Why traveling is important

Travelling to different places is a much needed ritual all of us need to maintain. 

There are several reasons for this, some of them are physical, some are genetic and some psychological. 

On the physical side, when we travel, we expend more energy than usual. This could be because we want to explore new places or this could be because we have spent a sizeable amount of money getting to where we have gone, and so may not like to idle away our time like we do at home. Whatever the reason is we usually return home with more calories burnt and fitter. (Of course, I am assuming that on your travelling trip you are going to be walking or hiking a lot more rather than playing blackjack at a casino on a cruise.)

On the genetic side, we would be quenching our nomadic thirst. While you, as an individual, may have stayed at the same place for many years, humans, on a much larger time scale, have only settled down in cities, towns and villages for a relatively shorter period of their existence. Moving is in our genes. We suffocate when we stagnate.

More importantly, when you travel, you are automatically lifted out of your so called comfort zone. As most of the psychologists tell you, it's a good thing.

By moving out of your comfort zone you are challenging yourself to new opportunities, new obstacles and treading on an unfamiliar path. You wake up in a new place and in a new bed (hopefully beside the same partner though).  

The things you are accustomed to doing (when you wake up at home in familiar surroundings), all need to be recalculated and recalibrated. Your brain will be forced to forge new neurological paths, and to form new synapses.

As an example, I visited a friend and his wife in a different town. One of the basic things I assume I will get in the morning is a cup of coffee. It may be different from the coffee I have at home, but nevertheless some version of coffee would be available would be my expectation.

At this friend's house though, they had a supply of neither coffee powder, nor milk, nor anything that resembled a coffee machine, because they never really consumed coffee and were also lactose intolerant. I had to go to the nearest coffee shop to get my caffeine fix.

This is a trivial example, but the point here is, when you are traveling, you cease to run on autopilot. You are more mindful, living more in the present and living a different version of your life. That, while it can be unsettling, is also rewarding.

So, when you get back home, you are refreshed, rejuvenated and resurrected. And you appreciate those familiar surroundings a tad more. 😃

Wastelands

I feel lost… Yes I do. 
Wading through the masses 
Who’ve their eyes open 
Yet walk like the blind. 
 
They cajole and threaten me. 
They want me to join them. 
On my side, there is integrity. 
On theirs, the brute majority. 
 
Hallowed by hollow promises 
They want my blood and tears 
To throw me incentives that 
Reek of terrible memories. 
 
The glory I seek is different. 
The path I walk is separate. 
How can I join them  
When my conviction is their cliche? 

Been missing

Sound the alarm bells!

Close all the doors!

 

Summon a search party!

Look in every nook and corner!

 

You need to find it!

Without it I am nothing!

 

I have lost my peace of mind!!

 

* Originally written on Nov 05, 2001

** Loose translation of a Devarakonda Balagangadhara Tilak's Telugu poem

 

Nifty Fifty

Everybody assures me

That Fifty is a great state to be

The twenty thirty somethings say

It's good to age in a graceful way

 

May be they are just being nice

And will follow their own advice

 

When they are in my place

And keep a smile on their face

 

People say this is a mile-stone

And a proper time to atone

 

But I respectfully beg to disagree

My approach to this is rather carefree

 

I look at life like a cricket game

And this is what I honestly proclaim

 

The past has already flown

The future is definitely unknown

 

You watch as the invisible bowler pitches it

And then decide to play according to its merit

 

The rest of my life wont' be any different

I will always seek to live in the present

 

With kith and kin in tow

The joy will only grow

The past has been pretty thrilling

The future can only be fulfilling

A man in a hurry

(This is neither an epitaph nor an obituary 

The time for that is long past)

If only you had slowed down my dear friend

If only you did things in a different way

If only you reduced your workload maybe or

If only you kept the journey in perspective too

If only you didn't love our motherland so much.

Then, I wouldn't be needing to write this today 

One year after you have been gone

Here, I always thought 

You would be around long enough 

To read all our eulogies before you took off

Never imagined you would disappear without a trace

But then, I should not be really surprised

You were always a man in a hurry

Always a step ahead of the rest of us

Always seeking new challenges

Always impatient with any sort of slowing down

I am glad for all the time you spent with me

I am grateful to you for showing me the right path

But, I refuse to believe we are done yet

There are a lot of unfinished trains of thought we need to complete

There will be plenty of new stories to exchange when we next meet

If not in this world, then maybe in the other...

(Remembering Narain who passed away last year today)

Hundred years later, it still haunts us…

It happened a century ago; yet it still reverberates in the collective consciousness of all Indian patriots. The date was April 13, 1919. The venue was Jallianwala bagh in Punjab. The occasion was a peaceful gathering of Indians to protest against the British. In just a couple of hours, anywhere between 379 to 1600 people were dead (The final casualty figure was never ascertained.) The dead included little children, women and the old. These people were dead because General Dyer wanted to teach them a lesson for holding a meeting that was not permitted. On his orders, soldiers belonging to different regiments, namely, Rajput, Baluchi and Gorkha, fired around 1650 rounds into the densest parts of the crowds, non-stop for ten minutes. Even by current generation's standards of violent video games, this would be massive. In 1919, the world really had no words to describe the horror. In a free democracy, this outrage would have been dealt with the summary dismissal of Dyer, probably followed by a military court martial. Instead, what followed was a travesty. The British House of Commons simply reprimanded Dyer. He was relieved from his military duties and died in 1927 due to natural causes. At the time of his death, Rudyard Kipling, the famous British poet, whose poem “If”, everybody loves to quote, calmly remarked that General Dyer simply did his duty. This sums up the British arrogance at that time. The fact is most of the soldiers who fired the bullets were Indians themselves. In one way, this wasn’t all that surprising. By that time, Indians were well and truly enslaved. A quarter billion of Indians were effectively being controlled by a mere 165,000 Britishers. In my view, this fact is more shameful than even the killings. We allowed ourselves to be divided and ruled, and thus ended up in this sorry state of affairs. While the massacre made Rabindranath Tagore return his knighthood, and Gandhi start the non-cooperation movement, things returned to “normalcy” pretty soon. India went back to being the submissive colony it has always been. The Jewel in the British crown, if you would. Clearly, the incident wasn’t outrageous enough to prompt Indians to break free of the British shackles right away. We took our own sweet time, 28 years in fact, to achieve complete independence from the British. Cut to the present, some of my Indian compatriots are hell bent on getting an official apology from Britain. That would bring closure to this, they argue. Closure to whom, I would question. The immediate kith and kin of those killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre are long dead. If instead, they mean closure to our nation, that would be incorrect too. There are certain things from its past a nation should not forget. Jallianwala Bagh massacre is one such incident. Instead of beseeching the British for an apology, we would do well to remember it every year and learn from our collective mistakes. The only thing we can do now is to make sure such an ignoble incident never occurs again. Never.

Parents

To be a parent is an all encompassing experience

You are in charge of a life (literally) 

And despite all the bravado you display

And all the unsolicited advice you receive

You are really clueless most of the time.

Your kids look up to you, a hero to them

They think you have all the answers

(If only they knew how wrong they were)

But it's still a good thing they assume that

As this faith helps you to help them in turn.

After all, any relationship is a two way street.

While you help them take their baby steps

You rediscover all the paths you have trodden

You go back in the past and remember things

Things like purity innocence and loyalty

As long as you don't mould them to your wishes

As long as you explain them their choices

And help them realize their true potential

You would pass the parent exam in first class

And prepare your child to be a parent later

Site Reliability Engineer

An SRE (as one is affectionately called)

Not only has to be a jack of all trades
But also the proverbial master of few
While not forgetting the tricks of the old
She should also keep learning the new

If you ask people what Site Reliability is
Each will give you a different kind of answer
They range from being a rugged fire fighter
To a true-to-the-fault lithe ballet dancer

An overzealous developer would say it only stops
Old Pops would say it's nothing but mere Ops
It's DevOps on Production says the senior manager
Keeping the s**t together muses the in-house philosopher

An SRE is the systems dude to the developers
And the development guy to the Operations
Ultimately he is the one everybody blames
And made responsible for the Abrogations

Whatever the truth, this everybody agrees with
SRE is here to stay for good and is not a myth...

Special Delivery

A miracle that is performed only by a woman
Is to bring into this world a brand-new human

While the new life is making its appearance
You would have to hold on with perseverance

But never forget in those moments of strife
You are contributing to the great circle of life

They are also human

We forget that celebrities

When they are stripped

To their bare essence

Are nothing but ordinary people

The sports idol

Who makes you skip your dinner

For a game he is part of

Needs to satisfy his hunger

Even the star who makes

A million dreams come alive

Needs to sleep and

Have her own dream

The grim reaper

You may be afraid of it.

I am too.

And so is everybody else.

Yet without it life loses its meaning.

We need this Yin to complete the Yang.

Consider for a moment.

There is no bigger curse than eternal life.

It might be hard to believe but 

Death is needed for ultimate peace. 

I will always remember...

I still remember that day

When the skies opened up
And those planes dove into the twin towers.

I still remember how the buildings turned
Into two blazing balls of fire
And changed the world forever.

I still remember the innocent people
Jumping to a certain death
Only to escape from being burnt alive.

I still remember the collective cry of horror
That emanated from people all over the world
Who cherished life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

I will always remember…

The resemblance ends there

Just as one frame in a movie
        Dissolves into another,
Our life cruises through
        All its myriad phases.

There's a crucial difference
        Between a movie and life though
With a movie, we are still around,
        After the climax!

Doors

There are many doors within us.
Some reveal well lighted rooms.
We want to open those to everybody
Where unbridled optimism looms.

Then there are doors that conceal sinister places.
Where there is no chance of winning any glories.
The doors that we ourselves dread opening
Are the ones that tell the most interesting stories.

Body Present, Mind Absent

Riding on the train.
Reading that book.
People all around me.
Body present, mind absent.

It’s another meeting.
Somebody rambles on.
My thoughts go astray.
Body present, mind absent.

Boisterous party.
Host is saying something.
My eyes are on the i-phone.
Body present, mind absent.

Hands on the wheel.
Foot on the gas.
Worrying about my deadline.
Body present, mind absent.

On the death bed.
Time ticking away.
Wondering what could have been.
Body present, mind absent