Thoughts on the Sea

I need the sea because it teaches me,
I don’t know if I learn music or awareness,
if it’s a single wave or its vast existence,
or only its harsh voice or its shining
suggestion of fishes and ships.
The fact is that until I fall asleep,
in some magnetic way I move in
the university of the waves.
-Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was deeply in love with the sea. It is easily reflected in his poems, as well his lavish avant-garde homes that face the sea, are decked with wood and provide the ambiance of being on ship.

Who in the world does not love the sea(except those who get sea sick?)

But I want to delve further. What makes us love the sea?

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What the Surya Namaskar means for my Quarter Life Crisis

 As we welcome International Yoga Day into its third year, I would like to thank the Surya Namaskar for helping me get along with my quarter life crisis with relative ease.

When I was 6 odd years old, some astrologer dude told me to look at the Sun daily and say "Om Surya Namaha" 12 times. Somehow the habit stuck. But it wasn't until recently that I looked up the actual names of the sun, and the meanings and the yoga postures associated with it.

But am I glad I did that during my early 20s. Yes, I know how you, me and we all feel at this age.

Doubtful about what we want, what we just did, and what we're going to do. Where is the impact we were supposed to create? Weren't we supposed to make a difference? Either stuck in a job where the growth seems impossibly harder than we thought or still figuring out what do with our underrated lives.
But the stories we used to read, and our parents, teachers, didn't they always say that we were special? (Heck, my parents even named me विशेष). We can't even compare to our over achiever parents when they were 25, let alone friends of our age!
Should we go for a debt-inviting MBA? Can we just quit and travel the world, hitchhiking? Or should we just go to the Himalayas and settle down as an ascetic? Or let's just take our non-paying passion full time! And passion, where is passion in our ever failing relationships?  Constant questioning if we really want to be with this person long-term — and maybe even debating whether it's too late to find someone else. Failed searches for the right one, failed attempts to sustain the right one.

Being a twenty something is indeed scary. The Depression Alliance estimates that a third of twenty somethings feel depressed.

"If, as we're constantly told, the world is our oyster, it's definitely a dodgy one. Unlike the midlife crisis, the quarter life crisis is not widely recognized. There are no 'experts' to help us. We have no support apart from each other."

Damian Barr, author of the book Get it Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis

 So here's my attempt at supporting a troubled fellow.

My perceptions and understandings about this wonderful meditative practice, called the Surya Namaskar; and why we should imbibe them.

And how it can save us.

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That redemption called learning.

Last evening, while I was trying to learn how to raise my head upwards to breathe while continuing to thrust back my feet in that blue blue pool of a leisure time, I couldn't help but notice the purity of learning, as a process itself.

With my peer group, I too seem to have grown up. The 4 years 'hands-on' experience adorning my linkedIn profile pretends to say a lot; like most of of my peer group, I too have reduced learning in an alarming way.

Most of the times, we who are now done with our college and university days, and who are supposed to be contributing to the society through gainful employment are busy implementing things we already know.

Most of the times, we are busy showing to the world, we know.

Last evening when I was in the pool, i was facing a simple binary case - the world there was not bothered about me telling that I knew. Either I knew and continued swimming with intermittent breaths taken, or I didn't know.

I clearly didn't know.

Then came the learning part. I can not help myself but romanticize the whole process of learning. While the trainer tried his best giving me all the instructions, I again found myself alone, with water.

Assimilating is as important as being tutored.

It reminded of my pre- JEE days. Lots of things to study, lots of teachers - each claimed to know their fields, lots and lots of books, practice sets, notes, exam papers to be crammed.

And I now romanticize it all the way I used to, more than 10 years ago. Me studying in a corner of a room, with a dim table lamp illuminating my mind silently. The first phase of learning is accepting you don't know. Then you hunt for the right tools that make you know.

Then you learn. Sincerely, feeding in your thoughts the inputs that will give the desired output. 

You can fool the world that you know. But you can't fool yourself. The only way out is to learn. And nobody else can learn it for you. It's an amazing feeling. Knowing, practising things that make you a better version of yourself. Sessions when you talk to yourself, recount how many times you have gulped the swimming pool water before you have taken that one small breath before you go down again. Times when you question yourself why can you not do something. And go after it.

Learning redeems one. 

As I looked up beyond that blue sea of a swimming pool, the lone moon in the dark sky tended to tell me in a clairvoyant voice, "Maybe, we're all here to learn."

-
Alok
9 Apr 2017

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Consumers of content

So I get up and scroll through the feeds of news and updates. I listen to podcasts while I commute, and my eyes stay on the screen while I talk, because deep inside, I have this fear of time running out, and me missing out on any information. Which is kind paradoxical in my case, since the motive of me grasping more information is to have more meaningful conversations with people. 

It is pretty evident from our generation's behaviour, that we're all hedonistic consumers of content. 

But, more importantly, what is the ratio of the content you consume to that you create?

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The year in images: an arbit thought.

Consider this.

The Board of Governors (BoG) of the KVS headed by HRD Minister Smriti Irani decided that teaching of
German language as an option to Sanskrit will be discontinued herewith.

I will come back to this later, but I have to admit, the accompanying image did morph the first thoughts that would have come to my mind, rather, even aggrandize my negative vouch towards the decision.
Although the media's usage of a news image has been widely discussed and reiterating it would not add substance to the agreed upon notion, I would like to add that more than the authenticity or correct usage of an image, the selection also creates subtle biases in the reader's perceptions.

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And now, adding the Fifth Dimension to Arbit Speculations...

Ladies, and Dudes. 


Presenting before you, the fifth contributor to our blog. Mohi Narayan.

This girl of words is a very active twitterati and facebooker. Is literally expressive on her wordpress blog http://charmcaester.wordpress.com/ and has a sharp eye to notice and document the finer details of life. The arbit speculations team hopes that she will be able to add some new colors of enthusiasm to our lazy old blog. :D

So, Mohi... Welcome to the clan of the arbit speculators. Rules, you know. People, you will get to know. All you have to do is to add the fifth dimension. And that takes nothing more than your words and thoughts arranged arbitrarily.

Over to you.

Alok K.
Feb 27, 2010

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And then, Straight from the office...

And this one comes from my office comp. Well, It's not that I am used to while away my time in the office on internet, but as soon as the boss said tht he would be out for some time, and I finished every work I had in my hand, I thought of blogging some shit out here.
Ummm... Delhi... mast jagah hai, if you have got some friend with you. Alone, it might get boring just ogling nice models (Cars, I meant :P) No, seriously, I actually saw more BMW's than mercedes models in my stretch of the city.
And it feels great.

Even otherwise, life is fun. Delhi food tastes good. The chill is a killer; but I ain't complaining coz' I love winters. Office's good. People are nice. (I seem to have sported some kind of positive specs these days; everything looks just fine.)

Have embarked upon a long journey. Let's see how far can I get.

Alok K.
19th Jan 2010.

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All I wanted to say is this......

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Google the word you last said....

look, what I got....

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Here comes Winter, again.

Rain and mist bring winter chill to Delhi (IBN Live, 13th Nov. 2009)

I read the internet version of this news piece and was taken back to the sweet reminiscences of my equations with winter. Penning something on winter is not new for me, and in my other blog I did express my feelings and expectations from winter, when I was in my second year of Bachelors. ( For more reference, click http://reflectionsalec.blogspot.com/2007/10/who-says-spring-is-best-i-go-for-winter.html )

Well, Winter has arrived again. And this time it has rains to accompany itself. Rains make me feel melancholic. When you have had enough of drenching around in the showers, you have to come back, change your clothes and sit in the room watching the continuing rains pelting hard on

the roofs and parapets of your life. It feels as if you have been made to sit in a small room, feeling claustrophobic and all, and no one cares while the action continues in your life, nonchalantly.

But rain brings with itself a strange clarity in the environment. After it stops pouring, you see everything sharper and clearer. Like after the tears flow, one can see the true image of the world. The winds become even more chilly, the intoxication of the winter night escalates further. The longing for someone dear, snug and close becomes excruciatingly evident; and the sweet nothing gossips with friends become more comfort giving. The chillness of winter defines the degree of comfort one can get out of slight warmth. In temperature, in emotions, in relationships. Every thing has an inherent duality, I guess.

But even this clarity doesn't perpetuate. As the evening arrives, mist starts to surround the horizon, and the soul. One can't see neither one's own hands nor one's own thoughts. The paradigm changes only to get even blurrier. The soul craves for something, gets sad on not getting it, becomes happy to see the brighter side of it, only to find the limit of this forced happiness and ultimately finds solace in the sadness.

Two winters have passed since I last wrote on winters. It indeed is a strange season for me.

Ignites some kind of thinking lamp of my

soul, only at the expense of taking away my peace. And I normally don't mind my peace taken away except in the winter season. Back in my playdays, the ball struck us hard when it was winter.

And guess what, it still hurts hard when its winter.

Alok.

Nov. 17, 2009 (Incidentally, Pranav's Birthday)

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