I went home for Onam... home to Kerala. I don't want to bore any of the readers with the nitty-gritties of the trip, but what was otherwise lots of fun ended up being a nightmare, when I tried getting back to Bangalore from Cochin. 3 Trains and scores of buses... all booked to full capacity, and wait-listed for the next 3 months!

I'm suspecting foul play, and I think that touts are booking all the tickets in advance, so that we poor people buy tickets for black, paying four times the normal amount. I didn't do that though.. instead I ended up travelling from Cochin to Bangalore via Coimbatore, the whole of Monday.

The inertia was terrible, and sitting all day in the train caused certain unmentionable parts of my body to turn to stone. But otherwise, there was a certain charm to the travel. Esp. because I took some pics and made tiny movies with my digicam. Misty green Kerala in the rains... ummmm.

Here are some pics of the lovely place I come from:

1) View behind bars (I mean the train windows ;) )

2) A quick view of a temple

3)  Anamalai - a glimpse

4) Mountain that looks like an elephant

5) Palakkad Landscape

Ain't they lovely.... :D

For today, I'm quoting something that I believe is inspirational:

Behold :) - a part from the wonderful book that I've read - "Autobiography of a Yogi", by Paramahamsa Yogananda. These paragraphs are from the chapter "Outwitting the stars", and is the Paramahamsa's guru Sri Yukteswar's answer to the former's question about the significance of astrology:

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The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth is not meant to emphasize fate — the result of past good and evil — but to arouse man's will to escape from his universal thralldom. What he has done, he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can overcome any limitation, because he created it by his own actions in the first place, and because he has spiritual resources which are not subject to planetary pressure.

"Superstitious awe of astrology makes one an automaton, slavishly dependent on mechanical guidance. The wise man defeats his planets—which is to say, his past—by transferring his allegiance from the creation to the Creator. The more he realizes his unity with Spirit, the less he can be dominated by matter. The soul is ever-free; it is deathless because it is birthless. It cannot be regimented by stars"

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I've never found a more appropriate book that indicates the wisdom and profoundness of the teachings that have originated from India. The book and its language is flawless, and its clarity is amazing. Apart from answering the unanswered, the book goes a long way in being secular, because though its been written by a Hindu Yogi, you can find ample references to Christian and other religious teachings. What's even more stunning is that there are even a couple of chapters that wouldn't be out of place in a thesis based on physics/science. If fiction bores you, and you'd like to know more about life..., or even are just curious, my advice is: pick up a copy! 

Today is a holiday for me on account of Ganesh Chaturthi. And I'm bored. This intense desire to do something special remains only a desire, since all I end up doing is watch TV and waste my time.

I'd have preferred to go to work today, but there's no food in office :) and that's a big deterrent. Apart from the fact that going to office is like going for a theerth yatra; My office is in ze great E-City. And navigating hosur traffic and climbing on BMTC buses isn't just my cup of holiday tea.

Yesterday I read in the newspapers that employees were getting fired for writing stuff about their offices, in their blogs. Good God. I must be careful. Any mention of hosur road, and E-City, and I may end up on that road with my resume.

Now, I agree to some extent that employees shouldn't divulge confidential information about their offices in their blogs, but somehow, the whole purpose of a blog seems defeated. Everyone will now have to be careful not to leave information about what they do and where they work, and how their boss is, cos, next thing you know, they'd get the pink slip since their boss has just read yesterday's entry. Right to free speech eh.

Long ago, there was a site called kvetch.com, which no longer exists. It existed for the sole purpose of complaints - people could bitch about anyone anywhere and feel relieved after throwing up all that hate inside. The site has been pulled off the websphere, for reasons better known to the guys who put it up in the first place. But I guess for some people, their blogs were just being that place, where they could express all their hate and disgust and feel relieved. And now, they'll have to lock up their blog with a key if they don't wanna get fired.

Beware all you bloggers. Look who's reading your blog :)

As for me, although I do prefer anonymity, I'm not the type to complain about my boss (since he's not all that bad), so I guess I'm safe for sometime.  But I could be arrested for putting forth funny views all over my blog. Hmmm.

Saturday. I was in a mood to start my grumbles galore, by carping about something or the other, but now that I am here and have started to write, I've decided against it. 8)

My mind is this whirlpool of thoughts right now; faceless and nameless thoughts just merging with one another and swirling down noiselessly. For the past couple of weeks, I was feeling distinctly low and without any drive. Work-wise, I had work, but somehow the drive was missing. I wasn't feeling the punch. Thankfully, for me, its back.

I had my appraisal in office last Monday, and by going thru a meticulous process of self-appraisal of the things I've done the past year, I've actually been pulled out of the mental block and inertia I was experiencing. In fact, I've suddenly got this surge of energy and drive to do better, and I definitely think this is a good sign.

So what I'm gonna write about today is not how my appraisal went, or what I've done the past 1 year that made me feel happy, but rather the psychological phenomenon that actually occurred behind the scene.

Have you as a person, ever felt yourself been sucked into a void, or felt suddenly hapless, and ineffective? Been thru the writer's block, or for us IT fellas, the programmer's block?

One medicine I would highly recommend is a piece of paper and a pen. Sit down and write down all that you've done. Good and bad. Push your judgemental capability down the drain and honestly evaluate your performance till date; what you would like to do and what you think you did well/not so well. Sit down and explor e your comfort zones. Stare in the face of the old-blankets/teddy bears that you seem to be clinging on to mentally - what I mean to say is that all of us have that comforter that we hang on to - it could be your own mental opinion of yourself, which probably sympathises with you and says "oh you poor dear. You are really an emotionally sensitive person and don't belong to this terrible judgemental world". Or it could be your previous decisions which would say "This is the job for me, and this is all that I can do. I can't do beyond this and this is all I am capable of". Old-blankets, teddy bears and couches are those comforters which people just don't let go of, however old they may be. They feel ever safe within reach of their favorite comforter and never go exploring or trying to reach beyond.

And sometimes the strange thing is that you don't even know that you are emotionally clinging onto something like that. Or that your judgement of you or your empathy/sympathy with your "sensitive" self also acts like that teddy bear. Comforting you, yet never letting you grow as a person on your own.

Realizing that you have a comforter that you need to shed is the first big step towards self realization. Realizing that capabilities and abilities are achieved through hard work is the second. And finally, honestly accepting&n bsp;what you've done on your own is the medicine that finally delivers that punch to your life.

The key is to understand that what matters in life is not how much you earn per month, or how many friends you have, or how your boss is treating you. What matters is how comfortable are you with yourself. If you feel a block in your work, and suddenly experience inertia - it could due to a lot of reasons. And the best way to find those reasons is to write things down on the good old papier. Mentally evaluating your performance/what you've done in life acts like this cleansing tonic. The noncommitted nonjudgemental approach works to clean your fears/worries from within. If good work has been done, it serves the purpose of making us feel better about ourselves, more strong and less condemning. If you realized that you could have done better, then atleast you've gotta be happy thinking that you realized it. Of course, once realized, the next step has to be action.

Take it... take those steps to reach out. Reach out beyond your comforts. Beyond your comfort zones. Beyond what you thought of as your capabilities. There really exists no capabilities. Capabilities and abilities come from hard work. And hard work can achieve much more than you ever thought of as being possible. Explore into new horizons... think of the un-thought of. 

Stop conforming to public opinion. Stop conforming to others expectations of yourself. Discover your own self-expectations. Discover your own fears, and fallacies. Your own opinions of yourself, that also may be wrong (if they've been based on what other people think of you)... Children in school/college struggle hard each year, to conform to the myths of "being cool" and of "popularity". People at work struggle hard to conform to the myth of "dynamism" and "success".

Why conform? Chart out a new path for yourself. Let your inner person blossom, and allow yourself to be discovered. Who knows; maybe inside you lurks someone totally different and new, and someone who everyone else will appreciate. Give yourself time, and training. Hone the skills you know you possess, and explore into avenues where you never thought of before, but where you discover you have interest. Challenge others in their arenas. Streamline your goals and focus vertically, but build your capabilities horizontally. Stop giving excuses for lack of drive and for poor performances. And stop being complacent with your achievements. The world is not an oyster...