When Sunshine Comes

Along the road of life, one pauses to meet people who leave a lasting impression. This is one such account, unforgettable and deeply inspiring. 

I met N for lunch a few days ago, regarding a certain business proposition he was to make. Backed up by a recommendation from a father-figure, I was quite convinced about my decision long before the meeting took place, nevertheless, this meeting proved to be one of sorts which would banish all my trepidations about life, let alone the 'business' we intended to conduct. 

Before me stood a young, 20s something boy, not very voluble, but warm and genuine in his efforts to facilitate my limited understanding of the subject that I sought very much to demystify. Characteristic of me, it didn't take long for the conversation to veer off into individual domains, which told me this was no ordinary 'boy' but someone who continues to battle hard with the singular intention of transforming his life and those others that matter. 

Close to an hour later, after a stirring foretaste of the circumstances affecting those lives that seemed so distant yet somehow connected, I shook hands with my visitor, masking gloom with enthusiasm, comforted and inspired by the thought of an individual's concerted will to overcome life's adversities.  

From Time to Eternity

Deep within my heart is a place, known only to me, cherubic, pristine, warm and ever-green. It is my ultimate resting place, where I will attain oneness with my creator. It is a place that I visit often, when I spend some intimate moments with myself.

It doesn't puzzle me anymore, but makes me happy, that this final destination will bring me comfort in the realization that the self will not, after all, need any identity or role for continuity or attainment of a purpose - a purpose to just be happy, merged with nature and blissful in existence.

And today, I'm reminded of William Penn who rightly said that 'death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.'

Between the Known and the Unknown

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.  ~Daniel J. Boorstin, Democracy and Its Discontents

A few days ago, I had the rare privilege of visiting a popular college here and being part of an interaction with some students over a certain subject, and in the process discovered how much more broader in thought the student of today has come to be. I was absolutely living a dream of wanting to be able to visit a vibrant campus and surround myself with youth, perhaps in a frantic attempt to reverse the ageing process that had set it on my mind!

Witnessing a remarkable sense of passion and fair understanding of the reality of the subject being discussed, I was amazed at how proficient young minds have cultivated themselves despite the inordinate, often highly demanding stakes of the present day. On stating this, one could perhaps face the argument that 'a student of today has access to limitless information along with more relevant examples which help in decision making and better understanding', a claim I will not subscribe to, but will be unable to disprove.

Now, as these already marvelous scholars prepare to step outside of their most prized state of being natural, creative, instinctive, and curious and then subject themselves to worldly forces to become 'analytical, logical and all the other junk', it is more of a social and national loss that will continue to occur - sadly!

And, as for me, humbled by the sights and sounds of an interface that lasted not long, I returned feeling young, blessed, happy and most importantly at the door of my destiny. 

Bombay Meri Jaan

There are cities and there is Bombay! By no standards would you be able to compare it with any other city in India, or, for that matter, with any in the world! Among the first things one notices about Bombay are its stark contrasts - one of abject and desolate poverty and the other of incredible opulence. Perhaps, it is safe to assume that these disparities do not co-exist in any place else, if not always in such sheer scale and evidence. Yet, the more amazing of facts is that these opposites cohabit in harmony unmindful of one another and their way about within this hideously cramped milieu.

It is in Bombay that one would truly realize the value of space and the premium it carries. At any given moment, a good part of its 20 million odd inhabitants are constantly rubbing shoulders with one another seemingly restive and on the brink. It doesn't take long for one to realize that boundaries of personal space and individual realm are to be re-defined in the context of Bombay's standards.

There aren't many open spaces here, and the only massive open expanse is the sea that borders what once used to be the seven islands, now interconnected and once called the good little bay. It is quite another thing that it often tempts the articulating mind of mine to replace the word good with big, very big! And most certainly, it would be apt to replace the word places with spaces while referring to any part of Bombay.

Bombay is inimitable in its own sense, for there are sights and experiences one possibly wouldn't be treated to any place else. Massive edifices, relics of an era long gone, yet rich and elegant in splendour garland the popular financial esplanade along with corporate houses whose names one regular reads on the pages of Forbes and the like. Yet, not so far away a fishing community has made its home in the buzz of activity, hardly a furlong from where the Executive of the State claims to conduct its business!

If you could meet anyone from across the Earth on Times Square in New York, then on Marine Drive you could easily run into a Shastri, Subramanian, Saxena, Sheikh, Sebastian, Singh, Sharma, Sinha and many more all at once.

Walk eastward along the cobble-stone path and one would come face to face with Victorian structures draped in powerful stately appearance, a little away from the now worn, yet imposing £ 9000, Flora Fountain. Not surprisingly, each one of these super-structures, individually, make any other out-of-Bombay building unusually diminutive.

And then, there is the Kabuthar Khana, which if visited by Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, would shame his "Rats with Wings" statement and make Trafalgar look petty in the face of the marauding flurry of grays and whites with beaks and half-talons!

I'm beginning to take my baby steps in Bombay. My days begin at a time when any other city would perhaps be pondering over early morning thoughts during a semi-wakeful state, but by Bombay's standards I'm not so enterprisingly early in the crusade. Overpowered more by a feeling of awe than control, I set about and as I make my way to the nearest suburban rail junction, I am conscious of thousands more elbowing their way to begin their day. It doesn't take me long to realize that my ability to get on and off a train is more a matter of chance than will. Eventually, with experience, I'm told that this chance will become habit and routine, a routine that is best described as 'growing on you.'

Bombay is more of spirit than a place. It is a lifestyle far from any defined culture, and more of practical possibilities to ensure survival and eventually thrive. In this myriad world of high-rises, celluloid, furious monsoons, million-dollar corporate deals and sleepless roads, every person nurtures an ambition to make something out of life. Perhaps, Bombay is where one can come closest to realizing one's passion! Some visit and depart, while many others haven't ever ventured outside the city's confines, and yet some others visit and stay back forever!

Of all that has been written so eloquently to illustrate Bombay and its soul, it is the words of lyricist Javed Akhtar that stand out for their aptness. Quite like how he once felt, I'm sure, there are several thousands, like me, who wonder "what a large metropolis is Bombay and how insignificant am I? Once in a while even the bravest can feel fear."

Footnotes:

Title, meaning Bombay - my life, adapted from the song "Ai Dil Hai Mushkil Jeena Yahaan" sung by Mohd Rafi and Geeta Dutt, composed by O. P. Nayyar and picturized on Johnny Walker, in the 1956 Hindi film CID.

My Immortal Chennai

I am more than just surprised at myself, for the sense of disconnection towards blogville that I have gotten into. It is hard to believe that I could stay away from blogging for so long, and in such dispassionate manner. 

I cannot say if marriage has been the reason, but I will not dwell on it any more than I already have, for being here is more important and enjoyable than being explicatory about the reason for absence. 

Anyhow, after a long pause, which perhaps may not immediately be remedied, I wanted to visit here and make a mention of some events that have, once again, brought about a change into my life. 

I've been calling Chennai home since September of 2010, and it has been a very different category of experience in this hearty Tamilian hinterland. The city, its people, its culture, most certainly intertwined with temples, movies, colours, dosas, music and vermillion, to mention a few that is, have actually been very deeply connected to the process of my growing up and growing well. The beach on the East Coast Road, with its close-to-arid, yet quiet, expanses, has practically been my courtyard for what now seems to be the most memorably happy part of my life. 

Away from the complex orchestration of collective human routines of commute in quest for destination, and supposed purpose, N and I found comfort in the tiny green oasis where little neem trees swathed in the evening breeze and echoed the calls of cuckoos while people residing in vicinity were returning home after a hard day's labour. Dusk's arrival was signalled by a mellow grey overhanging curtain of dim light accompanied the toll of a distant temple bell, with which followed a long chorus of classical hymns belted out from a creaky cassette player that was perhaps as old as its owner. Now, these scenes are forever frozen in my mind, with the ability to be recalled at ease, hopefully, well into the future. 

To some, Chennai is expressive of true warmth draped in 'absolute' conservativeness which cannot be categorized in any relative term of equivalence. It is an amalgamative state of culture, aspirations, values, youth, exuberance, co-existence, and a laid back attitude and yet home to people who fervently live of unending hedonistic delight, in the most positive sense. 

In a sense its core has changed little with time and perhaps will remain benign and irreversible despite the onslaught of the new age revolution seeking to intersperse the old and the new, the modern and the classic, the concept and the conceiver!

On 5th June, I bid a tearful adieu to this remarkable institution of my life that had so sympathetically and patiently taught me love and compassion. The sun had set as I began my journey of departure, and the roads were crammed with automobiles ferrying many a weary traveller back home. A not so dark sky heralded growing clusters of dazzling lights that illuminated surroundings and minds alike. Musky incense spreads through the air, marking a change of time and the beginning of dutiful rituals in reverence of the divine creator. 

The clamour of the evening hardly distracts my thoughts as I leave. Pausing on occasion, I notice a lull, and return to the chatter of people and the noise of the surrounding. A cascade of strong memories envelope me and I realize I am not departing, after all. A great deal of Chennai is within me in the form of experiences and memories and a good part of me remains through the eyes and spirit of all the wonderful people that I will be connected with forever. 

In truth, this is not the end where there are goodbyes and apprehensions of parting, for this is just another beginning, a mere extension of time and place, deeply interconnecting the future with the past, being played out in the present.

Footnotes:

Sometime in the evening of Tuesday, 03 July, 2012, I received an email from a webmaster of Blogadda, a popular Indian blog directory service stating that this post "has been selected as one of the top posts for this week's 'Tangy Tuesday Picks'. We loved reading the post."

I wanted to scribe a few words of gratitude for Team Blogadda for having found this post worthy of such distinction. 

13 Years Later

A lot changes over 13 years, but we realized that the camaraderie we shared was not one among them, thankfully!

K and I have been good friends since 1996 and shared many a wonderful moment in the company of sworn comrades. Those were times of bliss that now seem from a different era altogether. Together, with several others, we've seen the passage of a phase which marked many a wonderful moment of life that is now etched deep within as an unforgettably iconic spell, which I'm certain will be related to posterity with deep passion and enthusiasm.

As time took us our different ways, we drifted out of touch, momentarily, and then re-connected, thanks to the ever so far-reaching capabilities of new generation technology!

And now, just sometime ago, when K announced a visit to Chennai, I was thrilled beyond words. We met, after a whopping 13 year interlude, like old-timers, who parted fleetingly, only to come back into the fold once again. Over a fare of exquisitely spiced Indian fare, we caught up on times that were fresh in our minds, yet seemingly so distant. Reliving those times, we became young once again, transported back to a phase that we continue to relish and will do so forever.

I'm always in awe of how life is a giver - a giver of good things, times and people that make living truly a blessed event.

Like every coming together of such epic proportions, there is always a before and an after - and this time too, I found that the only difference was in the pictures taken, back then and now! 

Privacy & Google

There's a lot of hullabaloo about Google's new privacy policy that kicked in, effective yesterday. As I leafed through some pointers, a few mentions, I thought, were worth making a post, given that there is an increasing blur in the lines that divide an individual's privacy and the public domain at large.

I found these quite interesting, so to speak.

Is there a way to prevent Google from combining the personal data it collects from all its services?

No, not if you're a registered user of Gmail, Google Plus, YouTube, or other Google products. But you can minimise the data Google gathers.

It's important to keep in mind that Google can still track you even when you're not logged in to one of its services.

But the information isn't quite as revealing because Google doesn't track you by name, only through a numeric internet address attached to your computer or an alphanumeric string attached to your Web browser.

Is Google's new privacy policy legal?

The company has no doubt about it. That's why it's repeatedly rebuffed pleas to delay the changes since announcing the planned revisions five weeks ago. But privacy activists and even some legal authorities have several concerns.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy rights group, sued the FTC in a federal court in an effort to force the FTC to exercise its powers and block Google's privacy changes.

A federal judge ruled the courts didn't have the authority to tell the FTC how to regulate Google. The FTC says it is always looking for evidence that one of its consent orders has been violated.

Earlier this week, the French regulatory agency CNIL warned Google CEO Larry Page that the new policy appears to violate the European Union's strict data-protection rules.

Last week, 36 attorneys general in the US and its territories derided the new policy as an "invasion of privacy" in a letter to Page.

One of the major gripes is that registered Google users aren't being given an option to consent to, or reject, the changes, given that they developed their dependence on the services under different rules.

Footnotes:

Excerpts from a slideshow article on Google's privacy policy featured in the Times of India

ccTLD rollout on Blogger

Over the past couple of days now, Blogger has been gradually rolling out redirects to country-code URL’s (or ccTLD’s) for all Blogger sites.

What this means is that "if you are in India and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you will be redirected [blogname].blogspot.in. A ccTLD, when it appears, corresponds with the country of the reader’s current location."

Unfortunately, this update has been a cause for some major issues where the same post will show different sets of comments depending on which ccTLD readers visit. Which explains why some of your comments remain hidden away, while yet some others keep doing the vanishing act once every while.

I have written to the support folks at Intensedebate and have been in the process of a number of un-installs and re-installs, but technology sometimes can be geekier than the geek! ;-)

I'm hoping that a solution emerges soon - meanwhile, for those who have been so kind to comment on my posts, I'd like you all to know that your comments are safe, though invisible - which I'm told is a momentary lapse of reason on the part of Blogger! :D 

Remembering Jobs

He'd have celebrated his birthday today had he been alive.

Redefining Oblivion remembers the pioneer Steve Jobs and how the landscape of technology changed due to one man. 

Foggy Chennai

Woke up to a foggy grey morning! Confusing weather here in Chennai, something that people say hasn't occurred before.

One usually sees the likes of this in parts of North India where winters mean foggy, dull mornings and days.

Here, this surely is different, very different. 

Jitters of War

The situation concerning Iran and the US-Israel backed alliance is hotting up and growing more and more concerning.

Today, more specifically, the world needs to be at peace and instances such as these threaten to destroy the very fabric that we so protectively guard.

Explains how fragile maintaining peace can be.

Goodbye Whitney Houston

Many nights we prayed, with no proof anyone could hear
In our hearts a hope for a song, we barely understood
Now we are not afraid, although we know there's much to fear
We were moving mountains, long before we knew we could.
There can be miracles When you believe
Though hope is frail, It's hard to kill

Redefining Oblivion pays deep homage to the evergreen Queen of Pop Whitney Houston who passed away on Saturday. Her voice enthralled millions worldwide and I am "grateful for the GIFT of her."

Footnotes:

Lyrics from "When You Believe" by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. The song was written and composed by Stephen Schwartz for the 1998 DreamWorks animated feature The Prince of Egypt. 

"When You Believe" was awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 71st annual ceremony on March 21, 1999.

Blogger Error

My comment management system powered by intensedebate has been acting up lately. Some of your comments on the previous post have disappeared, and some remain hidden away, unknown and inaccessible.

Upon login to the comment aggregation system, I see two links of my previous post, one in html and the other by the title itself - something that hasn't happened until now.

I'm imagining that this error was possibly triggered off by blogger changing local domains from .com to .in which may have upset a number of plugins and associated systems.

I'm hoping that this is momentary and presume it will be resolved.

Meanwhile, has anyone of you noticed your domain changing over from .com to any localized suffix?

The Times of Ooty

Footnotes:

Picture taken during my snap vacation in Ooty during the last weekend. Changed a great deal, yet, this place is charming as ever and will forever remain closest to my heart wherever I go! 

Republic Day - The Making of a Superpower?

Some excerpts from an article on India's growth featured in the Times of India on Wednesday, 25th January, 2012;

"But just adding new hands to the workforce won't help. The government has to make sure that kids get a good education at schools and colleges. This will need money, but more importantly, some checks to make sure that schools actually get built and teachers do their job properly. By 2007-08 , more than 82% of the world's population was literate. In India, the number is 67%.

So, just pumping in money and sarkari schemes after education won't suffice. Governments and progressive politicians will have to chip away at deep-seated social and religious prejudices.

A healthy workforce is a productive workforce. India's state-led healthcare system is tottering. Data like the number of new hospital beds added in every state hide the reality of large-scale graft, nonexistent infrastructure, spurious drugs and abysmal healthcare management.

To find out which states have the worst public healthcare systems, you just haveto see the list of states where over 80% of the spending on healthcare goes to private hospitals , clinics and doctors. The list includes Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh.

Only 11% of India's population has any kind of insurance, so it's easy to understand why for a poor family, a debilitating disease affecting an earning member can be a financial disaster. Just like we saw with education, across nearly all health parameters , Muslims, backward classes and women fare worse than other Indians.

The eight northeastern states of India are not only landlocked, but locked away from mainstream public imagination. That's a pity, because northeasterners are among India's best-educated and healthy people. We need more roads, airports and rail routes to connect the region to mainland investors, markets and opportunities."

Footnotes:

Excerpts from an article by ToI reporter Abheek Burman.

The 381st

This post marks the completion of 381 posts on this blog. Spanning a period of 6 years and from across several locations, I feel elated at the manner in which I can now reach out to all of you who are some of the finest harbours of creative excellence.

Thank you all for Redefining Oblivion. 

SOPA-PIPA and Us

Some excerpts from Mashable's take on why SOPA will take us back to the dark ages;

"It’s not just books, music and movies. The Internet is empowering people to create all sorts of businesses and distribution systems. They leapfrog the old hurdles, ignore the gatekeepers and go straight to the public.

Yet the language in SOPA is so irrational that I can only assume that the authors and backers wanted nothing more than to fundamentally change the rules of the web: To shut down the open post fields, kill reposting (goodbye, Tumblr), end shared videos (sorry, YouTube), expand the definition of what it means to infringe (sorry, Twitter, no sharing links that aren’t yours).

When you turn copyright infringement into a felony and say that anyone can accuse a website of providing ”infringing” tools (and apply severe penalties whether or not you do something about it), you are essentially making it impossible for anyone to do anything online without fear of retribution."

Footnotes:

This post contains excerpts of Mashable's opinion on SOPA.

Redefining Oblivion firmly believes that Copyright Infringement cannot be condoned and hence they are not bad words after all, but to think that one will possibly no longer be able to re-post links that aren't yours is quite  something else.

So technically, in future, this post will constitute a violation, perhaps?

Are we ready yet?

Human Nature

Though numerous other understandings of human nature exist within the New Age movement, all agree that some form of the divine exists within the self, and all similarly look to practices of self-development as central to cultivating knowledge of that divine essence.

This fact reveals one of the most important commonalities across all New Age approaches: the New Age possess a strong belief in individual human evolution.

Evolution within the New Age worldview does not mean biological evolution in the Darwinian sense. Rather, New Agers believe that individual human beings ideally evolve over their lifetime (and multiple lifetimes), achieving greater and greater awareness of their divine natures.

Footnotes:

Excerpts from a very interesting article on 'New Age Human Nature and the Purpose of Existence' I came across. Makes good reading. 

Streets of Philadelphia

Staying with music, Streets of Philadelphia is an Oscar winning song, by Bruce Springsteen. It was sung for "the first mainstream film on HIV/AIDS" in the 1993 film, Philadelphia, starring Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks. The song was an absolute hit in a number of countries, particularly Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and Norway, where it topped the singles charts.

It was included in the album 'All Time Greatest Movie Songs', released by Sony in 1999 and is among my most favourite soundtracks of all time.



Footnotes:

With inputs from Wikipedia. 

Birthday Boy - Page

Composed by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of the British rock band, Led Zeppelin in 1971, Stairway to Heaven is 'often considered one of the greatest rock songs of all-time.'

In the words of Page, Stairway to Heaven "crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed the band at its best... as a band, as a unit. Not talking about solos or anything, it had everything there. We were careful never to release it as a single. It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and I guess we did it with "Stairway". [Pete] Townshend probably thought that he got it with Tommy. I don't know whether I have the ability to come up with more. I have to do a lot of hard work before I can get anywhere near those stages of consistent, total brilliance."

Footnotes:

Today marks the 68th birthday of Jimmy Page. Redefining Oblivion pays tribute to this legend who is one of the most influential and important guitarists and songwriters in rock music, and salutes his journey of excellence that began with The Yardbirds until Led Zeppelin, and beyond.