All Hail Nihilism

This is going to be a short post. Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite authors. And as I browse through one of his novels (A Wild Sheep’s chase, incidentally I have already read 8 of his novels), I feel the reason why I like his writing style so much, is because he focusses on the mundane, daily aspects of our life.

Not some glamorous world tour, not some fancy murder mysteries, not some adventurous secret agent like James Bond, or Ethan Hunt, or Jason Bourne. No fantasy fiction either (Though of course the book has a lot of magical realms or mystical things to it). Which means we wont find the Starks battling the Lannisters, or Neo finding his way out of the Matrix, or Frodo making his way to Mordor to destroy the One Ring.

No, rather most of his books depict a male protagonist, who is usually solitary and lonely facing certain unique situations (usually negative or sad). He usually cooks his own food, listens to some classic music, goes out for a brief walk in the park, occasionally goes shopping for clothes, feeds his pets, goes to the library and reads certain books, uses public transport to commute across the city, speaks with certain random strangers at times, and listens to the birds chirping while doing his morning walk. Or he might be busy cleaning his dishes, or taking his dog out for a walk.

Yes, these are the things which we usually do on a daily basis, but seldom pay heed to. We might catch up with a tv show, or go through the pages of a novel, or just lie down on the bed with a beer can and listen to some relaxing music. But more often than not, we crave for out of the world, materialistic things. We feel that the Euro trip vacation will make us happy. Or getting that new job, or a new girlfriend or boyfriend. Or purchasing the latest gadgets in the markets, or eating at the latest cafes or joints which have opened up, in order to be socially accepted and to upload pictures on social media.

Yes, our instagram and Facebook accounts matter more than having a long interesting conversation with someone. Checking into Cafes has become the Thing to do, as is checking into international airports.

While trying to seek the glorious, we have forgotten to pay heed to the little things in life, for those are ultimately which matter and which will result in bringing us happiness. For life otherwise has no meaning and no purpose. We are born, we do certain things, get into certain professions, create some relationships and then we die. In the rush to glory, maybe pausing for a bit, and taking a step back to reflect, might help.

Until later, from a nihilist. Adios.

Personal Stuff..Again!

To be honest, I admit I have been writing much less than I used to. Perhaps because I am now immersed in full time work, honeymoon period being over. Or because somehow I don’t really get the inspiration to write nowadays. The once a dream of becoming a writer has also slowly faded away with time, bringing way to new priorities and opportunities. That being said, I do want to publish at least one book in my lifetime. You never know what surprises life brings next.

I think I did some introspection and analysed a few of my weaknesses. Things which I need to improve. Somehow I feel that I can be more social, and take part in different activities outside of work. I have to prioritize and set things right. Sitting at home and doing nothing, will end up in disaster.

Right now, after being in Mumbai for over a year, I still have not made any major contacts outside of my company, and beyond my MBA batchmates. This definitely leaves scope for lot of improvement. Moreover, I have to look at my health, and fitness, which definitely needs lot of push ups(pun intended).

Somehow I have always wanted to travel to different places, but lacked the guts to do so. Now I am making it a point to visit at least two new places(namely cities) each year. Done with Bangalore for this year, looking at Hyderabad next.

Learning to manage finances and savings/investments is the next major challenge. This step, however is going to help me for the rest of my life, so is without a doubt, extremely important. And again, I want to pursue my interest in Astronomy too. So many things to do, so little time. Life is about priorities.

Quite a few people comment that I have become ‘settled’ in Mumbai now, with a decent job, all facilities, and the only thing left to do is to get a life. Short minded thinking notwithstanding, why do people believe marriage is like an ultimate goal in life? Now, with that being said, I do admit that I kind of regret the fact that I have never been in a relationship. Positive or negative, there are things you learn which you cannot if you have been single all your life.

There may not be any ultimate purpose of living, but if you are living, you better make every second count.

Recently completed the Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair. An interesting fiction book, which I would recommend. In gaming, I am occupied with Tomb Raide (2013), which is definitely a pretty good game. Looking forward to MGS V.

Thinking about picking up a Real sport now for a change.

Too many plans, and none executed. I think for a change, I need to focus less on planning, and more on doing the Execution part. This has been another weakness. Too many ideas and plans killed in the initial stage itself, mostly due to laziness than anything else.

See you all later. Till then, enjoy your lives to the fullest.

Mumbai Life Diaries

This Saturday was one of the better days in my life. It started off with me roaming around in Crossword for a while, figuring out which book to get for one of my bibliophile friend, who was coming to Mumbai for work purposes.

The lady at the payment counter was interested in showing me a new E-reader which was launched at the shop. Was kind of similar to Kindle. I told her that I was not much of a E-reader, and still preferred to read my books the old fashioned way. Yeah, portability and all is all fine, but I like the smell of the pages, and the feel of the book in my hand. No Reader can replace that(yet, anyways).

Oh, and yeah, my membership was still valid(I had registered over 2 years ago, and that too at Durgapur). Got a meagre 7.5% discount, but that’s still better than nothing. Speaking of discounts, Flipkart is now offering a discount of 60% on selected books, including the Luminaries(which I got at 30% discount). Get it while it lasts.

Anyways, coming back to the point, I left for Bandra in the evening. Luckily,got an AC bus which goes from Vashi to Bandra, just in the nick of time. It was empty, save for one couple getting cosy in the corner. Yeah, PDA is pretty much common and accepted in Mumbai(at least in many places). The traffic was still insane though.

I haven’t really roamed around the Bandra side much. And the station was big and over-crowded big time. I had to talk the skywalk towards Bandra east side. After meeting up with my friend(and handing over the gift and yes, got one from her too), we decided to head over to Candies for snacks munching. I settled for a Veg Burger, and a curious looking Chocolate dessert which I had never eaten before in my life(it turned out to be reasonably good). After that, we headed out to the Linking road market, as my friend wanted to check out some Shoe stores.

Post the shopping, we headed out to a CCD. I stuck with my favourite drink, Choco Frappe. She tried the Strawberry Lemonade and hated it. The place was being set up with speakers and mikes put in. Soon, we came to know that Siddharth Malhotra(Student of the Year) and Parineeti Chopra were supposed to come there for a mini interactive session. Soon enough they arrived. I have to admit that I didn’t really look at Siddharth, but Parineeti was really looking pretty(maybe even prettier than she does in the movies).

But we left before they did. Roamed around some more across the streets, did some random chit chat, had maggi, and finally I left for home. Oh, and yeah, I did see a policeman trying to round up the street peddlers with his stick, but they all returned as soon as he left. Was quite a funny scene though.
Yes, am slowly getting used to Mumbai life. The last seven months have been good. And I have to get to second gear fast.

For now, adios.

Done and Dusted With

I will try to make this my final post about my MBA life. The reason for that is that I want to get it done and dusted with. There were lots of ups and downs and lot of things which I would prefer to forget, and move on. In this post, I will try to give a brief summary of what I feel my MBA life was like.

To be frank, on hindsight, I feel that there were several things which I could have done, but did not. For example, being more pro-active in competitions. Not for the prize money, but for the experience. I did participate in quite a few, but I admit I never gave it my all. I never stayed awake till the wee hours of the night trying to solve a business case. Maybe out of laziness, or maybe because I just didn’t want to. And to give a brief comparison, I know quite a few of my batchmates who stayed awake nights to work on their presentations/excel sheets.

My other regret is that I didn’t network much. With corporates or people in other bschools. I haven’t even been to any IIM so far[Not even C, which is close to my hometown]. Again, maybe it was my lack of interest, or my lethargy.

My third major regret is that I didn’t involve myself into academics either. I didn’t do a single live project (almost every single batchmate of mine has done at least one), didn’t try to publish any paper, didn’t do any research, checked the central database only twice or so, didn’t read any good book [HR/Marketing], didn’t solve any business case, nor did I try to update myself with the latest business trends. Not to mention, my total apathy at studying for the semester exams[which I started just one week before the actual dates]. Not surprisingly, I ended up amongst the bottom 20 of the batch[amongst a batch size of 220 students].

I even flunked in a few Finance papers. This was one area where I could not force myself to study, even to pass. I disliked most of the theory classes, and did not take any initiatives to do something which could add value to my curriculum vitae. I even took my final project lightly.

But the worst part is that I failed to make friends[barring a handful]. Its not that I did not get along well with others. Its just that I never felt like trying to extend a hand of friendship or support. I never belonged to any group in college. Most of the time I was alone. I hated it, but made no attempts to change it.

Extra-curriculars went for a toss. I would just spend my free time watching anime/movies or lazing around at coffee shops. I don’t remember having done a single meaningful conversation with anyone on the topic of MBA/business.

Was everything so bad and negative about my MBA life? Of course not. There were some good moments too. But those were far and few in between. You may say that I am being pessimistic but I really do not have any ‘Ahaa’ moments to share from my MBA life. I did have a few crushes, but then again I failed to take any step in that regard. I honestly do not know what value add an MBA degree has done to me. How different am I now from the person I was before stepping into a bschool?

There were so many moments when I promised to myself that I would do meaningful things- Master MS Excel/Powerpoint, Learn Japanese, Buy a telescope, join an Astronomy club, go for sight-seeing in different cities in the north[I couldn’t even visit Agra, forget other cities], make friends and go out to have fun, network with other DU students, participate in various events, and I could go on and on. The list of things I planned to do, and failed to execute. And failed to learn from my mistakes. After that I just lost my inspiration to do anything.

Of course, I would prefer to leave the negativity behind me, now that I have entered corporate. I wish I could find myself a permanent source of inspiration. But right now, am in a much better state of mind than I was during MBA. I can actually afford to relax after a hard days work. And that constant nagging at the back of my mind is gone. But somewhere, something is still missing. And I still keep procrastinating on certain issues. I have to learn to back my plans with proper actions, else they will be redundant. And I have to learn to step out of my comfort zone, another thing I am not really good at.

Lets have hope. It’s a good thing to have really. That, and some decent PS-3 games. I have purchased GTA-5, and Batman Arkham Origins releases soon. So much for distractions.

The Last 4 Years

*Note- This is a Personal Post and if you are not interested in reading about my personal life, kindly skip it.

Some of you [Especially if you know me personally] may have wondered that I have rarely written anything about my college life. In fact almost nothing. Maybe you were a bit puzzled as to why be that so? After all, college life is supposed to be the most enjoyable, fun period of one’s life. It’s the time when a teenager blossoms into an adult. It’s a time when students get to become independent, learn to party, start preparing for job interviews, make their career paths, get into good[or bad] company, make multiple friends, in short enjoy their most productive years. College life is something which no person forgets. Many[or most] people consider it as the best time of their life. People currently bogged down with their hectic work schedule recollect their college days with nostalgia. Unfortunately all the above characteristics do not apply to me.

If you ask me to describe my college life in one word, I would say-‘Pathetic’. I did not enjoy anything for one moment, hardly made any friends, hardly did anything productive, faced betrayals, threats, abuses, detested the classes like anything, hardly did anything of use in practical classes, and even the extra-curriculars weren’t up to the mark. Now first of all let me state that I do not hold ANYBODY responsible for my situation. If I have to blame anyone for it, it would be myself alone. Though I have had serious arguments with some people here, I do not believe in holding grudges against anyone. You may think that I am being too pessimistic, that everyone faces his/her shares of ups and downs in college, that we have to witness both good times and bad times. It’s just that I feel that I experienced the bad times 9 out of 10 times.

Often when I tell others[people who are not in my college] about how I feel, most of them reply in the same way-‘You will feel like this now, but once you leave the college you will start missing it.’ I can assure you that I will not feel that way. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I am in fact desperate to get out of my college and finally start enjoying my life. I almost feel as if I am carrying out a prison sentence of 4 years. Maybe one of the reasons for my sorrow is the fact that I did not stay in a hostel. Hence I did not get to mix around with people much. I made just a handful of real friends, and I felt that most people here are just too casual to take anything[including studies] seriously. In short, I disliked the environment here from the start. I felt that most of the teachers here are at best, just average, and many do not even know basic details of the subject they are supposed to teach. I will not blame them, as they are possibly paid quite less, and it is obvious that they joined the teaching profession only because they were unable to find jobs elsewhere. So its natural to say that the classes are a big bore, and I don’t think I have actually learned anything of use in the past four years.

Often I ask myself this question-‘What on earth am I doing here? Shouldn’t I be in a better college, or maybe doing some other course?’ I wish I could answer that. Maybe I made a big mistake by joining this institution. Maybe I should not even be doing Computer Science and Engineering. Who knows. I wish I could go back into the past and change the decisions I made. But that is just a losers approach. I have to take responsibility for my action and bear with the consequence. That’s the way of life.
In fact I believe that my college life is a perfect example of What a College life SHOULD NOT be. Academically, I did not learn anything, socially I could not make friends, recreation wise, I did not attend any party, or any festival with dealt with fun, environment wise, I could not adjust, as I always felt that I was incompatible here. Slowly, I shut myself off with the rest [in college]. I would pretend as if everything was okay, but hardly anyone noticed my pain. People believed I was selfish. But for me, every day was like a torture session. I was feeling suffocated, depressed, dejected. I knew I had to get out. That was the only thing which kept me going. That and my desire to get into a top Bschool, which was one of my goals.

There are many people here who do not have any ambition at all. They are satisfied the way they are. They have no desire to learn or to excel. While most of them at least desire to get jobs, some are even too lethargic for that. Its as if wasting time doing all sort of negative activities[smoking, drinking, drugs, pornography, abusing others to name a few] is the only thing that matters in college. Today I will admit that I always wanted to rise above such people, and then come out on top. What made the difference is ambition. I knew I could never be satisfied with a mere degree and an ordinary job.

My college life will end in two months. I am eager to forget, to leave everything behind, and start anew, afresh, rejuvenated. A New life, a New beginning. One which will hopefully be much better than the previous one. Even today, if someone asks me what exactly I learned or gained in my four years of college life, I have no qualms in giving a one word answer-‘Nothing’.

Life as we Know it.

Well, I have always been an avid fan of Astronomy. And passing time thinking about Extraterrestrial life has been one of my biggest hobbies. So I am writing this article in lieu of that.

Well, recently scientists are claiming that the moon hosts water, and it has been doing so for millions of years. And that it has water is an indication that it might have given refuge to living organisms sometimes in the past. Some say it has life even now. Apart from the moon, similar theories for life existence exist for Planets such as Mars, and also other moons of Jupiter and Saturn. In almost all cases, scientists and astronomers are for the lookout of water, or ice and in some cases even oxygen and the presence of a suitable atmosphere, which is essential to sustain life. My question to all of them, is a simple ‘Why?’ Yes, why. Why is it essential for water or oxygen or even an atmosphere to be present for life to exist? Why cannot life persist in absence of water and oxygen? Is there any real, valid, irrefutable scientific theory to endorse this statement?

For long, I kept on wondering about this. There are billions of planets in the universe. Any one of them could harbor life. And it is next to impossible for us, with our current technology level, to locate life in places far outside our solar system. We should keep in mind that we are not looking for earthlings, but any sort of life forms present. So why should they drink water and breathe in oxygen, and live in moderate temperature regions. Let us take a hypothetical situation. Say a living being X, lives in a planet whose average temperature is 500 degree centigrade. Say, X takes in nitrogen and releases hydrogen. Say the planet has no trace of either oxygen or water. Say, X depends on carbon related food material which can even be rocks. So whats the harm? You may say that it sounds too far-fetched, but hey its nothing compared to some of the alien movies we have seen and endured and live to tell about it. The thing is X may exist. There is absolutely no valid law that can refute this statement since we hardly know anything about the entire universe.

One explanation is similar to our mathematical models. We take it that a certain statement is true, and then based upon such given facts, we try to prove that other statements are true is well. Sort of similar to mathematical induction. So we assume that since life exists on earth(and that is a fact), so if we apply the conditions for life to exist on earth, or rather the conditions of the environment, temperature, proximity from the sun, atmosphere, etc, and we replicate these conditions for other planets, we may find life elsewhere. This theory may be correct, but it may be fallacious at the same time. We cannot predict with 100% accuracy, whether or not life can exist in other conditions. But I personally believe that it can. Other living beings need not be similar to Homo Sapiens or any other species found in Earth, for that matter.

But most scientists still follow the principle of ‘Life can exist only if a planet/moon is similar to Earth’. Namely the principles are:

1) The planet must be average size. Neither too big nor too small. Since life does not exist on Mercury and Jupiter.

2) The planet must have an atmosphere belt to protect us from UV light, meteors, harmful gases, etc. Since it is universally assumed that gases harmful for us will be harmful for other beings too. Duh!

3) The planet MUST, ABSOLUTELY HAVE WATER. CAUSE NO LIFE MEANS NO WATER. OR WAIT WAS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND?? Yeah yeah, believe what you want.

4) The planet must have the same amount of oxygen and nitrogen, as in Earth. Even if some other being depends primarily on hydrogen.

5) The planet must have an average temperature of around 15 degree centigrade, the same of Earth. Else it is too hot or too cold to sustain life. Yawn, can anyone tell these people that hot and cold are relative terms. 1000 degrees may be hot for you, but not for X.


Anyways, enough of my blabbering. Obviously all the Nasa scientists and World renowned astronomers know much more than I do, and if they say the above principles hold true (Note: Without any solid proof), then perhaps they do. But I still believe what I feel like, and that is Life CAN exist without the above 5 principles.