Dreams of a Long, Really Long Drive

It may not come as a surprise to most of you that Google Maps is one of favourite sites and has a pinned position in my Top Sites. When I upgraded to iOS 6 a few months ago, my biggest fear (and eventual loss) was having Apple Maps instead of  Google Maps. Of course, Google released their independent app soon after, but it does not help, that the default Maps in iOS is still Apple Maps, which is far from a usable product.

But of course, this post is not about that.

Google Maps is my favourite site (and app). I’ve helped the map become better with many edits after I’ve been misled by it. (I’d be happy to do the same for Apple Maps, but apparently you cannot.)

So, I was a bit surprised to see that the National Highway markers, on Google Maps, usually seen as NH17 or NH3 etc, were now labelled as AH47 or AH-some other number. First, I thought this was new nomenclature for the Golden Quadrilateral. On closer inspection, I noticed, many of the roads labelled AH were not a part of the Golden Quadrilateral.

The cat started dying with curiosity, and searching AH in Google, for some reason kept showing Ahmedabad. As the dying and curious cat was breathing its almost last, the answer revealed itself and the cat was saved!

AH stands for Asian Highway. Surprise, surprise! (Well, at least for me, some of you may know about it). Wikipedia has a full article about the Asian Highway Project, also known as the Great Asian Highway – a cooperative effort between 32 countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, Japan, South Korea and Bangladesh. Reading the article made me feel worse, knowing that this project has been going on (and off) since 1959, though for practical reasons, it really started in 2003. I still feel bad, that I wasn’t aware of this project for almost ten years!

After reading the article, there was newfound excitement. There exists a definite possibility of a “very” long drive.

I’m thinking Mumbai – Tashkent – Istanbul – Ulaanbaatar – Tokyo – Bangkok – Dhaka – Mumbai should be a good drive. Exotic places, all of them, and I haven’t been to any of the places, except Tokyo, (where I’ve seen only the inside of Narita International). So I proceeded to map the itinerary on Google Maps, but it was unable to do that; I guess, some roads are yet to be built (huge JPG; display patience); so that gives me time to prepare.

And no, you do not have to remind me that I still have to complete the Golden Quadrilateral. It’s not that I have not tried; there have been quite a few false starts, but I’ll do it – soon – on my own terms. Folks who can contribute a month or so, are rare.

But a drive is always wonderful whether it is a couple of hundred kms to Alibag or six-thousand-odd kms around the country, or (soon) many more kms around the continent.

Because traveling is like writing; and writing is like traveling – and I love them both. That’s what dreams are made of!

The House Must Mean Something

It is not always necessary that the title of the post has to have significance to the content of the post. At least not when it’s on your own blog. If you are writing for someone else and the success of that post will get measured in some form, then perhaps it’s a good idea to have a title relevant to the post.

Long time ago, there used to be meme’s asking if you write the title of your post before or after writing the post. I don’t remember what I said. Nowadays I don’t bother. I write the title when it comes to me. Sometimes in the middle of writing the post.

This title? I wrote it before the post. I wrote it before I even knew what the post was about. The phrase came to me and I thought it would be a nice title. Actually, the original was, “The House has to mean Something” – I changed it because I was not sure if ‘has’ and ‘mean’ should be capitalised. Anyway.

I now have to retrofit some content for this title. Because the context in which the title came to my mind now eludes me. I was reading the post of a blogger who I used to follow a long time ago. She continues to be prolific and an excellent writer that she always was. A recent post by her resonated strongly. I would write about it – but as has been pointed out by some of the folks who read this blog; the gloom index of this blog has been bullish. I tried defending; what’s being considered gloom is really introspection, but I value my readers’ comments. (when they do choose to comment).

So, perhaps the phrase came to me in the context of blogging. Blogging is like home. Warm and fuzzy, elaborate, elegant and expressive. And her blog reiterated what it feels like being home. But I was not sure what the “mean something” meant, in that context. Also I thought House, not homes.

Maybe it was about homes, literally. In between switching social media sites, I saw a friend post a photograph. She recently shifted homes and experienced enough stress. That feeling is alien to me. I have shifted more homes in my life than I care to remember. But like before, people shift homes, not houses. I thought of a house.

It has been (almost) five years since I shifted homes. Perhaps it’s the itch to move. Perhaps it’s a photograph I saw on Bookshelf Porn (it’s safe) that I wanted for myself. But given that I hardly read nowadays, I wonder what would be the purpose of building a library in my house other than to serve the purpose of decoration.

So here I am, with you my flabbergasted reader, without any useful clue why I thought of the title. My apologies.

Untweetability

The inability to say something in 140 characters or less.

So, unless I am posting a link, it seems that I am unable to tweet. That’s perhaps one of the reasons I am tweeting lesser these days. There are other reasons why I am not on Twitter often, but we shall let those slide for now. As a writer (yes, sometimes I call myself that) though, I believe, I should be able to write on Twitter with equal ease (and make sense).

There was a time, a long time ago, when I used to feel everything was bloggable. Facebook came along and everything felt worth putting up on Facebook. Twitter came along and I felt everything was tweetable. Now I am not sure what I feel. Actually, I think I know what I feel, but I am not sure where to put it. The though itself, unfortunately does not come pre-packaged for a medium or in a particular format or character length.

Enough has been said about attention spans and how mediums are affecting how we think, communicate, and interact. And while all that has been said is probably rooted in proper scientific research, the onus really falls upon us to express whatever we feel or think. The medium is just that — a medium. And the medium has a method — it may or may not suit your style of expression. If it does not make sense, just choose another medium. Saying that the medium doesn’t make sense is fallacy.

In recent months, I have been trying to recall how and why I used to feel about things that were bloggable. The medium of choice now seems obvious to me; having flirted for long with other mediums, however, is now hampering my recollection of why blogging made sense, once upon a time.

Now, that, seems bloggable.

Message of Silence

Some messages are very easy to expect: festival greetings or other congratulatory messages, for example. Convention and empirical evidence inform us of the promise of their occurrence. There is calculated taking-for-granted in such messages. Some other messages are different: especially if they are a response to questions. There is not much in terms of surety that can be said of the content of the response; for that matter, there is no surety whether there will be a response.

Silence.

Now, that’s a form of response that is the most difficult for us to make sense of. Even more so if a festive or congratulatory promise exists. If you think hard enough, however, silence is easy to decode. You can make meaning of silence through the context and the circumstance. The onus of interpretation is now on you – that’s the implicit message of silence. The explicit, in this case, are just forms of excuses.

And of all possible meanings that we may discover, we learn that when we see beyond the excuses, the message is loud and clear.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, full of meaning, conversations, and great times with friends and family!

Nine Years, I Wonder

An adventurer always starts out as an ordinary person. That day, you cannot call that person an adventurer. The first step across the threshold is tentative and heavy with excitement and dread. The next step is fueled by intrigue and curiosity. Then the next step and then the fourth. The feet become ever so light with every step as the long walk continues. As you walk along you recall the wonders that you read about, when you were immersed in the chronicles of other adventurers. You wonder, when you will face your first wonder. Events define an adventurer; not the intent. Not all adventures are made up of dragons, long walks along the ridges of mountains and fighting unknown beasts. Some are. And dragons, tall mountains and deep valleys have a way of manifesting themselves.

Time passes, you have taken many steps already but the canvas of adventure is a summer mountain-scape in the mountains of the Deccan. Sameness pervades and you wonder if it may be worthwhile to imagine a wonder that would be the first chapter of your chronicle. Stay true, you tell yourself; they will come, you assure yourself and plod along. You recall the long journeys of ancient adventurers across seven seas and seven mountains that were completed in a couple of pages – you remind yourself that the number of words or pages is hardly ever the measure of the extent, the breadth or the depth of content.

A tall mountain looms.

It’s filled with wonder, but you fail to recognise it as such. You make a note of it and it strikes you: this is indeed the wonder of my adventure. Without warning you have met with your first wonder. Does that make me an adventurer? You hope it does, but do not say it loud, lest you jinx it.

I wonder what lies beyond that mountain.

A long time and fewer pages later, you meet others like you. Some have set off on the adventure before you, some after you. You exchange chronicles and barter myths. Some seek to discover wonders together, some choose their own adventure. Not all wonders amaze everyone. From a seeker of wonders, you never realise when you have become an adventurer; till that day – when someone calls you that: an adventurer. Uncertainty and euphoria grips you on either side.

Am I?

But there is no time for you to debate and evaluate. You seek the wonders, and you walk along. You celebrate the wonders with fellow-adventurers; you speak of how long you have been a seeker. Sometimes it is not so wonderful. You do not move because you are laden with disgust and disappointment. You question the purpose and the value of what you seek. You question the authenticity of the initiative. There comes a time when you are trying very hard to stay true and you fall in a quicksand. You don’t drown because the Archangel of wonder-seekers watches over you; pulls you out. Scarred though you may be, slow though your walk may become, distress though may run in your veins, you pick yourself up. You walk. And though your eyes refuse to see clearly, the wonders don’t cease. Distracted though you may become, you keep to your path.

In the league of wonder-seekers, if you have been seeking for a long nine years, you are known as an adventurer. But, what they know you as, matters less, because after nine years you are inherently aware that the adventure is the biggest wonder of all.

To all the seekers of wonder out there, whether we still share the same wonders or not, whether our paths crossed for a moment or for years, whether you are still seeking or not – thank you – my adventure has prospered because of you.

It has been a wondrous nine years with you all.

Thank you, WordPress!

A craftsman is only as good as his ability to use his tools. Else, all he is, is a person with ideas.

I said that a while go, here

Thank you very much, WordPress! You have been an inspiration and a wonderful partner in this journey. And if I have lagged behind in blogging, that’s only because of me. You have been the most amazing – since we met. Let’s celebrate this together – as a seven-year itch – to write!

And while there’s yet another anniversary to come soon, this one is special!

Maintenance Complete

So, we’ve completed blog maintenance – after a few theme changes and some category clean-up we are back with a simpler (and what we think is a more readable) theme, with a new menu, so that you can read other great posts, when the latest post isn’t all that interesting (or long enough). Do let us know what you think!

Site Maintenance

This blog is under maintenance – apologies for any duplicates showing up in your emails or RSS feeds. We’ll update you as soon as we are done! Thank you for your patience!

As I was, for the Future

All the drafts have been either refined and posted or ruthlessly deleted. The emptiness of the drafts folder is scary. When the mind was blank there was always this folder to turn to and you could always pick out a draft and make tiny changes and entertain yourself in the false comfort that you were writing something. I never used to save drafts. If I did not complete writing something, I used to trash it. Recently, I have been saving drafts – for those times when I would come here empty-handed and gloomy.

The drafts were a faint reminder of a bygone inspiration and were reluctantly agreeable to being remixed like the re-hashed work of an outmoded music director. Now, even that thin thread has disappeared.

But, not the need to write. That has not disappeared. It nags. And even though the tinsel of readership statistics and social influence has long been discarded as worthless, the need to write is strong as it was, if not stronger. Its character has changed slightly, though. The urge is not to write more, but to write better. And the better seeks a dive deeper than the words that are written.

My birthday is coming, says my blog. Give me the gift of being myself, once again, for ever.

It takes a friend…

… to rain down on a comment famine.

In Favour of Magic

To fill up your blog with posts from your other blogs that folks do not read is a way to populate your blog. It is not a way to write a post. It is way, I think, to trick your audience into thinking that you continue to be the prolific writer that you were; the trouble with that tactic is is that you will always know the truth – even if they don’t realise it.

You know that painful paralysing feeling of helplessness you get when you feel betrayed? It’s the same feeling – it doesn’t change based on who has cheated. It continues to be equally disgusting.

And you have to ask yourself why you cheated to start with. The answer is not usually obvious. It requires you to shut down your computer and take to paper and pencil, like I am doing, now.

Then comes that long pause just as you write that sentence; your pen hanging a few millimetres above the paper risking dried ink. In that long pause you wonder if you should go back to your blog editor instead of repeating the task, which you will have to do anyway – because what you have been writing is definitely a blog post – even if your original intentions were not to share it. It takes some determination to continue with the pen, instead of the keyboard.

And you come back to your question about cheating.

A few answers, superficial in nature, peek out of the darkness, seek your attention as potential candidates for your post’s conclusion. A couple of them seem promising and interesting enough – and will allow you to finish this post quickly. Once more, you resist the temptation. After a few more long pauses and doodles later, you see it lurking in the background; trying to hide, as if avoiding attention. You look closer and examine it.

Could this be it?

There is no certainty but something about its constitution makes you want to examine it further.

You are not entirely sure, but you get the feeling its called “The Currency of Appreciation.” And what you see on closer inspection is its devalued self. Once ten units would fill you with joy, but now you need thousands just to feel satisfied. Time and changing paradigms of interaction have eroded its value and divided its format. It is essentially the same thing that you knew – it has changed structure – it feels familiar, but it is not. We now seek more of it and we find ways to earn more of it.

It has to stop soon. Else this pursuit of collection and amassing will destroy the sanctity of my actions. And this currency is bound devalue further as more formats and methods are developed for its distribution. And we will need more units because our attention will be divided even further. It will, however, never be the question of right or wrong but of our personal choice and how many of those units we will need to carry on. More units may motivate us to do more, but choose we must between the pursuit of the units or the pursuit of our action. We  cannot allow ourselves to take a path that will disturb us every time we act, question our action or doubt the creative authenticity of our actions.

The eternal struggle between the means and the magic and their interdependence will continue and continue to bother us: the means to create magic and the magic to obtain the means.

And, if we are unable to choose, we will have to find the balance between the two, perhaps with a bias to magic.

For we can live with a deficit of the means, but we need an abundance of magic.

Cherish Every Idea

Most things that I ever want to blog about are like a dollop of cold butter in a hot pan. In a while, it loses shape and form. If I don’t pay attention to it – it burns. Once in a while I pay attention and watch the butter, as it shows me the promise of a wonderful meal. I reduce the heat; simmer the flame. I add other potential ingredients to it – to bring out the full flavour.

Get the right mix in.

I decide who will play nice in the pan, and even though they come from different places – in the end – become one wonderful dish. I say no to some of them, give a chance to a few and willingly agree with the rest – of their claim to the pan. Like a tentative immigrant phrase or just that one darling adjective, but not that disruptive exclamation. Often, I will taste it – and make corrections – a bit of salt here, a bit of coconut milk perhaps – to perhaps dilute the sharp, possibly stinging taste.

Ingredients may have a personality, but a cook gives them character.

But most of the time, I let the butter burn. I forget about what’s in the pan and I move out of the kitchen. Obviously, there is no eating the burnt butter, so it goes straight in the sink. And like the mass of pungent carbon on that pan, the idea is lost forever – and with it – the promise of a beautiful expression.

Ideas, like food, need to be treated with respect, love, patience and care.

Interview: Blogadda

Many thanks to Blogadaa for publishing my interview today.

I must admit, the questions were not easy to answer. But in the end, I was glad about the questions. I was quite impressed with the amount of research they had done on an eight-year-old blog. Couldn’t have been easy – to go through so many posts, identifying one and asking relevant questions. On a more selfish note, I am more happy for the interview because I can now point people to it, when they want to know about me and this blog (and other blogs).

It is my first ever interview that has focused on this blog and other personal aspects. I think you’ll enjoy reading it (even if you know me well)

Travel Episodes

The first word in the slug-line of this blog is travel. And that’s what I have written very less off in this blog. Hopefully, I will do justice to that first word, this year. And it starts with the first episode of my recent trip to South India. To help you find my travel posts, they now have their own shiny button on the menu, above. The first episode is up. More, to follow, soon

Episode 1

Episode 2

 

Happy New Year

Wishing you all a happy new year.

This post by itself has little in it by way of content. But it carries the seed of many posts, thoughts, tales of travel, and emotions. It sets the pace, for the days to come.

In these Eight Years…

…I have contemplated my blogging more than eight times.

In recent times more so.

Conversations are sparse and acknowledgement is dwindling. Attention spans are smaller and the gap in our understanding is bigger. While the nay-sayers predict the end of the blog, I continue this pursuit. To what end, I do not know, but I am unable to give up on blogging the way some of my peers have.

Good thinking and good ideas need space. More than 140 (or so)  characters. Friends have been contemplating leaving Facebook. Some friends have already quit on Twitter. But a large majority have let go of blogging. For their own reasons. A sense of loneliness hovers around me, threateningly.

I did not complete 800 posts, this time. My 100posts/year benchmark has been missed. Funnily, I am not upset about it. It doesn’t matter anymore. Very few people care about your blog. Very few people care about their blog. They are content with your shorts on Facebook and Twitter. (Sidenote: I love it when people predict the death of things and I love it even more, when people post about the death of things, insisting that that prediction of death is useless.)

The Blog is dead; long live the Blog. 633 people follow this blog. I am sure this is WordPress bug. There is no way that 633 people follow this blog, I am willing to bet on it. It’s New Year and all. Hopefully, you have had a Merry Christmas.

As far as I know, only one person has read all the 670 posts on this blog. Maybe, you are another one of them. But, I do not know. You didn’t tell me.

As you have already gathered, this is the eighth anniversary of this blog. Eight is an odd year. We are more sentimental of rounded anniversaries. 5, 10, 15, etc. The 8th doesn’t figure here. So, I will not make a big deal about it. We have become slaves to rounded milestones. We take great pleasure in celebrating anniversaries that end in a number that is a multiple of 5. Why? I always wonder.

This is a scheduled post. I wrote this post a few days before the 29th. On the day that you read this post, I am probably in a place which does not have Internet or mobile connectivity. Since I have an idea where I will be, let me tell you – I am happy to be where I am. I hope you are happy too, wherever you are. I wish, that you are happy too, wherever you are.

I do not know if I will post anything before the New Year, so here’s wishing you all a very Happy New Year! Work for your dreams and make then come true!

Thoughtful Cousins

There’s a bunch of nice things about blogging. I’ve written a lot about blogging for a while.

But, one thing about blogging nags me.

I am talking of the personal blog; not the technology or a similar blog. After a few years, when you start writing a post, and as it starts taking shape, you wonder if you have already said it before. Then, you have a vague notion of a post that was similar in construct, and you save this one as a draft, and are off searching your blog for that one post you were reminded of. Often, you will find it; sometimes you won’t and then, will wonder if it was a discussion on a past. There isn’t enough enthusiastic energy to go through all your comments, by then.

And when you do not find that elusive post, the feeling that you did write something similar, nags you and you end up leaving your post as a draft, or as it happens in my case – delete it. You console yourself, that a brilliant and blogable thought is just round the corner, and wait for it. Time passes, it usually never comes. You wonder, if you should have just introduced the thought and linked to a post you wrote, that was close, long time ago. It seems like cheating, so I usually resist. But many folks have discovered this blog much later than I started it, so I would love for them to know that, once, this was quite a vibrant blog.

Perhaps, I am not doing justice to the ideas that are cousins of posts already on this blog. The context of those ideas has changed, time has passed, and life is quite different. They deserve a post.

After all, what’s a genre, but lots of cousins at the same place?

Story-writing

The clackity-clack of his keyboard continued unabated. The clacking seemed to bounce off the hard walls and echo back in what he wrote. The distant dying laughter of the last party animal didn’t quite bother him, though he sensed the mood of a party unwilling to die. Not much made sense around him – the darkness was enveloping him, shrouding everything that he saw, in nothingness, even though the two sixty-watt bulbs stoically stood their ground. He wasn’t looking at the words, they hardly meant anything – he knew that already – no reason to use the backspace key – no reason to use better words – no reason to make anything sound poetic. He realised he wasn’t sitting very comfortably in his chair, yet not one of the alive muscle in his body made the slightest attempt to correct what they would have to suffer in a few minutes. He wondered if his mind or his soul or his spirit had left his body and there remained only an obedient machine, as if run by inertia, powered by burning itself, feeding the power back, continuing a cycle. Where was that moment when some action would change the course of what was going on? What was the trigger that this incessant typing would stop and wonder how to make meaning? Why was there no reason anymore in any action that occurred? The author, the subject and the environment seemed all to be twirling into a single mass of bone, flesh and entrails. There was nothing to be differentiated, nothing left to identify any element, to know its purpose.

He paused now, looked up at the screen. He looked for long at what he had written.

He saw his face in the mirror-like screen; in between the twirling digital rainbow, he stared hard and finally moved his mouse to get rid off the screen saver.

Leaving India and Leaving Indira

One of the things I like about blogging (and, generally speaking, the ability to post your thoughts for the world to read) is the power of expression it provides, which, a few years ago was limited by means and by reach. The entire scope of expression was limited to a specific audience. With the Internet and the tools to express, the scope is now global (limited, still, by those who have access to the Internet, but a significantly larger audience is available to you).

And while it is a good thing, it also means that you are opening your expression for criticism and debate from a much larger audience.

Recently, a post by Sumedh Mungee was featured in the NYT’s India Ink section: Why I Left India (Again) – his experiences on coming back to India from the US, and his reasons for going back (again). He has his own reasons and I leave it to you to read the post, if you haven’t already. Needless to say, the post has sparked various reactions from various corners of the world. If you have the patience, you will find the some of the 226 comments (at last count) amusing.

And of the many reactions that have been the result of this post, I’d like to highlight one.

Why I Left Indira (Again)!

All the emotions that all the people have felt due to this post are all worth considering; this response by Amit – to my mind is the best, I have seen.

Enjoy!

Of Good Plumbing

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses.

The reason we don’t get talker’s block is that we’re in the habit of talking without a lot of concern for whether or not our inane blather will come back to haunt us. Talk is cheap. Talk is ephemeral. Talk can be easily denied.

We talk poorly and then, eventually (or sometimes), we talk smart. We get better at talking precisely because we talk. We see what works and what doesn’t, and if we’re insightful, do more of what works. How can one get talker’s block after all this practice?

Writer’s block isn’t hard to cure.

Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better.

(Via Seth’s Blog: Talker’s block)

Reminds me of Finding Forrester.