The circle only has one side

Life as we know it, or maybe not.

Why am I here, again? And what am I supposed to do now that I'm here?

Is life, really, all about creating a nice balance? All that matters is keeping a track of these two, virtual, accounts of "Positive" and "Negative"? That said, who manages these accounts? And who decides and ensures that if you've done wrong, you pay for it duly or get rewarded if you've done right. Aren't you expected to do the right thing, anyway? So why the reward? So, if no reward, why the punishment of doing wrong? Where's the balance then?

I never paid any attention to the "Cause and Effect" diagram at work, but now it seems it all boils down to that. And if Karma is all what it takes, my sign should be the superman of the Zodiac signs.

Balance - offload one side a little and it affects the other. There are things you're so desperate about, things that you feel can do wonders, change your lives probably. But little do we think about the flipside.

Owning a lavish car feels great, but it hits your bank balance like nothing has ever hit before. Some damages are reparable and some irreparable - and these are obvious. The ones that are not obvious and make you mess up are the ones that seem reparable but grow into being irreparabale while you're busy being the proud boss of that car. Not that indulgence is bad, but when you run after something, you lose something else.

There's always only so much you can ever have and keep. The convenience of being a child is replaced by the responsibilities of being an adult (unless ofcourse you're Silvio Berlusconi or Hugh Hefner or maybe even Rahul Gandhi for that matter). And when you're in between the childhood and adulthood, is when you have a confused mix of both, and that is where you end up messing more often than not.

But to be fair, you won't know if that cauliflower weighs 250 grams unless you remove some weight from the other plate and check.

So, what now? We're suddenly back to square one.

And I wonder why I wrote all that.

(The desperate urge to write and show it off)

Why don't you just... suffocate!

Is this what life is all about? Suffocate yourself with something until you feel like moving on to something else?

Suffocate yourself with high school to move on to college. Then suffocate yourself with youth to move on to middle age. Suffocate yourself with studies to go away and find yourself a job. Get tired of fighting it out alone and go on to get married.

Suffocate yourself with pleasing everyone around only to turn cold. Suffocate yourself with following others to resign and turn a rebel. Suffocate yourself with indulging in interesting thing only to end up getting bored. Suffocate yourself with keeping in touch to end up keeping aloof.

Get tired of watching the television to the point of going online on the internet. Choke yourself with mobile phoning to switch it off and get some sleep. Choke yourself with sleep only to get up and find yourself lounging around. Strangle yourself with cooking to go have a feast outside.

Tire yourself with the city you're in to go out and travel. Suffocate yourself with the one you love, to go on and explore.

Is life nothing but suffocation? Does the way you suffocate yourself determine what you are? Why does a mouth-organ sound different than any other musical instrument? Who cares... one day it'll suffocate itself to something else.

I'm out of air now.

Answer Bank

Here's why...

- Tiger Woods had to quit golf, 'cause had he not stopped running after balls Elin would've had his removed

- Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace, 'cause since his election, nobody beats around the Bush anymore

- The Sri Lankan cricket team lost so miserably here, 'cause after spending such a long time in India, they started to think they were the home team

- You can't have everything you ask for, 'cause now the nation cannot afford a pandemic of STD

- Force India isn't doing too well in F1, 'cause Mr. Mallya spent a great amount on generating more heat in the pits than on the tracks

- You should stop visiting Mumbai for some time, 'cause if a certain Jermaine Jackson starts to promote it, there's definitely something wrong with it

- You should stop watching Hindi movies, 'cause these days we have Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor for superstars

- You should stop watching Hollywood movies, 'cause all they have to shove us with is the supernaturals, flying all across the screen

- The Chinese are so good at nanotechnology, 'cause they can only see as much

...keep checking this space out for more answers

HAVE A GOOD DAY

A lazy morning. More like a dress rehearsal for winters. You yawn, several times over. Stretch, throw, tear your body apart, again and again and again. Look out the window, it's hazy. The sound of onions frying in hot oil on the stove plays like your "Good morning" song. Get up! "Pull me up, someone!" Finally on your feet, you somehow manage to get to the kitchen in as many number of steps as you would require to travel a mile.

Still out of senses, tea preparation starts. You don't require senses to prepare tea, anyway! The morning newspaper waiting for you at the door. Press the topmost button on the TV remote, "...but first, the headlines..." Slurrrppp! Your phone rings and you are informed that the roads are so badly clogged that it's impossible for traffic to pass. Not able to control, you keep your mug aside, throw the paper away and dance a merry little jig, run and kiss the news presenter on tv in joy, hurt your knee in the process. But who cares, you don't have to work today.

You've woken up only to go back to sleep. And you think that is how it should be like during these months. Wake up to go to sleep. And sleep. And more sleep. Sleep all day, why don't we? You've never had such a colossal appetite for lethargy and you want to run away from all forms of work. Even taking meals seems a waste of energy. The notorious wind rushing in from one window of your bed room and leaving from the one in your living, not without camouflaging in some droplets, soaking whatever is close to the window. But who cares, you don't have to work today. 

Towing yourself up for lunch you realise that you can't move out, roads are blocked. So you 'Dial a Pizza'. But they are not delivering to your doorstep today. Roads are blocked. Then, defeated, you crawl to your kitchen to prepare those evergreen noodles for yourself which have never, till date, taken only 2 minutes to get ready.

Zzzzz...

The evening tea beckons, so do the utility programs on tv. Surf, Surf, Surf, Yaawwwnnn, Slurrpp! Surf. "Every morning I wish I could just play, wish the morning would just stay".

It's after dusk now and you have to start worrying for your meal again. You just try your luck at the Pizza place and... yes, it's affirmative. Hog, Hog, Hawwg! You just had enough of the most pizzas ever and while doing that you also caught up on one of your all time favourite movies. Whatte day! Back to your bed, yet again. Lying down, trying to revise the day but failing big time as there was nothing much you did to write home about. Switch the mosquito repellent on. The music of onions frying in hot oil persists. The wind still playing. You feel cold. But who cares! You didn't have to work today, the roads were blocked, you danced a merry little jig, kissed the news presenter. And that knee... it still hurts!

Choose: Incentive or Incentive?

Everybody responds to incentives. 

(And not surprisingly, a lot of you might not agree) 

Somewhere, in my mind, I did know it, but realized it only after reading Freakonomics - a fascinating description of the "hidden side" of everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Thanks to them, I have been able to write whatever follows. 

Incentive may not always and necessarily indicate an extra amount of money. Incentive is "an influence", could be positive or negative, motivational or demotivational, and is the major factor which influences the way you act. Helping - a friend with his call; a kid cross the road; a shopkeeper with extra change; yourself, hooking up with a partner and whatnot – comes mostly out of incentive. Not many of us realize that and react when told. 

Had it not been for incentive, you might not have been reading this, in the first place. The possibility of your getting something good out of this article urged you to at least skim through it. And now, all of a sudden, incentives seem the only important raison de vivre. 

Mr. Prescott, a winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Economics, and now a senior monetary adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and professor of economics at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, has this to say - 

People respond to incentives. You don’t make economic policy for nations, you make it for people. And it’s the responses of those people, when aggregated, that give us those data that we all love to analyze. 

So, why did the European labor supply decrease by a third from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s? Because the marginal effective tax rate was increased to 60%

from 40%. People chose to work less than before. Consequently, tax revenues fell. You can’t raise revenues by taxing people beyond their willingness to pay. And

you can’t expect an economy to grow when people don’t have the incentive to work, or when entrepreneurs lack the incentive to take a chance. 

Every professional would identify with the example above. Why would you run to a shopping store, a kilometer down, for someone else when there isn’t anything that you could buy for yourself! 

A visit to the park if your child completes her/his homework on time, your treating a friend with a beer for making special brithday plans for you. Your friend, on the other hand, making those special plans to get something from you.

So there definitely is an incentive to almost everything that we do. What are the types of incentives, how different are they from each other, how to identify them, are questions that need not a lot of in-depth analysis. It could either be for money or for someone you love (no monetary gains to be enjoyed) or maybe for a stranger for humanity, etc. 
 
 

There are three basic flavors of incentive, Freakonomics says, – economic, social and moral. An excerpt from the book will throw more light on them – 

Very often a single incentive scheme will include all three varieties. Think about the anti-smoking campaign of recent years. The addition of a $3-per-pack "sin tax" is a strong economic incentive against buying cigarettes. The banning of cigarettes in restaurants and bars is a powerful social incentive. And when the U.S. government asserts that terrorists raise money by selling black-market cigarettes, that acts as a rather jarring moral incentive. 

We all learn to respond to incentives, negative and positive, from the outset of life. If you toddle over to the hot stove and touch it, you burn a finger. But if you bring home straight A's from school, you get a new bike. If you are spotted picking your nose in class, you get ridiculed. But if you make the basketball team, you move up the social ladder. 

The typical economist believes the world has not yet invented a problem that he cannot fix if given a free hand to design the proper incentive scheme. 

Now, let’s take the other end of it. Let’s go in the reverse direction. What if there were no incentives at all! What if everything you did gave you nothing in return! Strange? 

Imagine traveling a couple of kilometers to pay your grocery bill, which you usually do to avoid unwanted circumstances like: the grocery store not willing to sell you anything anymore or a bad image in the society or maybe even a legal action against you. Let’s control for all these unwanted circumstances. Let the grocery guy maintain a very healthy relationship with you, you also maintain the good image in the society and let there never be a legal action taken against you – all this even after you don’t pay the bill. Why would you bother to work then? You’d never be paid. No incentives. Forget the bonus! No one works, no one earns, no one smiles, no one jokes, no one helps, no one eats, no one sleeps, no one gets out of bed… no one does anything! 

Is there a single selfless good deed! 

I’ve started to feel uneasy now.

WHODUNNIT?!?!?!

You done it!

Food for thought for everyone of us? It sure is.

Who's to blame for the cruel acts of terror which are on an India-tour for quite some time now and probably seem to like the country so much that they aren't wanting to go back? Who's to blame for the innocent lives lost in such dramatic acts of devastating violence? Who should be held responsible for the loss of such prodigious amount of wealth and heritage?

Isn't a person responsible for whatever happens to him? Yes, he is. So, that means, we won't be wrong in saying that a person lets things happen or not happen to him. Then why should it be different for a group of persons? Why should it be different for a country?

Politicians, intelligence, infrastructure, terrorist groups, Pakistan... and relentlessly looking for even more objects, people, organisations to blame. How, then, are we different from what the politicians are doing? Does playing the blame game run in our (Indians') blood? Everyone seems to be so good at it and so frequent too.

Education can't be blamed either. Almost all of these criminals are very well educated. More educated and experienced than the average Indian. And if an IIM/IIT-graduate can say 'No' to a job which'd earn him 6 figure salary a month and choose to start with something of their own then what's so surprising about such out-of-the-box application of the education that these merchants of death have received? The only difference being in the adjective - one being constructive, the other destructive. The human race is just evolving. Everyone of us wants to do something different. Terrorists are humans too, after all.

There's also these so-called "thinkers" of the country who come out on the television, roar in anger, and say things that everyone around already knows. Won't we love to do that too? Not many of us would make sense, though. Not many of those who are already doing it make sense either. If you can't help a situation get better, don't complain and make it worse! If you want to point out the negatives, come with a torch, show a possible way out. Because, seriously, and believe you me when I say this - We've had enough of all that. And 'Enough', now, is 'More than enough'.

Bangalore happened. Then Ahmedabad. Delhi. Now Mumbai. So much has happened and it's only the recent past. So much has happened before this recent past too. And after they come, they destroy and they leave, all we talk about is the spirit of the people of the victim-city. The Spirit. Yes. The Spirit. And for some strong reasons, I can't help but think, that it is this Spirit that is responsible for whatever is happening to us, to our cities and eventually to our country.

We can't help it. We have this nature of always wanting more. More, more and much more. More money, more luxury, more comfort, more leisure... more TERROR? Earlier we wanted a Sarkozy for ourselves because he seemed so larger than life. Then we dumped him because he probably was no different than what we already have. Now we want an Obama for ourselves. We want to manage our country like some 'X' country is managed. We want facilities in our country like some 'Z' country has. A country of a billion people has to peek over the fence for inspiration.

In such a process, neither do we find a Sarkozy or an Obama nor do we try to appreciate and give a chance to what we have. How about giving the Singhs, the Patels, the Raos a chance. You'd say "Haven't we already?" Yes we have, but maybe they really aren't the right people that we have elected and are letting do what they want to. Such a spirit has got us to where we are now and surely has the potential to take us further. It's up to us now, to let it do what we want.

Each one of us has it - that Spirit of getting back to business after the devastation. That isn't really wrong. Like we have a choice! Like we can sit back for months and mourn over what happened. Like we can stop doing what we do in our day-to-day lives and maybe just stop living. We can't do that, can we? We have to move on.

And it is this very 'moving-on' that lets us forget everything that has happened and run amuck when the next tourist appears. Forget it and they'll come back to remind you. They want you to remember it, don't they? If they didn't then the magnitude of such terror wouldn't have been increasing by every attack. They want us to remember it. Keep it in our memories forever. So let's keep it in our minds and show them the other side of remembering such events.

It's such a "Catch-22" situation, this. The Spirit that allows us to get over with such horrendous acts of crime and move on with our lives is the very reason why there always will be a recurrence of similar events, of an ever-increasing magnitude. Why should we, then, get over it and start moving on? How about not letting the emotions fade away and, for once, and probably, for all, get done with it for ever. Get done with it so that we don't have to worry about it for the rest of ourselves.

A definite realisation struck me this time around. It was that our lives, the lives of the people of this country, are far, far more precious than those of the politicians. Those politicians elected by us. They carry Z+ security - what for? Baffles me! For the first time I realised that our lives are at a greater risk than the lives of these politicians. For the first time I realised that these politicians are there to serve us, not to be served. For the first time I realised that there is a definite possibility that the dinner this coming weekend could be my last. I cannot trust anyone around me. I don't want to. Why should I! They make friends with you, live with you, win your trust and then right when you begin to feel that life couldn't have been better, they STAB you!

It's scary, isn't it? Are we feeling helpless? Confused? Nowhere to run? Probably, yes. But. We Indians have had an history on this and quite an history, mind you! They say we come up with our best when we have our back against the wall. We perform under pressure, as they say in cricket. Injury, with insult added, puts us on our mettle. And that is when we show our true colours. Once-in-a-blue-moon colours.

There certainly is a way out. Yes, there is. To hell with the politicians, intelligence, infrastructure, terrorist groups, Pakistan... whatever elements you have. We'll take it in our own hands. We can definitely deal with what's happening around us. If these elements don't work in our favour, we'll make them work just the way we want. Just hoping we find a way sooner than later. But now that we've found who's responsible for all of this, I feel it'll be sooner than later.

I FEEL I CAN BE PROUDER TO BE AN INDIAN!

What made Donnie Darko die? Or did he?

Thought process, anyone? We have it here for you.

Talk about connecting broken links of a long, long chain in such a meticulous manner, so as to baffle the viewer out of his skin - and doing that consistently for a hundred and twenty minutes. Being at the edge of your seat, anticipating the next scene, failing every time, not giving up yet, and at the end of it all, you feel like you still haven't understood it completely. This is what Richard Kelly does to you with Donnie Darko. I feel lucky to be one of his victims.

Donnie (Donald Darko), a schizophrenic young man, makes friends with Frank - an imaginary and XXL size bunny. Imagine being told by someone that this world will come to an end in 28 days:6hours:42 minutes:12 seconds from now. Scary, isn't it? That too so precisely scary! This is what Frank tells Donnie. After a lot of thought, this is what I make of the movie -

A science-fiction thriller with bits of hilarious comedy (Especially when these characters discuss the sex-life of Smurfs) spilled here and there. Richard Kelly has definitely succeeded in giving the viewers something fresh and original to experience. Ever heard of 'Time-Travel'? Without getting into the physics of it, it is a travel into the future or the past (however unlikely a time-travel into the past might sound). Donnie's house gets ground to pieces by an engine of an airplane, which falls right on Donnie's room. Donnie does not die. Frank, the hallucination, sleep-walks him away a little earlier than the crash and that is when he tells Donnie about the '28 days' secret.

Following this, the bunny makes Donnie do a few criminal deeds as well. Frank was probably a messenger in disguise. He makes Donnie do all sinful things but then, at the end of the day, it was he who got Donnie introduced to Time-travel and save the world. I really think Donnie had acquired the power to time-travel, simply because he has been shown reading a lot about it in the movie. Especially, Roberta Sparrow's "The Philosophy of Time Travel". I'll tell you more, keep reading.

"I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to." True to the core, nay? There is an inherent excitement, a curiosity in all of us to get to know what happens next! - The "What if?" characteristic that we possess. Donnie answers her college professor in a similar way when she asks him about his views on a passage which is being discussed in the classroom. Donnie aptly puts it - Destruction is a form of Creation. The reason behind tearing the world apart might not be negative at all, after all. Chances are that you might just want to change things and see what happens.

He falls for this cute, young lady in his class - Gretchen Ross. "Well look, um... uh... you wanna go with me? ", is what he asks her. "Where do you wanna go?", she asks. "No, I mean like GO with me, like you know... like, that's what we call it here... going together... ", he says. "Sure", she pauses for a moment, and walks away.

Donnie is an intelligent boy. Well, he's just logical. He tries to make sense of whatever is presented to him, or whatever he presents. Quite a few times he gets into arguments with people who have known to have "been there, done that". Allow me an illustration, please-

Jim Cunningham, the do-gooder celebrity shown in the movie, is addressing an assembly and showing how people can have better control over their lives if they control their fear and spread love. He was trying to profess that eliminating fear can solve all the problems. Now whoever has a question can come up to the microphone and ask him. After a while, comes Donnie and asks "How much are they paying you to be here today?," the audience burst into laughter.

"Are you telling us this stuff so we can buy your book? Because I gotta tell you, if you are, that was some of the worst advice I've ever heard. Do you want your sister to lose weight? Tell her to get off the couch, stop eating Twinkies, and maybe go out for field hockey. You know what? No one ever knows what they want to be when they grow up. It takes a little while to find that out. Right, Jim? And you… yeah, you..." (to a fat kid, who told Jim that he was fed-up of getting beaten-up by someone). "... Sick of some jerk shoving your head down the toilet? Well you know what, maybe you should lift some weights or take a karate lesson. And the next time he tries to do it, you kick him in the balls.”

While making all this sense, he is made to do things which he shouldn’t be doing. Causing harm all over, he loses Gretchen too in the process. Now is when the confusion arrives. The story can go two ways from here. At least I think it can go two ways, there might be more too. One – Donnie had been dreaming till yet. Two – Donnie had acquired the power to “Time-Travel”.

The scenes rush back to the point where Donnie is sleeping in his room. The engine is again hurled toward Donnie’s house. But this time Donnie does not sleep-walk away. He just smiles and stays because he knows he will save the world by doing so. Super-hero? Who sacrificed his life for the world? Maybe.

The next morning, Donnie’s loved ones are devastated by his death – crying and getting consoled. There comes Gretchen, cycling her way through, and stops in front of Donnie’s house. “Hey. What's going on?,” she asks Donnie’s neighbour, David.

David: Horrible accident. My neighbour... got killed.
Gretchen: What happened?
David: Got smashed by a jet engine.
Gretchen: What was his name?
David: Donnie. Donnie Darko.
Gretchen: Hmm.
David: I feel bad for his family.
Gretchen: Yeah.
David: Did you know him?
Gretchen: No.

It might need more than a single watch. At least I will have to watch it once more, to get the complete hang of it. Maybe then, I’d be able to write a less confusing post on it. Meanwhile, the essence of the story has been aptly captured by Gary Jules in this song, sung by R.E.M. for this movie-

“All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tommorow, no tommorow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World”