car, has 255 hp n52b30 engines(yet to come, now ppl have n52b25) zero to hundred km in 5 secs or less, depending on how strong your legs are, you will botch it up above 250 km/hr because thats as far as its going to support the game, rear wheel drive(duh), 28mpg(12km/lt) highway and hardly 17mpg(7km/lt) city and for the coolest part, it has THX audio systems, satellite radio, ipod n phone connectors(hanging myself right after i finish this article), and HD radio. This six-speed monster has wide body in the front which narrows down at d back and then widens a little bit around the wheels, aerodynamically sound and a chic-magnet, what should i say? bravo Chris Bangle for your incendiary designs for the BMWs.

The other one is Z4 M model, pricey(52k) showy and 330hp yet another 6 speed car with pretty much the same setup and the luxury of the z4 3.0si. But i like z4 3.0si the best not just because Ajit rides it in Billa but for its extreme nefarious looks.

If not a roadster then a convertible, that too once again a BMW one. There are these 1 series, 3 series and six series and the m3 convertibles from the high performance motor sports division of BMW, and am in love with the last one. When i first saw her in that whity white color i fell in love and realized that she is the one for me. she is getting renewed this year and next year we can see a new m3 convertible but with almost the same setup, like the same 420 hp v8, 9 kms highway mileage and 5 in city, the same 0-100km in 5 secs almost and 250km maximum, and the looks are alluring and the growl of it just knocks you out cold. The new 2009 m3 convertible is going to come into the market from this year end on but i have got years to go before i lay my hands on this wonderful creation of god (Christopher actually).

Apart from my madness for the z4 roadster and the m3 convertible vehicles i would like to drive the z4 coupe cars someday. In my options, next to the BMW are the Porsche with their Boxster(roadster) and then comes Honda which by what i heard are superb on Indian roads. I don’t admire those sedans, sports wagons and touring(wagon n estate) cars coming out of my favorite models in BMW nor those Cadillac and Benz ones. Lets just say that am a BMW enthusiast and i wrote the above stuffs out of self-pity. The feeling that “it is just right there and i just need about 50 something grand $ to own it” is killing me everyday.

okies, gotta go get ropes, take care.

so honey, we goin electric on everything we ve???

Violin , d damn old acoustic instrument has been used in orchestras, separately as string quartets, solos and in contemporary classical music(not completely) and now its getting slowly and effectively replaced by the electric version of it,, d electric violin,,,, even d other string quartet instruments are all replaced by d electric versions of each one of them, I’ve once seen a Russian band , a trio of a different kind, perform a concert in which the cello player was playing an electric cello, and was going with an electric guitarist

who was using his set of samplers and was performing with some puzz on his strings, music was great and cello just sounded ordinary,, just like an ordinary acoustic cello with no timbre change so i was not that excited about it,… but last week after a very long period of time i happened to come across d same old violin lady(Linzi Stoppard), i always hated her performance when they used to telecast it in “ss music” tv channel, i thought it was more bubbly n disco for me to hear and not really my kind, but this time when i was cruising through some vids about contemporary classical music performances, accidentally ended up at one of her vids in youtube and took few seconds watchin tat video( not for her, she looks pretty tho), and i got hooked up, or should i say i “got high”?? watever,,i cranked up d volume levels of my speakers and my dad was yelling at me, d way violin blended with disco beats just took me by surprise, a new genre should say, she was amazing on her violin or what i thought was a violin(d normal acoustic onez i knew back then) so i got curious about the tone that it produced, it was so aggressive and powerful, it sounded different, and she added effects(with an efx processor) too which even more mesmerized me , definitely not the timbre of an acoustic one i heard before. So i wanted to know more about it and asked the lord – Google.

Bingooooo,, its a zeta strados violin, hearing those names for the first time in my life, gotta get used to them cuz am saving up for them ( d one u seein on d left). They can cost you quite a fortune as they cost from 100 bucks to infinity and u have to buy the extra gadgets from amps to processors. Sell ur house, totally worth it i say.

There are lots of models available in electric violins but i bet they are not standard onez or signature models like we have in guitars. Electric violins are on their own(but also supported by famous violin designers, whatever), not much recognition. To quote a few model names in electric violins we have ns vector jordan fender solid-body(looks like an acoustic violin with no f holes and not hollow) Tedbrewr Yamaha models and Zeta, and most others are custom made and not so popular.

Same methodology for the reproduction of sound for all electric violins cellos violas n basses, they have a sensor that picks up signals from the strings(coated with some iron content), and it’s usually mounted on d bridges that are specially designed,,, not the ordinary bridges we slide in and tighten for the acoustic violins, this one is special. Then comes the pick up , a small box at d backside and usually near the chin rest. Then through a jack we hook it up to an amp with an effects processors and rock onnnn. They say that an electric violin with no body part would give out more perfect sound and more space to play d high notes up d board when compared to a solid body violin, i beg to differ , for my sister’s marriage my dad arranged for a carnatic music performance by a gr8 violinist called Athira(she holds a guiness record) , i dont know exactly but think she used a fender fv-1 it sounded really really great.(but for d feedback from d PA which was caused by an amateur kid sitting nearby it crankin up the wrong levels, bad day but was good neways)

I am actually expecting the electric violinists to enter into rock bands, perform rock jazz pop n hip hop of course, breaking d ground rules and improvising a lot more than usual but obviously some of em out thr think violins are for dorks(esp those ppl who ve tattoos on their butt cheeks and who get high twice a day), but from my side i would ask them to go hear metallica scorpions greenday ofcourse etc… and listening closely one can identify the bands going for some form of a string quartet or a solo violin prelude or interlude or whatever to improvise the song or in the normal harmonisation of the song. violins are not for dorks, i say violin plus rock band equals wonderful music (example : Yellowcard (before ocean avenue ))

so back to practicing “oooo come little children” in my not so cool acoustic violin,,, laters