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I always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions. I have asked the Brahmans, year after year, and I have asked the holy Vedas, year after year, and I have asked the devote Samanas, year after year. Perhaps, oh Govinda , it had been just as well, had been just as smart and just as profitable, if I had asked the hornbill-bird or the chimpanzee. It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as `learning'. There is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature. And so I'm starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning.

-quote from Siddhartha

I reiterate you must read Siddhartha! Online copy available here

Read review/book recommendation Herman Hesse's Siddhartha - still a great read

Songs that give you energy! - Part II

I didn't realise these links wouldn't work! hehe! Well, Anyway, no suspense here so...The songs are
1. Sivasakthi sung by Nityasree and composed by Subramania Bharathi
2. Kiru Kiru from the film Kadal, music directed by Joshva Sridhar

Available right here

Songs that give you Energy!

With just one ear of the headphone working or both, with speakers on or just a headphone, with the internet working or in my own mind....this song hasn't failed to give me loads of energy in the past few months :)

And this one has been a hot favorite too in recent times ;)

Where am I at the moment?

Nowhere. Well actually I can’t really say that. I’m sitting in front of the computer at my office that I have come to call my own and wondering about what to write! It’s been long since I felt good enough to write, synonymous with introspect for me, leaving those dumb posts on other things, other people, others’ philosophies and generally ‘other’ moments in life out. Of course, like cloud bursts in a desert, I did grab some beautiful words out of the air, literally, and acted as a medium to write them down! But other than that, it has almost come to the stage where I started doubting whether I could write at all – not that I ever prided myself on how good I write (that’s 40% true!) And before this turns into some gibberish on ‘my writing’, let me steer the boat the other way, know not which one yet!

So, where am I? Hmm, I am happy, can’t refute that. I have got everything any normal person could ask for (normal – that’s one nice insult to this world sans me – a subtle way of saying am not normal! Isn’t it amazing how the human mind always wants to see itself as something different, not normal?)

• I have got a great job that lets me do things I would have paid a thousand rupees to do, maybe even a year back! And on top of it, my job lets me participate in intellectually stimulating discussions, meetings and brainstorming sessions (No sarcasm, intended or otherwise!) – I get to observe people’s behavior and it makes for a great thought-feeding time pass to rely on in those “staring into space” moments. What’s more, they pay me!
• I have at last stopped getting excited over the brown envelopes my father used to send religiously on fifth of every month (He didn’t believe in money order – You could call it eternal optimism and complete faith in the snail mail system!) Instead my excitement now is dot on 7 PM, 31st of every month. I call it total independence and I call it buying power
• My personal life is like the last few pages of the M & B’s I used to read few years back – those pages with no tears, lots of smiles, many hugs (but no toe-curling scenes, you hear!) and kids playing. We are one big happy family, looking forward to good times in the future :)
• I continue to have the occasional adventures, trips, tours and getaways that make me think I have traveled far and wide. This one is important for the ‘wanderer’ in me to feel she is satisfied!
• My relationships? (How is it different from personal life, you ask? Well, I’m talking about non-personal relationships that I have always been known for!) They can’t be any better – I am no one’s enemy and everyone’s nice acquaintance. Isn’t that nice?
• I occupy my free time, the very less of it that I get all for myself, with silly books like “The monk who sold his Ferrari” and ‘maybe good’ books like “Meditation is boring?” and ‘my favorites’ like “The pilgrimage”. But do I think about what I read from them? I like to think so. My sub-conscious, while the physical me was sleeping, would have surely taken care of it?
• Oh ya, the most important thing – I am perfectly healthy bar the occasional ‘tap tap’ from the various regions of my body.

So you can say VJ is one happy person.

But I don’t want to be just happy! What’s the point of just being happy? So what do I want? I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know! (How’s the effect of this one?)

The only answer that seems fit, an old one by now, is I want wisdom! I want complete detachment! And I want oblivion!

PS: In case anyone who happens by this direction is wondering why I write stuff like this.....I write them to come back and read later, when am all old and teethless :)

Dream! Awaken!

Those who look outside, dream!
Those who look inside, awaken!

Speechless after British Colonialism

Arma Virumque has some interesting thing to say on the subject of "British colonialism".

An excerpt, with due rights - "As for colonialism, this third-world feminist of color should get down on her knees and thank Siva that her country was the beneficiary of British colonialism. Without it, she would never have heard of feminism or even of the third world, since the very concept depends upon the freedom, education, and language that the West brought to savages countries in the 18th and 19th centuries...."

And Sepia Mutiny has got to say this about this neocolonialist blog! Way to go!

Slightly off topic - I recently read that Vijay Mallya has got Mysore ruler Tipu's sports gun back from the British at a whooping price of 120,000 pounds at a Sotheby's auction in London. He had also bought back Tipu's sword two years back to the country. Mr. Mallya plans to set up a Tipu's museum here in Bangalore and may possibly donate these items to it.

I wonder who benefited more from this great Colonialism of India. Was it India with her "Wouldn't have built railroads without the British" or was it the great "Be thankful we brought feminism to you" Britian!!!!