A random collection of Reflections on my experience of life...

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Amazing...

Amazing by aerosmith... Its been twisting, turning, ringing and churning in the depths of my subconscious all morning.
The Lyrics just don't seem to slip out of my mind...
I kept the right ones out
And let the wrong ones in
Had an angel of mercy to see me through all my sins
There were times in my life
When I was goin' insane
Tryin' to walk through
The pain
When I lost my grip
And I hit the floor
Yeah, I thought I could leave but couldn't get out the door
I was so sick and tired
Of livin' a lie
I was wishin' that I
Would die

It's Amazing
With the blink of an eye you finally see the light
It's Amazing
When the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright
It's Amazing
And I'm sayin' a prayer for the desperate hearts tonight

That one last shot's a Permanent Vacation
And how high can you fly with broken wings?
Life's a journey not a destination
And I just can't tell just what tomorrow brings

You have to learn to crawl
Before you learn to walk
But I just couldn't listen to all that righteous talk
I was out on the street,
Just tryin' to survive
Scratchin' to stay alive

(Chorus)

"So, from all of us at Aerosmith
to all of you out there, wherever you are.
Remember- the light at the end of the tunnel
may be you. Goodnight!

Saturday, August 30, 2008

The last time...

A long time since I updated anything here, and this post wont do justice to the short interlude between the two 'eras' of my college life.

There are a lot of experiences that all of us go through, and never have a chance to experience again. Yes, the list goes on... childhood, friends, the first time you went to a new school, the first time you went out with friends for a weekend trip, the first time you you came to college, the first time you spent a night out with friends... All of these and more will always be cherished and probably never forgotten.

But then there are other experiences. When you know you can only have it one last time. And you cant really plan it out. Like the ones I'm gonna talk about in this post...


It all probably started on 25 July 2008.
I finished My internship at IISc, and left for home by bus, bang in the middle of the bangalore blasts. The bus was delayed by more than an hour and as is typical of lady luck, it started pouring as I (and the other passengers of the ill-fated bus) desperately waited for it to arrive at the KSRTC bus stand.
After boarding, a general discussion swept us all inside the bus about the bomb blasts and the traffic situation.
And we soon discovered it ourselves, when our bus was checked twice for bomb suspects in front of hyderabad house!.
I can distinctly remember a gentleman too fat for anyone of his stature on an adjacent seat, praying over and over again. There was this young business-professional lookalike in a 3-piece suit sitting behind the fat-ass, who was always on the phone; and every now and then when the connection snapped, he would begin to panic. What added to this truly unique atmosphere were 2 kids on the last seat who couldn't stop howling and screaming all the while, and all the cajoling that their moms could offer seemed insufficient.

And as it played out, we were watching Live on the news about the discovery of 2 more bombs in other areas of bangalore within the last half hour. Our bus was enclosed with surrounding traffic by the police and separated from the maddening crowd for fear of a live bomb.
Thrilling - You say? Gross understatement.
But it was all over by midnight, and we were out of bangalore for good!

"Finally Going home!" I thought. But somewhere at the back of my mind it echoed "For the last time". It was the last time I was going to Kochi, calling it my home. In another 2 months, our family would shift to Delhi which would be our new home.

So the next 5 days (yes, thats how long my summer vacation lasted) was fun. Back at home with family. Kochi, the green, cool and beautiful place (with lots of rain and insects though).
It was fun driving along the foreshore road facing the backwaters at Katari Bagh, into the golf course and around the place in the morning. Its probably the last experience I will have, of living at 04-Katari Bagh.

And then, I had to return to college for my last semester on campus, with just 4 months of college life left.
After the course registrations and placement worries drift into the past, I still have to figure out how to spend the last 3 months of college life I have left.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Beauty

It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality? Yes, I do. Well, now, that is as far as my mind goes; I cannot understand these other ingenious theories of causation. If someone tells me that the reason why a given object is beautiful is that it has a gorgeous color or shape or any other such attribute, I disregard all these other explanations—I find them all confusing—and I cling simply and straightforwardly and no doubt foolishly to the explanation that the one thing that makes the object beautiful is the presence in it or association with it, in whatever way the relation comes about, of absolute beauty.
I do not go so far as to insist upon the precise details—only upon the fact that it is by beauty that beautiful things are beautiful.
This, I feel, is the safest answer for me oranyone else to give, and I believe that while I hold fast to this I cannot fall; it is safe for me or for anyone else to answer that it is by beauty that beautiful things are beautiful.
- (Plato, Phaedo, 100c-e)
Don’t you agree? I do.