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Shaken, not stirred

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New Research Ends Marvel Vs. DC Movie Debate, But Is It a Fair Fight?

HBO max is planning a great birthday gift for me next month. Finally the Jack Snyder version of the Justice league will be released. A movie that was destined to be one of best works ended up being reshot and contaminated due to a personal tragedy of his daughter passing away during the post production and the formula based calculations of the production house. Marvel makes a lot of money from their movies, they all have comedy, so let’s squeeze in some funny dialogues and punchlines here and there. Marvel seems to know the hit formula, let’s copy. Our director is not available, the film he made looks very dark and gloomy. Why not rope in the guy who made Avengers? Henry Cavill has already grown a mustache for Mission Impossible and is contractually obligated not to remove it? Let’s go ahead and shoot with a mustache, graphics team will take care of it. A movie before post production is just a bunch of scenes shot in random order. This movie was put together by people who had no idea of what the original film maker intended to convey.

This is why the Justice league felt so awkward and illogical. A movie whose titles start with a bitterly peimistic rendition of Leonard Cohen’s everybody knows cannot have silly things in it.

Every James Bond movie ever made, has the MI6 agent order a Martini. He is specific about how it is made. He wants it shaken, not stirred. Just like Monsieur Bond, I have a specific preference to the movies I watch. I prefer the ones that shake me to the ones that stir me with excitement. If they are exciting too, that is a plus but the minimum requirement is that they shake my brain into a thought process. From the movies like 12 Angry Men and The man from earth that shook my idea about what a film needs to be, to be engaging, to the animation features from Pixar before they were acquired by Disney, to the super hero movies of the present generation which are mostly guilty pleasures, I always find solace in the ones that have a deeper meaning and original thought in them.

For example, 12 Angry Men and The man from earth showed me the value of screenplay Both of them have a plot that can be explained in 20 seconds, have absolutely minimal background score, have no super stars, were shot on a shoe string budget in a single room. Christopher Nolan is the master of showmanship. His movies are a visual spectacle but your need to put all your grey cells to work to understand them. Compare that with Quinten Tarantino, who shoots the movies in the sequence of scenes, has clever dialogue, simple plots but complex characters. You learn something new in the movie every time you watch it. Then come the animated pieces of art from Pixar where they took you into their crazy thoughts of what if your toys came to life to what if your emotions are things living inside your head. Finally we come to the fast food equivalent of today’s cinema.

The mega assembly line of super hero movies coming out of the Marvel factory that churned 23 movies in last 11 years is the Coca cola of the mutant movies. Very successful, very popular but is it good for you? FYI, they have 11 more planned for release in next 3 years. Phew! that’s a lot of movies. When you compare the number or the money they make with the next one in line, the DC comics there is no comparison. But every couple of years a movie like the Watchmen, Dark Knight, Joker , Wonder woman and the now much anticipated (at-least by me) Batman come by which do not make a lot of money, do not grab a lot of awards but give you an idea of what a comic book based movie could be like.

I am not saying I hate Marvel. They do come up with occasional gems such as Logan and Deadpool. But since Disney has decided to become the British empire or in cinematic terms Mr Smith from matrix, everything from Pixar, Star wars and now comic book heros have been destoryed on the comveyor belt designed to mint money. Did you know that The Pirates of carribean was supposed to be a children’s movie? The director saw it differently and Disney released it as is because they had already spent the money and didn’t want to spend anymore reshooting it. It was a huge hit, then Disney started laying its eyes on making movies for Adults. This board room bureaucracy from Disney has nipped the creativity of so many artists and they are not stopping anytime soon. They started with taking moral oriented fables and tales from all across the world and modifying them into pop corn worthy material from which no child can learn anything, moved on to influencing girls into getting into abusive relationships. They spent the past decade spoiling more franchises and ruining the originality and imagination of film makers. Logan and Deadpool were not because of this bureaucracy, they were inspite of.

Tim Burton Quote: “Don’t worry about how you ‘should’ draw it. Just draw it the way you see it.

Now look at the works from DC. There are some stupid stuff. When it comes to new ideas, not every thing work. Who can forget green lantern, catwoman and George Clooney as Batman. The adaptations of the graphic novels Watchmen and V for Vendetta carried the idea and ideology of the books to the silver screen. So did count less batman adaptations. If Marvel owned Batman, would they have let Tim Burton give his weird take on it? Or would they have let Christopher Nolan make the epic saga, which only leaves you pondering if only Heath Ledger was alive and they could have gone ahead with the original script for part 3 or would they have approved one of the darkest movies ever ‘Joker’?

This is why I prefer DC. I see more passion in their screenplays and story lines. They are philosophical not genre driven. Watchmen shows how the lives of super heros in a practical world would be like, V for Vendetta shows the worst case scenario of a non-inclusive, xenophobic society, the History of violence shows you the life of a guy haunted by his past, so does Batman begins with a sumptuous load of the journey a person who set out for revenge but ends up becoming a vigilante, Womderwoman was a review of patriarchal society and hypocrisy of the human race, Dark knight returns was the take of finding courage in outrageous adversity. I’m not even going to get started on Dark Knight. It will take hours to explain the master piece.

Most of the initial movies in a franchise are brainchild of a writer, the sequels and prequels that follows are driven by the greed of studios. John wick and Mad max are exceptions. But that discussion is for another day. Just like a Vodka Martini that is shaken instead of just stirred shows the additional effort and passion that went into making it, DC offers the heart of some film maker much more often than Marvel does.

PS: I also thank DC for Anne Hathaway as cat woman. The most gorgeous portrayal of a female super hero I ever saw. Her image on the Batman bike has burnt a everlasting impression in my retina And then shattering it with Gal Gadot as wonder woman.

The beautiful game

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This is the longest I have refrained from putting an idea into words. Technically I did do it. I first wrote a version of this on LinkedIn and shared the draft with a dear friend and colleague. He asked me not to publish it because of the flack I might receive as it challenges each and every practice of my own profession. In my head, The first ever version of this blog was purely about the sport I have developed an unexplainable devotion over the last 16 years. This was in 2017. It completely transformed into a different topic when the transfer of Matthijs de Ligt to Juventus was announced in August 2019.

I have never seen a professional football match before 2004. When I moved from my hometown to pursue higher education, my dad bought me my first computer. Being an avid fan of computer games and someone who was utterly starved by the available range of them in my small town, I was very eager to play every game I could get my hands on. Earlier, the only place I could access a computer was in my school lab and I had to beg our teacher for some time after school to play on it. Now, back to 2004. A classmate lent me his bootlegged copy of FIFA 2004. I installed it and started playing the only way I knew. Get the ball, run with it and try to score goals. This is what everyone in my school did and our physical education teacher never told us otherwise. But it didn’t work out. The computer kept beating me. So, I told my classmate that it was an impossible game to play. He disagreed and gave me an advice. Till date, I buy the latest FIFA release every year and it is the only game I play. My most visited website is http://www.espnfc.com. Most of my screen time goes to either watching football or reading about it.

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.

– Bill Shankly

What he told me that day was to watch professional football to understand the game. So, I started watching the English premier league in a 14 inch black and white television. It was the only football telecast in my country at that point of time. Now, I had to pick a team right? I picked the first team in the list of available ones in FIFA 2004. Arsenal. Its was just a coincidence that they were not only the first team when sorted alphabetically but were also reigning champions. Gradually, my interest grew and I started watching every game possible and then started doing what’s love. Analyse. Over the years, I found more teams that I like. Barcelona, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, The list keeps changing every year. Because my loyalty now, is for the game, not any particular team. I am mostly going to talk about Ajax FC, Amsterdam’s most prominent football club. Because If I talking about football in general, this blog will end up being really long. On that note, I ran a word count on this and its already 482 words without really getting into the business.

The dutch football is ranked 12th in Europe by UEFA, the football administration body of the continent. In terms of TV and other revenues, there is a huge chasm between the Dutch league and the likes of English premier league, Spanish La liga, German bundesliga and the Italian Sirie A. So, naturally, Ajax is run on a relatively shoestring budget. If a rich club comes to poach their players, they simply cannot refuse. But they still have a glorious history of European dominance. So, how is this possible?

Jong Ajax – Produce, don’t procure. Since they don’t have the financial might of clubs from other countries to hire players who are a finished product, so they have developed one of the most efficient scouting network to identify young talent and them train them. Their youth academy called Jong Ajax (Young Ajax) takes care of both education and football training. Another advantage this brings is that every player is trained to play the ‘Ajax way’ which is total football.

Total Football – Johan Cruyff, the architect of modern Ajax and the person how took them to their pinnacle both as a player and coach embraced the ideas of Jack Reynolds, Jimmy Hogan and Gusztav Sebes. The idea that challenged the age old notion that each player in a football team can only be trained to do one thing. There are no defenders or Midfielders or offensive players in an Ajax team. From childhood each player is monitored to identify the strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, they are trained for a specific position. This is what all the other clubs do too. The famed La Masia of FC Barcelona and Ballspielverein Borussia of Borussia Dortmund also have excellent scouting network and academies. But Ajax goes one step further, they then teach every player to play in every position. This makes the team extremely flexible and unpredictable on the field, it helps them deal with injuries, suspensions and finally helps them cope when one or more layer leave.

Birds leaving nest – As a club that finds and nurtures talent, Ajax has always faced the problem of their players being poached by richer clubs by offering huge salaries, something that Ajax cannot afford. But they don’t mind it. Because the revenues from player sales help them fund their academy and for every super star sold, they can create 10 more super stars. They never come in the way of their players growth. Its like a family. When a child comes of age and announces that he wants to leave the house, parents don’t get upset, on the contrary they feel proud and happy. This is one reason most of the club administration and coaching staff comprises of their ex-players. Once the players have see the world and quenched their thirst for fame and success, instead of retiring and enjoying their earnings, they always return to help the club out with the next generations.

Leadership ~ Experience? Finally, the most intriguing thing that Ajax does. The only qualification for becoming the captain of the team is to have true leadership qualities. This is where Matthijs de ligt’s story is an example. He became the club captain at the age of 18 years, after having played just 37 games for the senior team and zero games for the national team. That too in a team that consisted the likes of Klaas Huntelaar who was 34 and Daley Blind who was 29 (and the son Danny bling who was an ex Ajax and Netherlands player and coach in addition to being the board member of Ajax). “Age is just a number” is a quote used by many to justify things they do in their old age. But can use the same quote to justify leadership qualities. A person cannot be trained to be a leader. One doesn’t become a leader with experience. A person is born a leader, anyone who pretends otherwise is just play acting.

The reason my friend asked me to refrain from posting the ideas in this blog on LinkedIn was because so called Managers of the corporate world. The ones who hold expensive degrees and certifications in Management will not be able to digest this and will lash out against me. They will see it as something that undermines them. This is where the exact problem lies. Managers are there to serve the organization, not themselves and their egos. Again, we can take a leaf out of the football world here. The salary and net worth of a player follows a bell curve. Mind that almost every football manager out there is a retired player. Now, their salary reaches the highest point when they are in their prime playing days and goes down once they become managers. Yes, in football managers are paid less salaries than most of the players. Yes, the people who do the work are paid more than the people who supervise the work. This happens only in sporting world. This is because the value someone adds to a football team is visible to everyone in plain sight. This visibility ensures that everyone gets the fair compensation.

Now that we have seen some innovative ideas Ajax has brought to their club and football world in general, don’t you think the same principles can be applied to every organization in the world?

The Judge, the jury and the executioner

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It is a fact that no two people are alike. I am not talking about appearances, DNA. finger prints, iris scans or all the other bullshit that the governments are using to tag us like some endangered species. I am talking about the nature, qualities, behavior and other things that are almost impossible to quantify or classify. There are words in every language to describe these things but the combinations and scale of intensity of these things is so unique to everyone that we would have to invent a new word for each one of us.

My brain is some of these at times, many of these at other times but never all of these.

As a person who seldom makes a good first impression, I want to ask you this. How long does it take for you to judge a person? But, more importantly, I would like to ask you. Why do you need to judge another person? What purpose does it serve? The only people in the world who should be concerned about what a person is is a psychiatrist. What is the urge to classify and categorize every person in your life?

We do that right from the moment a person in born into this world. We put them into one of the 12 buckets available based on the day they were born. They are called sun signs or moon signs, depending on the place you are born. I don’t believe in astrology. I am so self-centered that I assume that no-one knows more than me, so I start with a presumption that every one is wrong and accept anything only after fact checking. I am like Sheldon cooper with out a PhD. But I do have a confession to make. In my first week of my first job, I was bored and someone send me a link to a website that has all the content from Linda Goodman’s book – Sun signs. As any one would do I clicked on my sun sign and started reading.

No, I still remember the website and the content so well because I was very surprised it to be so accurate. Its been over 11 and a half years since I read it for the first time. But over the last decade I have been revisiting the site. As they say, age generally brings maturity. What I took in from this website changes over this period. The 21 year old was blown away by the content. The 25 year old started looking into the content for other sun signs. Finally the 30 year old understood why the 21 year old was blown away. The content for all the sun signs is highly positive. Even some of the negative traits shown in a positive way. This makes every one like their own stuff. Though I am still a little spooked about the accuracy content, I have also realized that I am not just what was in that web page. There is much more to me. May be it represents 10-15% of me.

If I were on a mission to make every one like me. I would have to print out those pages and distribute them like visiting cards. Underlining the less desirable traits in me and asking people to bear with me because they were manufacturing defects. On the other side, every one around me will have to make an algorithm out of the content to figure out the probable reaction I give to different situations. Its highly impractical and also illogical. Because I change every day, the content of the page has remained same since 1st December 1984. When I say I change every day, I don’t mean like a chameleon. I mean that I evolve everyday. Based on different circumstances, I keep changing my opinions and thus my responses to same events keep changing.

But we keep trying to stereo type people based on gender, region, religion, blah blah blah. Thereby we miss the point. Its none of your business. Deal with people in a case to case basis. In each case, start with a clean slate. It takes a lot of self control to do this. I do digress sometimes. But eventually try to go back to do the correct thing. React to situation based on the facts and only facts of the case.

Don’t try to be the Judge, Jury and Executioner for everyone around you. Judges are corrupt, Jury are gullible and Executioner don’t get to use their brains. In the current society, if a person with a criminal record is found at the scene of another crime, they assume he did it.

Next time you see a news article with something bad written about somebody, try reading it as – a person did a bad thing rather than a bad person did a thing.Don’t generalize. If you do, you will be a person doing the same bad thing again and again.

Day dreaming!!!

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Ground control to Major Tom


Do you dream? 
May be it is a stupid question. Every one dreams. In fact, studies show that even animals dream. Now don’t confuse dreams with aspirations. Though the words are used interchangeably, there is a ton of difference. I’m talking about dreams where you see things and do stuff. Kind of hallucinations. 

Now, do you Day dream? Do you phase out often, even when in the company of people and when you are wide awake?

For the record, I think i’m one of the most qualified person to talk on this subject. I have day dreams in the middle of day dreaming. Not like the plot of Inception.My day dreams are sometimes interrupted by other day dreams. May be that is one reason why I almost never get bored. If you leave me alone for a couple of minutes or for that matter, if you talk to me about something that I’m not interested it, I my brain will jettison you and will wander off to my dreamland. It might sound weird and also dangerous but I can even drive while day dreaming. 

Now, I haven’t paid much attention to this phenomenon my entire life. I just assumed that there is some faulty wiring in my brain and there is nothing I can do about it. That was until I saw a movie. This movie has become my favourite. Actually favourite is not a word that would do justice to describe my liking to this movie. Its called “Secret life of Walter Mitty”. Its a remake of a 1947 movie with same title which in turn is an adaptation of a short story published in 1939. The story and the earlier adaptations are gentle comedies about a guy who ends up in awkward situations because of his habit of day dreaming.

But in my opinion, Ben stiller’s modern take on this short story was not only mind blowing experience for me but also something that is very up close and personal to me. No, I don’t stalk my female colleagues on online dating platforms. I also day dream a lot. Now there are 2 phases of life to Walter Mitty in this movie. One is the person who is lot in dreams and the other is where he eventually comes of of this phase. This transition is what amazed me. 

If you haven’t watched the movie, I’d suggest you do before you read my take on the movie. Its always good to get your own perspective because once you read mine, you”ll not be able you form your own unbiased opinion. 

The story socially awkward boy who dreamed to travel the world with a Mohawk, skate board and a backpack is thrown into the daily churn of life because of his father’s untimely demise and has to take the responsibility of the entire family. The boy who grows up to be a man who has come to a acceptance that there is nothing he can do but get along with a boring life and a boring job. How does one get a release from such situation? Day dreaming. Just like most ‘night’ dreams are related to things that we want to do and be. He dreams about cracking a wise ass joke on his boss. He dreams about flooring his office crush with an cool romantic avatar. He dreams about having a super hero style fight with the people who make fun of him. He dreams about anything and everything. Now, what else could he do? 

But due to circumstances, he has to start off on a journey that turns out to be a crazy wild ride. He travels to Greenland, Iceland and Afghanistan. He gets to jump of a helicopter into freezing water and fights off sharks. Slowly during this journey, the frequency of his day dreaming decreases to finally vanish one day. His innermost, most important desire for travel and adventure fulfilled accidentally, now he has no need to dream. He was a self content man. Anyone who gets to do the stuff he truly craves for doesn’t need to imagine himself doing this same stuff. Right?

After this I realised why I day dream so much. In this politically correct world with the social obligations and status quo, I have no way to be myself. So, I resort to day dreaming where I can murder the asshole who cuts me off on the road, slap the coworker who takes credit for others work, have a conversation that I actually wanted to have rather than the one I just had but couldn’t truly express my feeling in, flirt with the girl I like.

The problem I have now is that almost all of these dreams I have can never come true. This is because I can associate my brain activity with another movie also. Its called Split.
There a guy has a multiple personality disorder. He has 23 different personalities. Thankfully, I don’t have this condition (as far as I know). But I sure do have so many personalities in my dreams.


Being Humane

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Englishman in Newyork




I originally wanted to call this piece ‘Being human’. But I was afraid of a copyright infringement suite by the Bhai’s lawyers. Not the Mafia kind, the Bollywood kind. You don’t mess with a legal team that can manage to keep a person out of jail after he was found guilty for culpable homicide.

Now coming back to the matter of being humane. What is a human and what makes us humane? Humane means being benevolent or in “Non-Sasi Tharoor” language, it means being kindhearted. Are Humans so kindhearted that we can bestow the the word humane with a  meaning of benevolence? 

United Nations maintains a list of global issues. Each and every issue in the list is a result of human action. Let me be clear here. Not inaction, but human action. I’m not going to justify this statement by linking each problem on the list to present or past human actions. Anyone with common sense should be able to make the correlation. Also, I’m not writing this because my heart suddenly started to bleed for all those suffering in the world. The trigger to this post is very personal.

For the last few years, I haven’t been very happy. Well! Happy is not the correct word. I haven’t been content with my life. I couldn’t put a finger on it. My wife was having the same feeling(not similar, exactly the same). We felt like aliens in the our own country or in other words, felt like we were living among another species. So what is my definition of being a human being? or being humane? It is a very big and abstract word. 

What makes Homo sapiens unique among all the other species to have ever walked the earth? We have brains with higher cognitive capabilities or to put it simply, we have more grey cells in our head than what is required to just “Survive and Reproduce”. So what are we using this additional processing capacity for? 
I strongly believe, most of us have focused all the left over processing capacity to do only destructive things. Greed is a primary reason for this but so is selfishness. I used to think that I was a very selfish person, still think I am. But talking in relative terms, I am the David for the Golaith’s out there in comparison and unlike the biblical hero, I am not going to win.  

In fact, the way most of my fellow humans are acting embarrasses me to accept that I belong to the same race as theirs. In a way being different is not a quality appreciated by the society in general. They treat you like an alien. Perhaps this is exactly what we were feeling. But I find solace in the words (rather lyrics) of Sting.

If “Manners maketh man” as someone said
Then he’s the hero of the day
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien
I’m an Englishman in New York
I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien
I’m an Englishman in New York



Karma ain’t a Bitch

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What makes you you?


Karma is word that a lot of people throw around, not just in India, but world wide. But I believe 99.99% of the ones using it have no clue of what it means.

The above picture is more or less an accurate depiction of how Karma is perceived in the west. I might have mentioned it before but every time I use the word west to describe Europe and Americas, I get this thought again. Isn’t it funny that we define the start and end of a spherical object? Well we didn’t define it, some idiot did and rest of us accepted. That in a way makes us all idiots. Another funny thing is that Africa and South America are not categorised as west. So, West is a name given to Caucasians by Caucasians. In simple words White people. Coming back to Karma, The above image depicts what White people think Karma is. What goes around, comes around. This is too simplistic, In India, the definition is more complex. There is a endless cycle of birth and death, path to Moksha/emancipation and how Karma influences it. So, more or less the same What goes around comes around but spread across multiple life times. Again a random thought, food for thought everyone. Why do we think we humans are superior beings and come up with all these ideas? Why is all this stuff not applicable to other living organisms?

This is the thought that triggered me to implore another interpretation of the term. Karma basically says, good things happen to people who do good and bad things happen to people who do bad. But what is good and what is bad? Its again something we defined our selves. What was good say a hundred years ago is not good now. There are a lot of social practices that are perceived as superstitions, old school and BAD now. This entire discussion on Karma is centred around what is Good and what is Bad. In my opinion, there is no good and bad. There is only good for me and bad for me. People use concepts like Karma to try persuade me do something that’s bad for me and good for them. Sounds pretty selfish? May be, but its sounds very logical to me. A donation is not good for me, world runs on money and having more of it is good for me. So, they call it a good karma and ask for it. Again sounds selfish. I disagree. It applies to you also. You just don’t realise it. Got a job? Good for you, bad for all the other applicants. Had a good meal? Good for you, bad for a plant or an animal that ended up in your stomach. Oh yeah. Plants are also living things. We don’t know how they feel, so you can’t assume its happy to be your lunch.


Take the example of a social carnivore.No not humans, I’m talking about a Wolf. A Wolf is a carnivore by birth, so it has to Kill. But killing is a bad thing. Not if you kill for self preservation? What if its done for the preservation of your kin? Self protection? So in all these cases its OK to kill. Some times Animals fight over a mate. The most powerful one in the pack gets the prettiest mate, so they fight. sometimes end up gravely wounding or even killing an opponent. So is this bad? Does the animal in next life gets born as a lobster and ends up on a rich man’s plate? Its not fair isn’t it? 


So I see Karma in a different way. Hear my pitch and see if it makes more sense.
I believe Karma is what makes you you and not the way everyone else thinks.


From an organisms birth to death, there are a lot of things that influence it. The longer the life, the longer the learning curve. There are some major influences and there are some minor influences. Lets take the Human example here. (This explanation involves a human because I don’t remember my past life as some other organism)

For me Karma constitutes of multiple things, but the major things are
Parents and family: The first place we learn things is at home. We imitate our parents and other family members. We think what they do is the right thing to do. We decide what they say is BAD is BAD. This is our first distinction of Good from Bad.

Neighbours & friends:
The next big influence is the people who we spend more time around as kids. Friends and their parents who mostly are our neighbours. Here again we start to make associations of good and bad things. 

Daily experiences: As kids most of our time is sent at Home and School. At home the family and neighbours form our perception of good and bad, at school our Teachers define whats good and bad. Anything you are punished for is a bad thing, right? These are our first daily interactions and experiences. Here again there is a hierarchy. Parents supersede any thing that teachers say. This is because we trust our parents more than our teachers.

Next interactions as you grow older come in college, travels, work and all places you go, all people you meet. When ever you do something and something bad happens to you, you mark it as a bad thing and avoid doing that and vice-versa.

Now that I have established how you accumulate Karma, Lets see how it makes you you and how it effect others around you. If you get a chance to travel with me and I drive, You will see that I do two things for sure. Honk when I overtake someone and stop at an intersection even when there are about 5 seconds left for the red light to switch on. This is because, I once got hit by another car while overtaking as the driver changed lanes without looking into the mirror and also I got a traffic fine for passing through a red light. These two bad experiences, lead me to change my driving style. So, this changes when I reach my destination and also influences when everyone else behind be reach their destination. In turn it causes a ripple effect on what happens in lives of a LOT of people.

If a simple thing like a decision to stop or go at an orange light can influence so many things. Imagine what Karma can do. 

My point is that Karma is nothing but things that happen to you and around you. You get influenced by them, your brain gets conditioned to doing or not doing things based on what you perceive from things that happen around you. This is why you behave the way you do and this is what makes you you. Well that and the primal instincts we have. And that’s a discussion for another day!!






Origins of the confused primate!!!

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Who? Why? What?

 
 
 
 

Who am I?

This is not a review of the 1998 Jackie Chan flick. I often wonder if you actually need amnesia to ask yourself this question.
I’m a primate, but one would want a more specific answer.
Who I am would actually depend on who you are….
I would introduce myself as a human being to an alien race, As an Asian to a non-Asian, an Indian to a non-Indian, a south Indian to a North Indian and so on. My nomenclature includes a lot of other names like Telugu speaking person, S/o Mr XYZ, husband of Mrs ABC etc… ( apart from 2 dozen nick names I’ve been bestowed upon by so called friends & family). I’ve been called a nut-job as well.
See I define myself based who you are.. I guess so do most of the other primates.
So, Who are you?

Why am I confused?

For thousands of years people have wondered about the purpose of life, what is beyond death and other seemingly unanswerable questions. In 1978, Douglas Adams gave the answer to life, the universe and everything. I’m confused about a whole different thing. Why do people behave the way they do? Why are we like this? Naturally, I started seeking answers, looking for others perspective on this subject. Travelling is one way to do this. Looking at other cultures gives you a whole new perspective into things.Reading is another. Travelling has financial constraints, Reading doesn’t. So what to read? I read everything I get my hands on. Look at any writing in history, 99% opinion and 1% fact. Even my school history text books were some authors opinion on what happened. Don’t believe me? Pick 3 books on same topic of American history. Liberal vs Conservative vs Native American. You will see that there are 3 different narratives of what happened.
 
So, I’ve always tried to separate the facts and then try to connect the dots to come at a conclusion or in other words my opinion. This always leaves me confused. On why did those people do that? Why were Europeans hell bent on colonising the world? why did Hitler hate Jews? Why Indians ignore rules? Why do people kill each other? Why does the world like coke so much? Why are reality shows such a craze? Why do people need selfies? Why are Indians obsessed with fairness creams when Caucasians are obsessed with getting a skin tan?  Why do you need social media? Am I crazy or does everyone wonder about things like these?

What is in this blog?

I already told about a lot of things I’m confused about. if I start talking about all these to people I know, I run a risk of being called insane and being sent to a psychological evaluation. Unlike Dr. Sheldon cooper, my mother never got me tested.
So, I thought typing down some of the feelings would give some respite to my brain. If you come across this blog, spare it as a crazy person talk. I will not try to do a Dan Brown – pick some facts and use them to support my ideas. I’ll do the opposite. Present my ideas and tell you what facts I based them on.