Superpowers..

There’s this game (or let’s call it an application, an activity) on Facebook, where you rank various parameters on one of the topics from most favorable to least favorable, and you are matched to all those friends of yours who run that application as well. The name of the application is LIKENESS (or is it LIKENESS UnRATED, I am not too sure).

I was killing my time a few days back, when a request from one of my friends came (on facebook), which said that my friend has run the activity “Superpowers” in Facebook, and wanted me to take the same as well. Workless as I was, I clicked on the link and started the app. Before I knew, I was fantasizing all the powers one-by-one, in order to select which one I will cherish most.

Anyhow, I finished my rankings and got a match score with my friends (to see the scores, one can go to facebook and check my scores there).

Well, this has happened about two weeks back, and I had almost forgotten about this. But just a few days back, I realized that having such powers (or even the faintest hint of some/any of them), might take you for a toss!



No, I am not talking about any superpower here – I am talking about real life. If you look at the image above, you’ll see that one of the powers mentioned there is “Mind Reading” – when I was visualizing this power two weeks back, I thought it should make life really cool, because you get to know what the other person might be thinking in front of you, and accordingly you can manipulate the person – manipulate is not the right word; it is better to say that you can do proper conditioning of the circumstances at hand, so that things are for the best. (Remember, Mel Gibson in ‘What Women Want”?)

So now, again, let me reinstate that I am not talking about superpowers in real life. The “Superpowers” app of facebook merely gave me an insight that I would not change a thing in me-self, because I just can not say what all baggage it will come with.

I have to my credit (or has it been that credit of anxiety, of worries, of tension) the knowledge of something that I would have never liked to know. We live in such an artistic world, that we have acclimatized ourselves to the rights and wrongs of our society, our culture, our acquaintances, our near and dear ones. But when one gets to know something which is a little bit more than what he/she ought to know, it disturbs the equilibrium of knowledge, and creates instability - at least in a human mind. It leads one to think what should not be thought, and question every act – which is quite misleading. If it’s about a person/s, this makes it difficult to look him/her in the eye.

Don’t think I’ll be able to elaborate on that – so net net, superpowers are a big no no.

Run Lola Run

As the name suggests, the movie's all about running (no, not like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump) - The beauty of the movie is in the details - there are 1581 transitions (edits, dissolves, fades, wipes, etc) in 71 minutes of action (i.e. excluding the credits, and pre-credits sequence). This equates to an Average Shot Length of about 2.7 seconds. Interestingly, if you observe, the editing is relatively slower towards the end of the film. For most contemporary films, the opposite is the norm. This is what makes this movie so unique.

No wonder this one is quoted (arguably) as the best from German cinema till date.

Casablanca

..and following Notorious, Casablanca is an obvious choice. I know I have office running in the morning, but can't really let Ingrid down by not watching her best performance ever, with Bogey also doing the tricks..

So here's something to relive the moments..

Ilsa: [laughs ironically] With the whole world crumbling, we pick this time to fall in love.
Rick: Yeah, it's pretty bad timing. Where were you, say, ten years ago?
Ilsa: [trying to be cheerful] Ten years ago? Well, let's see...
[remembers, smiles]
Ilsa: Oh, yes, I was having a brace put on my teeth. Where were you?
Rick: Looking for a job...

Tagging threes..

Three things you wish for (just for you):

1. I wish I had enough money to pay for another MBA straight away, to avoid going into 100+ grand of debt
2. I wish I didn’t have so much anxiety and so many fears.
3. I wish India wins the match tomorrow (that one’s to see if this really works!)

Three things you would do to/for you if there was no one to judge you (or if you had the guts.)

1. Write the autobiograhpy of my life (this is something I would love to do, but fear keeps me from doing it at this point).
2. Publish that autobiography
3. (There’s no third for me here)

Three bad habits you have.

1. my addiction with myself
2. being lazy
3. I am a total slob…though I am making plans for change with this one (and hopefully will find the willpower to change the other two before long…we shall see).

Three insecurities you feel:

1. That I will disappoint others (I’m working on this…trying to learn how to be okay with other’s disappointments in me and focusing on meeting my own expectations for myself instead).
2. That I will not be able to touch others’ lives in the inspiring and healing way that I want.
3. That I'm not good enough to be a "Writer"

Three talents/skills you wish you had:

1. ART…I wish I could draw, paint, make beautiful collages, etc.
2. The ability to play the guitar (I also attempted guitar lessons once, but I really sucked and never could manage to make my tiny hands produce any beautiful music).
3. The willpower to live a really healthy life (i.e. exercising regularly, getting up early, etc…I’m not really sure if you could call this a talent or skill, but I certainly believe it takes talent to live this way).

Three things you would do if you had more time:

1. Write more.
2. Read more.
3. Travel across the globe (and maybe even far)

Three things you would do if you had enough money:

1. Stop working so much (I would still work, but maybe I would stop for sometime).
2. Put the money in a safe place (isn’t it obvious)
3. Travel, travel – everywhere

Three things that bring you peace and relaxation:

1. the beach
2. the mountains
3. writing

Three things that spark your creativity:
1. Reading
2. Nature
3. Music

Three people I'm tagging:

I know some people really don’t like to do these tags, so feel free to accept the invitation or not. I am tagging S, C and N.

Isn't it..

With great power comes great responsibility..

Perception, Misconception & Introspection

perception

• noun 1 the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses. 2 the process of perceiving. 3 a way of understanding or interpreting something. 4 intuitive understanding and insight.

— ORIGIN Latin, from percipere 'seize, understand'

This is what Oxford dictionary has to say on "perception" – and what I have to say is that perception of perception is also a perception. It is not only related to what you think of someone else, or what your understanding about other person is, but it is moreso related to what you would WANT to think of that someone.

For instance, X might consider me to be an out-and-out gregarious individual, but on the other hand, another person Y might think of me to be as conformist as it can be. It's all about perception. It is again all about perception when someone would think you to like continental more than punjabi food, if you know more pubs in the vicinity, as compared to dhabas! Aaahhh!

It's a real pain sometimes, but anyways – there are ways of playing around with your perception as well; for instance, if you are perceived to act in a manner as responding to a situation, you can jump up a surprise if you think is apt, or you can play the normal game and still emerge a winner, knowing beforehand what you should do.

misconception

• noun a false or mistaken idea or belief.

An excellent example of misconception is what I recently saw – People have a knack of getting into trouble – albeit uninvited (I know I am modest, but showing off sometimes, it's ok..). So the guy used to be the sound pad for many, sometime back. Things that followed led to a situation where being a sound pad started being misconstrued as being the mouth piece! Eventually, as is the norm, thoughts around the guy having interest in a girl started rolling the circuits, and before one knew, it was termed as a couple (woah!). This leads to disturbance between otherwise friendly guy and girl, and things do not really stay pleasant anymore! Such is the nature of the culture, that those friends who persuaded this relationship from a normal friendship to a virtual companionship, started playing hide & seek. Things, as expected, would not be the same anymore, and hence, misconception leads to a catastrophe in an otherwise jovial friendship!

Another real life example of misconception is here. It is a misconception about innovators: their ideas are completely original. In fact, innovators get ideas the same way that everyone else does: Some they dream up, and others they borrow. They take a little concept from here and combine it with one they've found somewhere else. That is not to suggest that you rip off someone else's idea and represent them to the world as your own. Instead, the innovator's talent is that he or she knows which ideas to borrow from other fields.

introspection

• noun the examination of one's own thoughts or feelings.

— DERIVATIVES introspective adjective introspectively adverb.

— ORIGIN from Latin introspicere 'look into', or from introspectare 'keep looking into'.

Once you've developed a perception, and followed it up with misconception as well, then you know that the time is ripe for some introspection. Not that it will lead to some precious results, but it always helps to have a status check once in a while, on the directions going forward. And there are multiple ways that lead to introspection, which you would say are crazy!

Hug a tree! Backpack across the country without regular support systems! Get up one day and make breakfast for your beloved! Or for your parents! Or for your roommate! Sleep under the stars! Make a conversation with a beggar!

Obviously these are not the conventional ways of introspecting, but what has been seen is that such steps can yield better results when it comes to knowing more about self, than any other. Doubt it? Try & you'll see. Straight from the gut…

Confessions of a Beautiful Mind -

What am I doing wrong?

...Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy. I'm not from New York. I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City , so I don't think I'm overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 100 - 150. But that's where I seem to hit a roadblock. 150,000 won't get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she's not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:
- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics - bars, restaurants, gyms
- What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won't hurt my feelings
- Is there an age range I should be targeting (I'm 25)?
- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I've seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What's the story there?
- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?
- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY
Please hold your insults - I'm putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I'm being up front about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn't able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth....

(Thanks T, for your help)

Of interests and choices...

This post relates to an individual who has been an epitome of hard work - it has been more than 30 months now that he has been working in his present firm, and by normal MBA standards, it is A LOT!!

Individual in question would be called 'S'. Let me iterate a few of his traits - he is one of the most knowledgeable individuals I know; he has diversified interests and those interests vary from construction and civil engineering (he is not a civil engineer) to HDTV videos on BBC, from interior designing to Rajasthani Handlooms and marble craft; his fan following includes me (hehe..); he is one of the few guys who like Mumbai (!!!); and he is content with his life (I am sure this facet will call for a debate, but let's see if S comes to this post and debates it; otherwise, the post stays as it is!)

I am not a hard nut to crack, and I break quite easily - though one needs to know how to do it. S has been one person who doesn't even need to tread that far - with him, it is auto play. More than two years in last five - I've spent telling him the most innate instances, and have blurted out things even I hardly knew. I am sure everyone has an outlet, and it's just a matter of time you realize who is yours, for a specific amount of time.

Talking professionally about S, he has been right on the doorsteps of his dream job for last two years, and as I speak here, I wonder if he has ventured and grabbed the opportunity that he has been promised for a long long time. His is, I believe, a glamorous job, if taken in right sense. I mean, there are a few “jobs that pay the rent”, and there are some which you would love to do even with a hefty cut, because you know that you won’t really be working, but having fun and having a gala time all the way through. Being a guide is something I have a craving for, and I know for sure I’ll venture into it professionally or personally in due course of time. Just that now is the time for the “jobs that pay the rent”. :(

Well then, S has also been someone who would rather go for something he desires than what the society would want him to – I have had innumerable discussions with him on this, and I try to convince him more often than not, to look for better avenues (atleast financially), and he also confirms my thoughts in essence, but when it comes to real execution, he falls back on the much appreciated self satisfaction in the current work place, with all the promises of getting right kind of opportunities soon enough.

I wish S gets the taste of his favored cuisine soon enough.

And those engg days..

I was going through some old mails, when I got reminded of this stupidly wonderful dialogue, reminding me of the ridiculous answers we used to give during our Engineering Viva.

External (to student) : Why does a capacitor block DC but allow AC To pass through ?
Student: See, a capacitor is like this ---| |--- , OK. DC comes straight, like this ----------, and the capacitor stops it. But AC, goes UP, DOWN, UP DOWN and jumps right over the capacitor!

The Stare - II

(this post is in continuation to "The Stare" posted earlier)

.......it took some doing, but I found I could relax and hold the glance if I simply stopped working to figure out what the other person was thinking. I had to force myself to stop reading every twitch, every sideways glance, every brush of the hair. When I walked in the door, when I stuck out my hand, when I said "Hi?" I turned my gaze toward the pupil of the person's eye. It really was a process of searching it out, looking at the black of the eye only, holding my glance there, and waiting until the eye color registered in my periphery.

It worked, too. Females could not hold my glance longer; men moved faster. This worked with colleagues. With friends. Even with Auto-drivers, whom I looked at in their rearview mirrors. I began to gain better control over these transactions by searching out their eyes. It took only a few seconds, but I could plainly see what they were looking for. Here is what I saw: No matter how much attention they appeared to be giving me, no matter how slowly they spoke or how long they paused after greeting me, it was evident that these people were initially treating me like every other guy who walked in off the street, trying to figure me out and see how fast they could get me what I wanted before moving on.

The eye contact changed all that. You realize you have X-ray vision. You had the right blade. With my eyes, I calmed them, slowed them down, and did so without knocking them over or humiliating them. I used my eyes to upset the indifference of their routines and simply register my presence. It worked every time. They didn't know me, but then, suddenly, it seemed they did. I did not need to bargain much. The doorman perked up when I arrived at the dad’s office and stood up straighter when I walked out.

I tried it with people who see me all the time. The guard at my office who now greets me every time I walk in. The person I've known for three years. A guy I know from some social service activities. In each case, upon greeting them, I'd search out their pupils and hold my eyes on theirs for a minimum of two blinks. Just as with people I didn't know, time seemed to slow down and routine moments became unpredictable. Not just because two blinks is an eternity when you have nothing to say except "How are you?" but because it meant they had to look at me at least once, and often two or three times, before they spoke.

While I may suck at eye contact naturally, there are people who are worse, much worse, in every ring of my life. The more I practiced, the more hapless they seemed. It's the law of dominance, I think, that the more dominant you become, the more you want to stay dominant. I found I liked backing people down. I began to look at them long enough that I began to sense when they were about to look away. The truth is, instead of them seeing me, it ended up that I could really see them. They were just like I was, a little afraid of eye contact, a little leery of connection. I meant well, so I pressed on. People gave me apologies I didn't ask for. They invited me to dinner.

I could do far worse with my eyes. Anyone can. The tool can always become the weapon.

With any gesture of influence, the danger lies in not knowing what you are after. I fell into an easy routine recently. Just yesterday, while negotiating the price of a beautiful watch I was buying for my mom, I was staring into the eyes of a storekeeper, trying to figure out what color his eyes were, when he suddenly dropped the price by two thousand bucks to four thousand. I'd been threatening him somehow and hadn't known it. I didn't break away. I didn't look down. While I hadn't expected as much, now I had to see where I could go from there.

His eyes jumped back and forth, from the counter to the watch to me, then back again, in reverse. His eyes looked green, I decided. Green.

"Four thousand," I said. "Flat price. No tax. OK?"

He nodded and looked back at me then, long and hard. We were in agreement, though neither of us said a thing.

FYI, my eyes are BROWN.

Here's ME..Where're you?

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

On this day...

On this day, the friendship day, I'll share one of the incidents I've been a part of that I can talk about. It is about this friend of mine, who I don't think goes through my blog, and it would be safe for me to blurt out the incident here.

Well, the story goes like this - Let's call this friend 'D'. D and I have been knowing each other for ages, for as long as I can remember (I know, I know, I have a bad memory, and I hardly remember things happening a couple of hours back, but whatever..) - so now, we both used to get along very well as friends - and by getting along, I mean that no ten minutes could pass without us having an argument or a fight. Obviously my mom trusted D more than she trusted me, and vice versa. Not that we used to go out too often in those early days, but it used to be fun to fight at each opportunity possible. And one fine day, we had a fight, a catastrophe!

Hang on, hang on...if I tell you the reason for the quarrel, you've beat both of us to death. All those who today know the reason for that quarrel we had still wonder what was there to even have an argument about. I WILL NOT open the cards to tell the reason, because it will reveal how stupid we were, but anyhow. So we had this quarrel, and we stopped talking (as we generally used to, for a couple of hours) - but on this occasion, neither of us tried to revert...so the hours became days, days became weeks, weeks months, and ultimately months turned into years, with us not talking..!!!

In the meanwhile, D shifted home, and so did I, our phone numbers changed, and since I am talking of the primitive age when we hardly used to operate computers, we did not have each other's email IDs too..Years later, when in college, a classmate of mine told me that some friend of his met some other person, who knew me, and the name of this other person was 'D'! Just like we see Flashback in movies, I could recollect all the times spent together, and I decided to get back in touch with D at that moment itself.

But but but, everything was not as simple. D's address was still not known - my classmate's friend had some faint idea of which street D stayed in!

Anyone seen 'Love Actually'? Remember how Hugh Grant (playing the Prime Minister of Britain in the movie) went from door to door in the street, trying to locate Natalie (PM's love in the movie). Not that I had watched the movie by then, but that's exactly what I was prompted to act upon. I can still remember the shocked face of D when I knocked on the front door of D's house, and D standing there, wondering how on earth I could find the place!!!

Post that, it's been a couple of years, and yes, we are in regular touch now. Fights and quarrels are still as silly as they used to be, but I guess the time has taught us both a lot - that near or far, it's a matter of being with your friends, in essence.

It's a matter of hanging on, after others have let go.

Now D holds a distinct place - many other friends of mine do too, but I am writing how special D is to me here, because I know D will never reach this page.. And many of my friends who might read this should know that I have their stories too, but those will be shared only in forums or platforms where they can't see them. :-)

Now some general gyan, that you may skip..
One of the most memorable moments in life is when you meet old friends whom you had lost touch midway in the journey of life. You will be overwhelmed with the feeling of emotional detachment, realizing how much you have been missing him or her all these years. Having them around will remind you of all those golden moments that you spent together in the rain, amidst the morning mist or under the scorching sun. It will remind you of those golden moments of sharing lunch together and exchanging your friendship bands. More so it will remind you of how silly you have been when you picked up fights on matters of no substance, spending days, weeks, months, or even years not talking to that dear friend of yours.

Apparently today is friendship day. Many would have planned for grand reunions and rocking get togethers with old friends. This is a way of sharing all emotions that you had stored for them for this long span of time. Doesn't really matter if you don't do it now though, because one can celebrate the occasion of friendship any time of the year! Just grab a couple of beers, and/or pickup some snacks from the nearby shack, and sit under the stars on the ground with your friend, and revisit all times, good and bad, with your dear friend - you won't discount that day as any other day. the good and the bad times with your friend.

And if the idea has not stuck yet, go and collect the contact info of all your long lost friends (by long lost, I do not mean those who you've left in the "Kumbh-ka-mela"!), and get back to them - shoot them an email, post a letter, call them up, send gifts, or do anything that makes you feel you are closer to your friend.