A second moment

A second. That's all it takes. That one ruddy fragment of time can play havoc in your universe, or it can wipe off all the lousy clouds and brighten your day!

 Lose your attention for a second whilst in a class... Welcome! You are now attending a class called Greek-101.

 Just hold onto all your might. Ignore the suffocating pain in your calves hammering the track below. You might have just defeated your opponent who, a moment ago, was a whisker or two ahead of you.

A moment ago, you hadn't realized something. Now, just a second later, you did. And you feel pathetic about it. Or maybe not. You just realized that a '4' is going to be in place of the '6' you had put in a square while solving a Sudoku puzzle. Woalah! You just defied death, in case you were playing the game "Solve-the-puzzle-and-save-yourself"....

By the way, never mind the poor joke.

It's all in the moment. It's all about the moment. Right now, a moment just went by. One more is just passing by right now. See? It just went by. There!!! Another one's coming! You see? You see?

There's this big confusion in the thought-factory creating these lines that you're reading. It may be of no significance while looking at the larger picture, whatever that may be, but isn't the distinction between a moment and a second rather elusive? Which one's smaller? A moment? Or a second? And when we use the remark "Wait a second", do we actually tell the person to wait for a second? (What  a stupid question indeed! Who the hell is  this writer? Usain Bolt?)

Pretty surely, there is no mathematics involved for dividing a moment into seconds, or seconds into moments, whichever way sounds convenient.

I had to check around to ensure the lack of any mathematical significance Areyoufreakingcrazytogoanyfurtherorwhat!!!

It takes moments for people to select you for something. Similarly, the same is true for rejection. We all have this Court of Judgement(Not necessarily for justice, nor justification..). In this book called Blink, this nerdy fellow Malcolm Gladwell mentions how we are programmed to judge people in our surroundings. Much of it is evolutionary. It makes the whole process of sorting easy, although not necessarily translating to a correct choice every time. For instance, guys have an inclination to wide hips on a lady. Yeah, I really have a feeling I am going to get beaten up now. So anyways, the wide hips are a sign that the delivery of a child will be easy on the kid(Maybe not necessarily for the lady though). Evolutionary predisposition, you see? Yeah, I promise to not use big words again.

A blink. How long does it take? A moment? A second sounded a bit too long for a blink, I suppose. Yesterday might look like a blink ago. So can a year or a lifetime. We've all heard that.

I have this song, very regularly ringing in my head...and my phone. 'Lose yourself' That's the song. It is a song that makes you feel guilty for every moment you lose/waste. Besides, if you are into  long-distance running, put this song on. Your distances will disappear! Like 'POOF'!

The lyrics go like "Lose yourself in the music, the moment,You own it"

As a matter of fact, we are usually unhappy when we lose our moments. We just don't realize it while losing them. Oh! By the way, there's some theory that says that we are actually living half a second behind our time. Yeah. Half a second. So what ever happened, in this case, whatever anyone read, that is iff anyone read right now, more importantly, realized reding now, was something the eyes picked up half a second ago. BRILLIANT!

So now, if anyone;s wondering....how do we catch a ball flying towards us at the right time, instead of it smashing into our face? Haha! Funny scenario...the one below..

That one....

I guess he didn't read this post...

Nevertheless, it's like our brain is constantly processing the possible outcomes of any given situation. So when you see a ball flying at you, the brain sends our hands to a position on the ball's trajectory in order to save face(or save the face...)I found this book called 'Demystifying the brain' by this fellow called V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy. Guess where I found it? NPTEL!!! That was like my 'moment' of the day! As a very close friend of mine says "Good shit man! Good shit!". No clue how the book's going to be, but sounds interesting.

Coming back to moments, I have this theory, which quite apparently, or may be not so apparently ,isn't something I put to practice as often I'd like. So here goes the 'Theory'.

Each moment that passes, either do what you like doing, or do what you ought to be doing.

I know. It sounds too preachy. Besides, each one knows this.. Nah!! I don't think so. I was just trying to be modest. That's about all the moments of another soul I'd like to take with this post.

Things..As usual

You know what? Uncertainty is a good thing. Yeah, I know you don't know this. And then, there's is something that comes into play by itself without anyone's permission. Imagination. It is like an uninvited guest in any event, the event preferably being a marriage. Don't ask 'Why only a marriage?'. I don't know. It's probably because an uninvited guest in a marriage sounds inherently extra cheap. Forget the guest... We were on 'imagination'.

So, something is going to happen. It may be inside you, around you...or maybe in any and every place that my head doesn't want to be seen imagining. And the good thing is that you want it to happen. But, between all things that have happened and all that haven't, there are too many butts. Okay, no comprehensive descriptions of the derrieres that may have come by, by the way.

Confusing so far? The writer will also feel that way, if he happens to have the mind to read the above paragraphs.

Let's take an example of an event that has no relation to the paragraphs above. It wouldn't help understand the situation above...or who knows? It just might. You see, sometimes, even a wrong train takes you in the right direction. I most definitely have no clue how that works, but I shall get back to that, the next time the moon turns blue. (Dear Moon, please hold your breath long enough, like they do in Tom & Jerry).

Example:

There's this selection going to happen for the Music club of your college.

Most of the fellows(The MEMBERS) in the club happen to  be close friends.

You intend to be one among them.

So you do all the acrobatics with the guitar, your larynx, pharynx and all the stuff, stuffed in your neck,

And all the world conspires to materialize your dream by cutting down on the number of people giving the auditions.

You go to the auditions, realizing that for the first time, the universe has conspired and all that 'filmy stuff'....

All the adrenaline of the planet has somehow entered your blood stream.

Your heart is pounding like a freaked out war-horse.

Some people keep going in and out of the auditioning room.

You look around, surprisingly calm on the surface.

The ticker is still pounding inside, turning the contents of your thoracic cavity(the CHEST!) into pulp.

Then, some more people go in and out. And then some more,....ANNND some more go in and out.

You're like okay, my number could be up anytime... Anytime now...in a few moments.

Then there's this arse who looks at you, calls you, and when you go to him, he says "Who called you? I was calling the guy behind you!"

And you're like...."SHIT!!"'

Such situations are kind-of embarrassing. I mean, the 'You-going-when-the-guy-behind-you-is-being-called-and-hence-making-an-ass-out-of-yourself'' type situation. Fine, today, there's this new found patience you find within all that...err...flesh(I'd like to show modesty by not using the word muscle...it kind of spoils the whole scene...)

So you wait.

And when the last 2 people(including yourself, of course) are left, you get called. Surprisingly, you aren't one bit pissed(How?? HUH??).

You go inside, do few things right, a bit of your acrobatics goes awry....I mean most of it goes awry.. You manage to pull off something decently in the name of saving your face, scarring it anyways. So now, you're Scarface! Thumb up! But somehow, Al Pacino dying in the movie Scarface(Like in all his movies) sort-of makes you feel miserable. Eh!! Screw it! Who gives?

Sometime later, you come back to your room, write a lot about what just happened, about how some mysterious forces kept your near and dear ones(most of them) from seeing you in times of peril, somehow, hoping to get a call for round 2. You see, hope's a bitch! But it stays by your side no matter what.

So now, I sit and think...."Since I haven't mentioned anything controversial, anything about chicks or anything controversial about chicks, no one's going to read up to this line anyways. So let me not publish it in the first place!"

I go back to some video I was watching... This guy is showing some new method to tie shoelaces correctly. Considering that tying my shoelace is a life-skill I thought I had nailed(probably the only life-skill), this 51 year old just  came and destroyed my considerations!

Oh! Hell!! It seems I just got a call for round 2!! Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!

I am supposed to be jumping around right now.... Chuck it!!! Let's just end this one right here..

"It's over!"

Inside stuff

I mean, there's a lot of things going on. I am sitting near the window once, staring out at things, never knowing what I am looking at, or looking for. I am just looking. Then I look down. Very weird feeling.. shaky feeling. It's like you are thinking of jumping off, but you are afraid of slipping. Then you think that if anyone gets to read your head, he/she will surely think of you as a psycho with suicidal tendencies, where as in reality, you are hoping that no one thinks that way about you, as you have no plans to jump off in the first place. 

While at the window, I hear this guy. He sounds exactly like someone you know....Knew, actually. He's chanting in a procession. He's leading this bunch of fellows to the beach. The whole thing, all procession and stuff is being carried out to bid farewell to a god. They are going to drown him. The god. Yeah. Sounds funny. They are all happy. 10 days of devotion. The moment 10 days are over, drown the god. Keeping him is becoming an expensive affair. अतिथि  देवो भवः (Atithi Devo Bhava).The way the words go,  a guest is like god. But beyond a point, अतिथि, तुम कब जाओगे ?(Atithi, tum kab jaaogey?), When will you take our leave. oh dear guest?! Frankly, despite the risk  of making a grammatical error, देवः अतिथि भवः (Deva atithi bhava) (God, you're a guest)sounds  appropriate, more likely.  

So this procession I am sitting and looking at from my perch. I have gone to one myself. It feels strange. After staying with the idol for a complete night, there is this weird bond you form with the idol. It won't let you sleep. So the next evening, when you are going to drown the idol, you don't know how to feel. You feel like crying, but thankfully that feeling remains like a heavy rock inside. It stays there for a while. You can't cry. Why would you? Why would anyone? Specially someone, who takes pride in calling himself a rational being? Humans are supposed to be rational beings. And sometimes, we cry. In our own privacy. Sometimes in public. When no one's looking. 

Then you hear this voice. You know the voice. Very distinct. But it is not possible. For it belongs to someone you knew. It rings inside your head for some reason. You saw him go, Your heart quickens. It starts to throb. You look at the clock. It's 1:30 in the morning. It must be a horror movie. 

About a year has passed since you spent the night staying up, next to the idol. Next evening, you are a part of the procession heading off to a river to bid the idol good-bye. The guy heading the procession is chanting something, He says to the god, "Come back next year, ASAP.". The idol's face has a permanent smirk on it. It must be laughing. Laughing at what people do, year after year. 

The guy still chants along. The procession reaches the river.  I watch them drown the idol. I feel weird inside. Almost asking myself, why go through all this trouble to serve someone, when at sunset, you'd personally drown him.her? The question bounces off naked walls. It is supposed to be redundant, I guess. So much for tradition...

All chanting and all the paraphernalia that goes along with it is over. I still feel funny inside. Can't tell anyone. It happens often. You want to tell something. You don't know what it is. And you don't know whom to tell. It's like, the thoughts are there. They won't take shape in any understandable form.

Suddenly, fast-forward one year into the future. You find yourself next to the same old window you started at. That familiar voice is still chanting. But you know, what? That is not possible. The guy who chanted a year ago, is no more. He drowned someplace 1200 km away from where I am sitting now. No, it's not Karma or any such fancy term, used by fanatics to convince themselves of the balancing forces at play in the universe. It just happened. Somehow, this guy's memory kind of haunts me. Not in the top-ten list of people under any category of my considerations, but the guy chanting outside my window surely sounds like him. The same pump to the voice, the same accent. I can't get a visual on the guy. But somewhere in my head, this guy, the one long gone, is jumping around our procession, jumping and bouncing, chanting out loud. Looking forward to the next time he gets to do what he's doing now. So he chants fervently, 

गणपति बाप्पा, मोरया !! मंगल मूर्ति , मोरया !! 

गणपति बाप्पा, मोरया !!पुढच्या वर्षी लौकरया !!

His chants echo. Thankfully,  the echo is out there, down somewhere, not just inside my head.

The 'once'

A question that pops up quite often, either from others, or sometimes from that nagging sound inside the head is 'If you had to change something from the past, what would it be?'. Usually, my chest swells up with happiness! I thankfully have been blessed with a lack of memory that could remind me of anything that I would regret/like to change. Maybe, that is a good thing. Maybe, more often than not, it means that I haven't done enough. And also, maybe, it means nothing, although I surely have no idea what that means.

But there is this one memory, very vivid, just like it happened yesterday. This one haunts me pretty often. If what was shown in this movie 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', wherein you could remove selected parts of your memory, this memory would be that 'one part' I'd like to get rid of. FOR GOOD!

This was about 9 years ago. I was in class 7. I was err.. a bit rolly-polly, ... not exactly Tom Cruise-like awesome or something, and not a very big hit among the ladies(or whatever you call them when they are 12..). So 9 years hence.................not much has changed, except the rolly-polly part. Still no Tom Cruise in the mirror, I don't look at 12 year old ladies or whatever you call them when they are 12, because that makes me feel like a... Never mind. As for ladies of my age though, status quo is maintained.  Even the sky looks almost the same distance it did when I was 12.... Maybe a bit closer. Just a bit.

Yeah, so back to that DREADED day!!

We had PT(Physical Training) classes. Those were the days man! Those were the days! No matter how much Physical Training we do/don't do right now, those were the days man! Those were the days!

So this PT teacher comes up to teach us how to run around and stuff, how to use starting- blocks, without actually using starting blocks...because we didn't have any starting blocks. It was more like a dry run...

Right now, for some reason, I remember this quote from this movie called 'School of Rock'. It goes like "Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym(PT in this case)".

So this PT teacher told us to get into that 'Get' position in the Get-Set-Go chain of positions. So we were in this knelt down position on one knee, with both our arms under our shoulders and stuff... then he shouted 'Set!'. And all of us pointed our arse skywards.... and then he shouted (okay, he didn't shout 'Tomato' or something) 'Go!!'. The only thing I remember is my rear leg slipping and my body coming down with a thud....

and dust all around me and all those puny arses wiggling in front of me a few feet away, moving away from me with every passing moment.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the ladies(or whatever you call them when they are 12, girls I suppose..) were standing behind the guys to check who would be the fastest among the fellows, and here I was, living a nightmare in broad daylight.

Here's the list of troubles...

a. I wasn't the fastest in class.

b. But I was faster than most.

c. I could hear the females giggling behind my arse

d. If I had started running even 4 seconds after I had slipped, I wouldn't have come last.

e. I still could hear the girls giggle...

f. I still could have started off...made a bigger arse of myself nevertheless, come somewhere near    last, still could have had the satisfaction for having tried, despite failing.

g. I didn't even try to run.

h. I could still hear the girls laughing and giggling behind my arse.

i. Now, even my dress was dirty!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More than turning into a loser, being mocked by the girls, getting my clothes dirty or any of the host of things that could make me feel miserable, I felt pathetic for not getting up from where I fell, and running my heart out. That looks like a scene from a parallel universe, where on that particular day, I ran, beat about 50% of the crowd, and became a hit among the girls. Okay, being a hit among the girls looks like the central theme of this whole episode I guess. But why not?

But what came to be in reality, looks like the title of a very highly acclaimed movie. I'll tell you how. Although what I am about to do is simply going to screw up my chances of being a hit among girls. So any ways, here goes.

Girls= Chicks.

Chicks= Birds

The girls were mocking me. And I was feeling to kill the girls for mocking me.

So what I was basically wanting to do was 'To Kill the Mocking Bird(s)'....

And now, I am SO dead. More importantly....

Surprisingly enough, there's a message I'd like to leave with this episode. Try. Do anything, any how, but just try, except in the case someone challenges you to drop his/her iPhone. Don't try here. Just drop it!

Artobolevsky. The influence of Awesome!

There's something very sexy about Russian surnames. They sound the way they look. Specially the ladies. But we aren't here to think about Russians. Nor people of any country as such, per say. Are we?

I went to the library a couple of days ago. I know....I know.. I have already started to sound intellectual and all. It feels pretty good to sound like an intellectual for a change, you know? It's like this. Once, somewhere in a blue moon, you happened to visit the college library and this 'someone' caught you 'red handed'. NO, you weren't stealing a book!! Being in a library is a crime of sorts, I guess. It so happens that the next time there was a blue moon, you happen to visit the library for some special occasion and the same 'someone' caught you. Now this 'someone' thinks that you are a nerd. So he/she calls out to you and says(forgetting the 'Maintain silence' board), "oh, so now you are 'THE' nerd". You blush happily, inside out, with the thoughts of being a nerd in your own head(I know exactly how good you feel when someone calls you a nerd! Don't hide it!), until that is, if you just came to pay the fine on some book you lost about a year ago. 

By the way, I just went to the library...literally just like that. No, I don't have a girlfriend, with whom I can chat endlessly.... Damn! I shouldn't have mentioned that! Don't ask me why..Even I don't know why..

Okay! So I finally go to the library in search of this one book on something.. WOW! Brilliant. Now I forgot what the book was I was searching for. Yeah, I actually went to the library and forgot what I was going to look for. But it's a library. Awesomeness is quite literally being shot at you in this place. You'll eventually get hit by it unless you are wearing an 'Awesomeness-proof' outfit. I am still not sure if that protects your backside, though. 

So after forgetting what I was looking for (Which, for some reason reminds me of a U2 song), I just took a stroll around the place. Okay, I was jobless! First I noticed this book on Bio-Mechanics. Yeah, it sounds like rocket science. Most will stop reading after the previous line. So moving on, at least for the ones who remain. The book was called 'Occupational Bio-mechanics'. It's like a product isn't just designed with 'task-efficiency' in mind. It needs to be easy to use. Look at a pair of scissors. Not only do they have to cut stuff up properly, they also need to do so without causing discomfort to your fingers(Duh!). Same with a hack-saw, hand-saw, even the chairs we rest our arse on. Remember the ones that hurt the bottom? Obviously poor design. Hah! But we know all this, don't we? What seems so obviously trivial has quite a number of heads behind it....or under it(our arse), in case of the chair. All of that, the designing, the modelling and the finished product, it's efficiency, it all comes packaged neatly under two terms(daunting looking, although) called 'occupational Bio-Mechanics'.

 I just leafed through the book. As awesome as it was, frankly speaking, it was a bit too big to carry around. So I kept it back after about 15-20 minutes of picking it up. Then I wandered about a bit more.....And a bit more. By the way, I had a train to catch at about 6:30 pm. It was already about 4:15 pm. All of a sudden, I ran into this book(actually a set of them) that looked familiar. Not that I had borrowed them before. 

A senior of mine had showed me these books that lay somewhere in the overlooked corners of the library. This senior of mine has a penchant for rare things. I won't mention the book's title. That's because anyone in his right mind wouldn't leave this book in the library for anyone else to issue. Basically, it will become difficult for me to get my hands on this book in the future. But I seriously doubt that, given that in the past 30 odd years(By the way, the book came to the library, somewhere between 79(1979) and  85. ), the book has been issued only twice before, that too, just a few month ago. And surprisingly, I know both the people who could have issued the book. Talk about serendipity! It looked it's age. An off whitish hardbound cover gave a hint of it's white glory, that hasn't yet left it. But it looks mundane. It is supposed to look mundane, thankfully. Frankly speaking, any lay man(anyone who saw the book's tittle), who saw me with the book would have taken me for a lunatic. Not because the book was titled 'How-to-become-a-psycho-and-not-let-anyone-know-about-it', but they would never think I had any business with it. Never mind, so much for others! I picked up the book, went out trotting happily. Now, a bit about the book. 

-It's not available online.. like most stuff nowadays. Sadly. One needs to really dig deep in old book stalls for this one

-It's publication stopped roughly 2 decades  ago.

-In the 90's, these were available for about 5 bucks a piece..Yess!! Rs. 5! One can't buy a notebook in Rs. 5! (those little palm sized note-pads don't count!!).

-And...Yes, the guy behind it is a Russian.

-If you have a decent enough imagination, stuff given in these books will look like miracles taking tangible form!!!

A few Russian books have already given me a lot of pain, trouble and sense of accomplishment in the past, specially when I could solve stuff from books like 'Irodov', 'Ivanov' and 'Krotov'.

But again, all of it isn't about/for libraries or Russian stuff. It's just about the 'awesomeness-proof-jacket' and how it can help generations pass through stuff under ignorance. Throw it away! For good! Okay... I guess 'Bonnie and Clyde' just got downloaded! Yaay!

P.S.

By the way, the book is titled  'I.I. Artobolevsky-Mechanisms in Modern Engineering Design, Volumes I-V'