Category: Life Ordinary

  • Character’s Objective

    There are some movies I watch multiple times – whenever they show up on TV. One of them happens to be the 2010 version of The Karate Kid, featuring Jackie Chan (as Mr.Han) and Jaden Smith ( as Dre Parker). And the fact that one of my favourite scenes is the ‘snake woman’ is only a coincidence, and nothing to do with my alleged (by Cyn) affection for snake scenes in movies. 😀 Actually the part that interests me is the conversation after. (do not quote  this line out of context)

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inZWX5ipBZU&feature=related

    Dre: “She was doing the Cobra thing.   She was like…(makes movements)… copying the snake. And it was like…  right here, and she was like…”
    Han: “You did not watch closely enough, Xiao Dre… It was the snake that was copying the woman.”
    Dre: “What? I don’t get it.”
    Han: “Look.” (points at pool of drinking water) What do you see?”
    Dre:“Me, well my reflection.”
    Han:“Yes. (whirls water). Now, what do you see?”
    Dre:“It’s blurry.”
    Han:“Yes. That woman was like still water. Quiet and calm. In here (puts hand on the head) and in here (puts hand on the heart) .
    Dre: “So, the snake reflects her action like still water. Like a mirror?”
    Han: “Yes.”
    Dre: “So, she controlled the snake by doing nothing?”
    Han: “Being still and doing nothing…  are two very different things.

    (via)

    The conversation interests me because the snake’s behaviour is typically the way I react to events and people that life throws at me. The aspiration is to have the clear and calm mind that will allow me to change the relationship equation. It’s an extremely difficult task, thanks to stimuli received from all around, especially social platforms. The real time knee jerk reactions characteristic of ‘social media’ also start influencing the way I make decisions even when they are not involved.

    It’ would probably be easy if I just closed myself to these stimuli, but that’s not really practical, or the best way. The better, and more difficult way, is to be there, and yet, not allow it to affect what I am and do. As John Wooden said, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” That’s something I am trying not to forget, even as I try to make the character as objective as possible. It’s ironic that the platforms which started out (for me) as places to express myself are now trying to ‘force’ me to conform, to become part of cliques, or maybe that’s just the way it’s supposed to work when networks become media.

    until next time, character limits 🙂

  • Memories Unlimited

    I was thinking about memories one day, and suddenly decided to figure out my earliest memory. I was dismayed to find that the earliest one I could remember was 1st Standard, the colour of the round badge I wore on my tie and the bus I went to school in.

    I looked at old photographs of mine, and tried to figure out if I could remember what was happening while the picture was being taken. I saw the badge and the uniform, and wondered if my mind was playing a trick on me by ‘creating’ a memory from the raw material available. ( since I must have seen this photo earlier many times) As the photos became more recent, I could remember more and more, and recent photos, especially the travel ones, still seem fresh. But for how long? I began to wonder if all those vacation photos and the lifestreaming is a wasted effort. Thankfully, I document a lot of things, creating as many memory aids as possible. Videos help too, and yet…

    A relative is traveling to the Czech Republic. A couple of decades ago, the currency and capital would’ve been ‘delivered’ (in my mind) without prompting, or being asked for. Now I probably have to google for that data. But I remember the prayers I used to say daily then, and from the order in which I can chant them, I can even remember the way the deity pictures were hung in the room, though I haven’t said those prayers regularly in years. Ditto for certain Carnatic music kirtanams.  Practice may or may not make perfect, but it certainly fixes it to memory, along with a ton of associated memories from another age. 🙂

    I wanted to augment this post with something Anu had shared a while ago on Twitter – a post titled ‘The unaugmented mind‘, which is on the same topic. The irony was that I remembered that she had shared it, but had no idea on the source itself. Thanks to my own twitter backup and a third party search tool, that was remedied soon. When she shared this, I remarked that I remember weird things I mostly found unnecessary and said I wished we could choose the things we wanted to store in our memory, like virtual world filing systems. Sometime soon, I hope, but I doubt whether even the perfect documentation would capture the way we felt then, because we will have changed. But maybe the augmented human will change that too.

    until next time, what’s your earliest memory? 🙂

  • Teary I

    I’ve been told that I used to bawl when I was very young. One oft told story is how I used to be especially crabby during powercuts, which, before television serials, was how Kerala got its families to sit together. But, back to my serial rage. Apparently, hand held fans were beneath me, and to shut me up, dad had to take a room in the nearby hotel, which had a generator!!

    I think I redeemed myself fairly well in later childhood by becoming non-fussy and reducing the volume (in terms of sound) of my teary escapades, until I had a silent sobbing mechanism. Pain was the only thing that overrode this, but I remember that in college, during a particularly painful accident, with a half broken jaw and a doctor literally pushing back four of my front teeth  into the gums, I figuratively gritted my teeth and didn’t cry out loud. But I think, instinctively I might still cry out if I am not prepared.

    What made me think of all this? My observations of how adults and children had different crying habits. My recent trips to Kerala mostly meant a lot of time in hospitals, which, because of an atmosphere of fear and pain, are unfortunately ‘crying catalysts’. I thought of the last time that I had cried, not counting the random poignant moments (music, movies, books, thoughts) that bring unconscious tears. It was about a year back, when one rain induced skid at night was the last straw in making me feel that the cosmos was playing out a terrible conspiracy against me. The tears would have fallen for less than a minute, mixing freely with the rain pouring down my face. Maybe I was giving myself the option of believing that I really hadn’t cried at all. Heh. 🙂

    But what actually sparked even those observations were the words I read in Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver

    Some say that crying is childish…. Crying loudly is childish, in that it reflects a belief, on the cryer’s part, that someone is around to hear the noise, and come a-running to make it all better. Crying in absolute silence..is the mark of a mature sufferer who no longer nurses, nor is nursed by any such comfortable delusions.

    Do you still cry, silently, when no one’s watching? What’s your delusion? 🙂

    until next time, the blog’s name has a ‘cry’ in it. sigh.

  • Onashamsakalmadi

    Considering that Kannada is to be made compulsory in Bangalore, this is how Bangalore Malayalis will wish each other henceforth. For those unaware of the Onam backstory, check out my reasonably legit version or the RGV rendition.

    After a search across media platforms for sadya options, and basis last year’s not-so-great experience at Little Home (which has gone down drastically these days) it was a toss between Ente Keralam and the new kid on the 5th Block, Koramangala – Cafe Malabari. Since I read on the FB group that getting reservations at Ente Keralam would be difficult, the choice became easy. As per the information given, the sadya would start at 11.45-12 and cost Rs.225.

    We landed there just after 12, and on hindsight, just in time. A Yakshagana – Mahabali mashup was on hand to welcome everyone. The umbrella is definitely this season’s collection!  🙂 After we got the coupons and barely got the seats – the ones facing the road, the rush started and pretty soon, they even took off the banner advertising the sadya.

    We had to sit for a while watching others polish off their sadya, and Maveli inspecting the arboreal ‘pookkalam’. Finally we were set to begin, as we got the sadya infrastructure in place.

    After a smaller wait, all the pieces began falling into place. Out of the twenty three listed items, we only missed two, and that’s not a bad deal at all, considering the massive rush.

    The one big snag was that because of a tissues distribution failure, I had to keep my clicking finger away from sampling any of this, until I could get a final shot and could then concentrate solely on eating. I gave up after the sambar made its entry. After three rice rounds, and two payasams, there seemed to be only a couple of survivors. The banana peel doesn’t count!

    In a coconutshell, Cafe Malabari did a good job. If they survive the Koramangala restaurant wars, I’ll do a repeat next year. The funniest part of the entire experience was Mahabali shouting out ‘Sold Out’ to the crowd outside. 🙂

    I wish we could add an ഓണകോഴി (chicken) to the mix. Meanwhile, I do have a concept for next year, based on the beer lunch. Will need to talk to the Kerala Beverages Corporation for this though –  ഓണാശംസകളള് 🙂

    until next time, as a fellow mallu said, Mahabelly 🙂

  • Adept Us

    The blog (and its readers) have been victims of many a ‘baggage’ post, but this one is slightly different. The ‘insight’ must seem a no-brainer on hindsight, but because it isn’t a direction I’d thought in, it did seem a bit of a revelation.

    From my own experiences and from observing others, I realised that there was one thing that makes baggage shed itself at whatever pace is required at the moment – survival. And it works across all kinds, say physical eg.cleanliness, or emotional eg.hatred for a person and it looks like the subconscious has a way of dealing with it such that we don’t even realise it is happening. Maybe it doesn’t work the same way for everyone, but I know it does for me, at least to a certain extent.

    The other realisation was the paradox in adaption working both ways. There are many baggage items that started out as a sort of protection when dealing with others eg. the aggression that hides a timid character slowly eclipsing the latter completely. This then becomes a part of character till we don’t even realise that we weren’t always that way. Until the day something forces it to be dropped – not just for a few hours, but a longer stretch of time.

    We have been wired for survival but since it is not really possible to simulate situations that threaten it, I come back to the original square – of watching oneself, being really ‘aware’ of every instant, and guarding against baggage accumulation. Now that’s a how-to I am yet to crack.

    until next time, survival of the fib test