Anomie
(AN-uh-mee)
noun: Social instability and alienation caused by the erosion of norms and values
That is the word that I was looking for!!
It just perfectly captures what's happening in our country.
The headlines are scary
Suicide bombers
Demands for new states
High Alert
Trifurcation
Total chaos
When will we learn,
When?
I fear for the future generation
Plunged in anarchy
Universities have closed
There are no classes
Only fast onto death
How will they compete
In this anomie....?
Truly a crazy way to be.
And to top it , I read this
To think we are causing ourselves more pain
and creating confusion
http://www.mindtree.com/subrotobagchi/my-mother-is-an-ugly-woman/
to read : my mother is ugly
That is indeed anomie
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Plugging the leak in the thought pipeline
This is to honour my promise to the guy who had the inspired thought, 'the leak in the thought pipeline'! thanks amit!
why do we often have fleeting ideas?...things that have the potential of being great just pass of as mediocre thoughts, nothing is retained , we often don't even recollect how we spent our time last week.
I say to that, "plug it". now! Be proactive like the boy who stuck his finger in the tiny hole in the dyke and saved a flood, like all the amazing people of this world who did something with their time.
It's so easy to waste time,
and that's so surprising considering the fact that time is the one thing that you just can't get back. Once gone,it's gone forever.
If you spend money foolishly you can always earn it again, but time once gone will ever come back. But still people bemoan having spent money...but what about the time wasted!
It's like realising that no one but you has to take responsibility for your time and how you spend it. If I want to do something with my life , it's me who has to actively seek out opportunities and do something with all the positive brilliant thoughts that come to my mind. :-) Well I exaggerate but how will I know if I don't try!
why do we often have fleeting ideas?...things that have the potential of being great just pass of as mediocre thoughts, nothing is retained , we often don't even recollect how we spent our time last week.
I say to that, "plug it". now! Be proactive like the boy who stuck his finger in the tiny hole in the dyke and saved a flood, like all the amazing people of this world who did something with their time.
It's so easy to waste time,
and that's so surprising considering the fact that time is the one thing that you just can't get back. Once gone,it's gone forever.
If you spend money foolishly you can always earn it again, but time once gone will ever come back. But still people bemoan having spent money...but what about the time wasted!
It's like realising that no one but you has to take responsibility for your time and how you spend it. If I want to do something with my life , it's me who has to actively seek out opportunities and do something with all the positive brilliant thoughts that come to my mind. :-) Well I exaggerate but how will I know if I don't try!
Friday, July 31, 2009
To have traveled
On NY times I read ,
"Travel is the art form available to Everyman. You sit in the coffee shop in a strange city and nobody knows who you are, or cares, and so you shed your checkered past and your motley credentials and you face the day unarmed. Bravery! Adventure! Defeat! Survival! And onward we go and some day in the distant future, we will stop and turn around in astonishment to see all the places we’ve been and the heroes we were."
Wow! this spoke to me, this reminded me of why I love traveling though I detest packing...why even when money is scarce , I want to travel; why even when time is fleeting, I want to capture that moment when I grew; when a single night by myself in an alien country turned out to be an adventure that I survived unscathed; when it felt so wonderful to tell Mom stories of my escapades, and of course when I sit and turn the pages of my painstakingly made scrapbook ,there are so many moments that I have in the humdrum routine of life forgotten but then they come back with a flash, and I exclaim, "Oh my God that gondola ride was stunning ! " and I thank God that I have traveled.
"Travel is the art form available to Everyman. You sit in the coffee shop in a strange city and nobody knows who you are, or cares, and so you shed your checkered past and your motley credentials and you face the day unarmed. Bravery! Adventure! Defeat! Survival! And onward we go and some day in the distant future, we will stop and turn around in astonishment to see all the places we’ve been and the heroes we were."
Wow! this spoke to me, this reminded me of why I love traveling though I detest packing...why even when money is scarce , I want to travel; why even when time is fleeting, I want to capture that moment when I grew; when a single night by myself in an alien country turned out to be an adventure that I survived unscathed; when it felt so wonderful to tell Mom stories of my escapades, and of course when I sit and turn the pages of my painstakingly made scrapbook ,there are so many moments that I have in the humdrum routine of life forgotten but then they come back with a flash, and I exclaim, "Oh my God that gondola ride was stunning ! " and I thank God that I have traveled.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
to read
It's cloudy outside
And there's a nip in the air
Everything seems to be alive
Me too
I wish I could just curl up with a book
And read it from the first page
to the last without a break
just like that
Those days are gone
when I could do just that
But I wonder if something in my power
can't bring it back
I will definitely try
But I might fail
however as they said ,
not to try is to fail anyway.
And there's a nip in the air
Everything seems to be alive
Me too
I wish I could just curl up with a book
And read it from the first page
to the last without a break
just like that
Those days are gone
when I could do just that
But I wonder if something in my power
can't bring it back
I will definitely try
But I might fail
however as they said ,
not to try is to fail anyway.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Pico Iyers post : a response
I read the post by Pico Iyer (http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/the-joy-of-less/#comment-5149) titled "the joy of less" with a lot of mixed feelings, wondering if impressionable young people tired of the competition would be thinking of taking the next flight to Japan. Some more perspective is what I looked for.
I believe that just renouncing everything is not the answer and to me simplicity is more about your thoughts than having to live in three pairs of clothes or doing without a car. One should have the ability to stop and think; take a realistic look at life. The rich don't have the right to preach giving up, the poor practice it every day.
Cultivating a feeling of simplicity in daily life ushers in peace and that too in everyday actions ; this becomes self sustainable. Basic things like having a simple meal instead of gourmet fare, having a simple evening with family can be very satisfying.
I have never been able to think of people who shirked their responsibilities and went away to take "sanyaas". To me it feels like the ultimate betrayal.Running away and shirking your responsibilities. Instead staying on, helping others less fortunate is what personifies a saint. Start a school, teach a little, do something good for the community , set an example.
Life is about living every moment, cherishing each new day with an enthusiasm , getting excited about little things. The first drop of rain, the cold air, sunshine, flowers blooming and smiling. Acts of kindness go a long way, almost till the rainbow that we are all chasing.
I believe that just renouncing everything is not the answer and to me simplicity is more about your thoughts than having to live in three pairs of clothes or doing without a car. One should have the ability to stop and think; take a realistic look at life. The rich don't have the right to preach giving up, the poor practice it every day.
Cultivating a feeling of simplicity in daily life ushers in peace and that too in everyday actions ; this becomes self sustainable. Basic things like having a simple meal instead of gourmet fare, having a simple evening with family can be very satisfying.
I have never been able to think of people who shirked their responsibilities and went away to take "sanyaas". To me it feels like the ultimate betrayal.Running away and shirking your responsibilities. Instead staying on, helping others less fortunate is what personifies a saint. Start a school, teach a little, do something good for the community , set an example.
Life is about living every moment, cherishing each new day with an enthusiasm , getting excited about little things. The first drop of rain, the cold air, sunshine, flowers blooming and smiling. Acts of kindness go a long way, almost till the rainbow that we are all chasing.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Nylon Bus
Reds, blues, oranges, shocking pink, parrot green , people garbed in bright synthetics rushed around on the Nagpur platform. The train was pulling in at the station and I stood at the gate gazing around at the crowd. Synthetics and nylons,cheap durable fabrics everywhere.
The conductor besides me answered a co-passenger's query," The train halts for 5 minutes " and I made a dash to buy oranges on the platform. The oranges from Nagpur are known for their flavor.
Nagpur , a town in Maharashtra was en route my journey to Delhi to visit my parents. A long journey of 28 hours, peeling oranges and eating them slowly piece by piece seemed like the perfect diversion. It would keep my devilish mind semi occupied at least for a while. I had slept for ten hours and now even the oblivion of sleep wasn't possible. Grabbing a lower berth to sit , I decided I was through with being courteous and hence being stuck the whole of the morning on my upper berth just because the passenger on the lower birth had decided that it was a great time to sleep in late.
Now as I sat gazing out of the window, the visuals that I kept seeing were more than an eyesore. They were jarring. I had been traveling since I was a kid with my parents across the breadth of India but the slow degeneration had never quite struck me as much as now. Maybe this was the side effects of seeing the pristine Alps, the serene coast of California and now my mind jumped to compare. However, deep down I knew that wasn't the case. Plastic had arrived much earlier in Europe and America than it did in India but the degradation in India has been terrible.
Fifteen years ago things were different. In Punjab where I spent five years I still remembered the riot of colors, there used to be gorgeous cottons embroidered in the phulkari style, men with their colorful turbans everywhere. If one were to give a birds eye view of a market place in Punjab it would be of vibrant colors bobbing up and down. The memories were a sharp contrast to the visuals that bombarded me now. Beautiful vs garish, natural vs synthetic, I felt sad to see that synthetic was winning the battle.
The nylons and plastics seemed omnipresent,invading every nook and corner possible. Looking for one person clad in cotton comforts seemed like looking for a needle in the haystack.Like trying to find an anachronism..
Everyone seemed to have caught the cheap nylon bus. As the train gently moved out of the station, the dwellings near the station didn't make me any happier. Drains clogged with plastic and refuse, people living in squalor. Why? Why did they abandon their green field and clean surroundings? Materialistic things suddenly seemed to me like drugs that people had become addicted to, unknowingly killing their aesthetic sense by embracing all that is cheap and plastic.
The train moved on towards greener areas, the interiors of our beautiful country where there are still no people. No people , no polluters!Wide open spaces,no plastic anywhere.I sighed with relief. The colors are once again beautiful. The bright red of palash flowers which bloom to herald spring and shed their flowers to give kids the material that they need to make colored water for the festival of colours, Holi.
The complete palette of greens, the golden green shades of crops ready for harvest, the pale green of new tender spring leaves. Even the brown and sepia made me feel good when I saw them.
All is not lost yet! I wish I could reverse the trend with a clap of my hands,but I am no Harry Potter. I will do whatever is in my hands to make sure plastic usage decreases and the cottony comfort comes back to embrace the country. The colorful and natural India that I crave!!
Reds, blues, oranges, shocking pink, parrot green , people garbed in bright synthetics rushed around on the Nagpur platform. The train was pulling in at the station and I stood at the gate gazing around at the crowd. Synthetics and nylons,cheap durable fabrics everywhere.
The conductor besides me answered a co-passenger's query," The train halts for 5 minutes " and I made a dash to buy oranges on the platform. The oranges from Nagpur are known for their flavor.
Nagpur , a town in Maharashtra was en route my journey to Delhi to visit my parents. A long journey of 28 hours, peeling oranges and eating them slowly piece by piece seemed like the perfect diversion. It would keep my devilish mind semi occupied at least for a while. I had slept for ten hours and now even the oblivion of sleep wasn't possible. Grabbing a lower berth to sit , I decided I was through with being courteous and hence being stuck the whole of the morning on my upper berth just because the passenger on the lower birth had decided that it was a great time to sleep in late.
Now as I sat gazing out of the window, the visuals that I kept seeing were more than an eyesore. They were jarring. I had been traveling since I was a kid with my parents across the breadth of India but the slow degeneration had never quite struck me as much as now. Maybe this was the side effects of seeing the pristine Alps, the serene coast of California and now my mind jumped to compare. However, deep down I knew that wasn't the case. Plastic had arrived much earlier in Europe and America than it did in India but the degradation in India has been terrible.
Fifteen years ago things were different. In Punjab where I spent five years I still remembered the riot of colors, there used to be gorgeous cottons embroidered in the phulkari style, men with their colorful turbans everywhere. If one were to give a birds eye view of a market place in Punjab it would be of vibrant colors bobbing up and down. The memories were a sharp contrast to the visuals that bombarded me now. Beautiful vs garish, natural vs synthetic, I felt sad to see that synthetic was winning the battle.
The nylons and plastics seemed omnipresent,invading every nook and corner possible. Looking for one person clad in cotton comforts seemed like looking for a needle in the haystack.Like trying to find an anachronism..
Everyone seemed to have caught the cheap nylon bus. As the train gently moved out of the station, the dwellings near the station didn't make me any happier. Drains clogged with plastic and refuse, people living in squalor. Why? Why did they abandon their green field and clean surroundings? Materialistic things suddenly seemed to me like drugs that people had become addicted to, unknowingly killing their aesthetic sense by embracing all that is cheap and plastic.
The train moved on towards greener areas, the interiors of our beautiful country where there are still no people. No people , no polluters!Wide open spaces,no plastic anywhere.I sighed with relief. The colors are once again beautiful. The bright red of palash flowers which bloom to herald spring and shed their flowers to give kids the material that they need to make colored water for the festival of colours, Holi.
The complete palette of greens, the golden green shades of crops ready for harvest, the pale green of new tender spring leaves. Even the brown and sepia made me feel good when I saw them.
All is not lost yet! I wish I could reverse the trend with a clap of my hands,but I am no Harry Potter. I will do whatever is in my hands to make sure plastic usage decreases and the cottony comfort comes back to embrace the country. The colorful and natural India that I crave!!
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