Wherein I Theorize

That panel on your right, the one that calls itself Labels? It lies. I've been so full of moods lately, 9 is a bad bad bad BAD misapproximation. The last few posts are proof. So anyway, I figured I'd let the rambling be and embark on another topic close to my heart. Theories. The sort few know about and fewer care to know. But laa la laa, this is my blog and hence, know you will!


To commence proceedings, there is my RockStar theory. A personal favourite. So. Some folks idolize 'rockstars', some tolerate them and only the tiniest minority ever ignores them. Rockstars are cool, period. And you know how it goes - If someone says they are, one must prove they aren't.

Consider rocks, whichever sort you fancy. All rocks -big rocks, small rocks, nice rocks, mean rocks, all rocks- start out as teeny tiny things. They get fatter, they grow older, they grow wiser and then they die. You with me? Right. Now as children we were told that on dying every goes right up and becomes a star. So stars are essentially rocks.

Now, every star -big star, small star, nice star, mean star, every star- starts out as a teeny tiny thing. It gets fatter, it grows older, it grows wiser and then it dies. But see, stars are cooler than rocks - they don't become starrier. They explode. Dhadaam! Crackle, sparkle, crackle. Sometimes, some fragments reach The Big Blue Barn and stay put. These, dear reader, are your rocks. And then they get fatter, grow older, grow wiser.. you get it.


Dust, kachra, stony stony tukdas. Rocks, stars. Rockstars, that's right. So when people talk of 'da rokkkstarzz', they're basically talking recycled dust and grime. And minerals and all, yes. Rocks are inanimate, we could go someplace with that but then they wouldn't be allowed to die and my entire theory would have to be reworked. Nyet nyet. Still, between you and me, rockstars suddenly seem so uncool, yeah yeah yeah? :P


Wherein I Warn:
Talk not of how you don't believe the going up to become a star story. You did as a kid, I'm telling you you did. And if you still believe that story.. hell, talk not at all! Talk not of how rockstars (the gaana waalas) come and go just like rocks and stars do. Talk not of how I bungled up with "bad bad bad BAD misapproximation" - 5 negatives make a negative, I didn't screw up. Talk not, not ever, if you believe this was reason to kickstart a serious 'discussion' about anything at all.
All ye rocks, all ye stars, I grudge you not your happiness.

How To: 1

PS - Fans because bloody gory executions =/= my thing.

The Virtues That Aren't

In some sort of continuation...

Needing -or atleast wanting- to be around people who 'match up to my standards'? It's true. I call them people with whom I share a certain wavelength, have the same intellectual frequency, but what the heck, call 'em what you will.

I just don't see why I should subject myself to people that I suspect I will develop contempt or pity for beyond a certain level of interaction. They don't deserve either simply because they happen to think and function differently. They probably think I'm too logical and scientific for my own good. Yes, I've been told that. *Logical and scientific? Amusement to the rescue!* Hell, I don't deserve to be stuck with mediocrity simply because that's how most people are!

This is not a claim to superiority. Anything but. There are plenty in the world who are more intelligent, more competent than I and I can live with that. But just like them, I would like to surround myself with people at the roughly same level of thought and reason, if not higher. I want a certain degree of competence, I want a certain degree of intelligence, I want a certain degree of sense. Sue me.

This is not to say that people I don't see as freq-mates are inferior in any way, they're just not like me. Just as they would choose not to associate with me beyond a point, I choose not to associate with them beyond a point. I bore them, they bore me.

Being the polar opposite of judgemental is a virtue. There is no antonym for the word because there's too much ambiguity around what the term judgemental itself should mean. Are we discussing (and passing judgement on :P) someone who passed judgement -do bear in mind that judgement can be positive or negative- on another's conduct or someone who passed a negative judgement? The former would be the literal meaning, but ho!

Again, expecting something specific is anti-virtue. Virtue? To embrace all that comes your way, simply because it's there. Are you fucking kidding me?

General acceptance is one thing - this is also how people are. Individual acceptance another - this is what XYZ is like and I am open to being with XYZ/putting up with XYZ . That sounds like tolerance, which in turn sounds derogatory - none of this is meant to be. But wholehearted acceptance that reads "XYZ is someone I admire/look up to, genuinely like and want to be with!" is another ball game altogether. 

Why must we force ourselves into believing we are all the same?

Why can't we be honest about this?

What The Judges Really Meant

November 22 to November 29. 8 days in the company of an assortment of people. Some that I just knew will be friends for the next three years of the course and beyond, some that I never got around to interacting with before, some that I had instinctively marked as people I ain't gonna get up close and chatty with and then some that I never knew existed. Equations and opinions were formed, newly invalidated equations and opinions changed and like the previous post made evident, albeit dramatically, there were revelations galore. 

One of those revelations was part of this game we -a dozen batchmates, some from each of the first three categories I mentioned above- played to kill time in the middle of the night. Mention positives and negatives, atleast one of each, about everyone present. Bitch, but to their faces. Get downright nasty, but be nice. What got the game started is of no relevance now. Cutting straight to the revelation - I'm perceived as judgemental since I tend to categorize people as per their apparent intelligence. Also, I give off an air of assumed superiority when I'm around people who I think don't match up to my standards.

As for how far this is true - yep, how much basic intellect shows through in casual conversations matters to me. I have nothing against people who come across as slow or are, in the words of those who gave the verdict, "not upto my level". I'm as friendly with them as with the others, but I sure do have an opinion about how much sense they're capable of dishing out.

The opinion is open to change, of course it is, but I'm not waiting around for something to happen before I form one. The person himself is enough of an event.

How far the tag of 'judgemental' is accurate, I can't tell. What's laughable is that the entire game was based on how judgemental we are. Perceptive, if the word makes you happy. Those two hours were full of variations of "I don't really know you well.. never spoken na somehow.. atleast until tonight.. but I think negatives mein, you're like this---". Until tonight? Admission and distribution of judgement, check.

Funny thing is, when I spoke to the same friends later about this forming opinions and categorizing business, it turned out that they all had an opinion -similar or not- about the same person but never "thought of it". So because I think it out consciously and am vocal about it, I'm judgemental. As of now, lets just say I'm lost to the concept of anyone being judgemental. 

Funnier still, the general consensus about me went this way - Positives? Intelligence. Negative? Too intelligent and looks for the same around her. Like wait, what?!

Being human, I'd like to make it known that my positives and negatives both included things other than to do with my brain. We'll discuss them over a cup of coffee sometime.

How far these opinions of me were actually thought out by everyone present, I do not know. It could have been a personal opinion for each one of them. It could be that some went with the opinion another announced simply because it was an easier alternative to thinking. It doesn't matter.

-

It isn't like opinions of everyone out there matter. What I'm like -the good and the bad- is what I'm like, regardless of what they think I'm like, so that's cool. Again, not even half of them are friends I'm close to, so they haven't had much of a chance to give out an informed opinion, good or bad. It was the overall interpretation of the trait of being judgemental that got to me. And since I don't see what's wrong with it, it got to me some more.

All Must Be Revealed!

More than anything else, the last 3 weeks have been full of revelations. With friends and classmates as well as the unavoidable friends-or-what candidate of the month and those involved. And what amazes me is that beyond a point, I don't feel a thing about the situation or the people concerned. Except maybe amusement.

Logically dekho toh I should be analysing and introspecting until I reach the pot of gold that's supposed to be the Answer, but right now the rainbow seems so vague that I can't trace it right. And somehow, I'm not too concerned about getting waylaid by chance puffs of clouds and gusts of wind. It borders on fun, actually.

Instead, I'm indifferent. Chirpy one minute, sober the next, but always able to see things objectively. A little too objectively. I have no personal opinion on these issues, only an objective one. Somehow, I've managed to numb myself to all of it. And I don't know how. 

I remember talking to a friend about the oh-so-detached, "I feel numb" theory months ago and being mocked incessantly so I'm expecting more of the same. But I simply do not feel like I'm affected in any way. Comfortably Numb, anyone? :|

So I don't discuss it with anyone. Heh, no one person know about more than one 'issue' at hand and that's how I intend to keep it. That logic says a breakdown will follow is hardly of significance right now. Lets just assume I'll get to that bridge, catch sight of that rainbow again and reach The Pot. Simple.

Craziest bit is that I want to write about it all. I expect it will help. I want to know how people manage to bare all. Everytime I do, I fuck up things so bad it's safer not to. So basically, I'm looking for catharsis where I don't want it. Revelation indeed.

PS- This post was of a more personal nature than any before, I realise that. Consider this a one off, ain't gonna happen. Also, I may have gone overboard with my skyscape analogy but hey, deal with it.

Spot On.

This And That. Seriously.

And hello! Plenty of updates on the academic front, none otherwise. Which is why I think this post is going to be shorter and serious-er than usual. 

Here are a few mutually unrelated observations – that’s the most I could summon up the energy to do.

• To touch the tip of an ugly iceberg, I often feel like my time in Swami’s was a waste. I feel, not think. The Iceberg Diaries will resume later.

• Leaving the kid sister behind IF Symbiosis works out will be so so tough… I’m actually considering dropping the Symbi idea entirely on the basis of that. Go ahead, tell me I’m being needlessly sentimental. Or tellingly cowardly.

• Pune is one heck of a city. Well okay, so the only thing in its favour is its dry climate. You may wither and die thanks to the heat, but you won’t sweat. What a place.

• Traffic there is crazy. Drivers go zip zap zoom, bikers are vehemently anti helmet, and pedestrians have collectively vowed not to look up. Lane concepts got bypassed by the time Shivaji arrived.

• It pisses me off that every goddamned thing in Maharashtra has to do with Shivaji or Ambedkar. Didn’t anyone else ever do anything?

• I really want to get out and meet new people. That, preferably not in a pick up bar.

• Colleges have finally figured out that selling maximum possible admission forms is the cleanest way of minting money. Forms were available in SoBo colleges minus the standard glitches. 5 minutes would be the average time. Very impressive.

• I’m getting stressed out at the thought of having to pick a stream, course and college – in that very order – and soon. Come to think of it, there are times I mess up the order prescribed. There’s engineering at one end of the pole, designing in the middle and journalism at the far end. And of course, random ‘possibilities’ keep coming to mind. Why can’t I just do everything? :/ 

• What’s even more stress inducing is that most seem to think I have made up my mind. Haha.

• If nothing else, the declaration of results pushed many people from the past to call. Or send brief, exemplarily to the point SMSes – hey how much did you score? Bugged me at first - After that there were no calls. Point is, it was good to catch up with them.

• I find it weird that people expect me to be jealous of friends who scored more than me in the 12th. Need to bop them over the head and send them off to look up the term ‘friends’. And ‘deserved merit’, if I may add to their tasks.

• Atria, Worli is boring. Give it a miss.

In case you’re still reading, I still don’t know who sent me that bouquet with a “Congrates” card after the Std 10 board results. 

So long.