What a quote!!

I want to end my writing with a quote by the famous South African writer Rian Malan, citing his book My Traitors Heart: "I thought, if you really want to live in Africa, you must be able to look at it and say: This is the way of love, down this pad. Look at it hard, this is where it is going to lead you. I think you will know what I mean if I tell you that love is worth nothing until it has been tested by its own defeat…. I felt that I have been asked to try to love enough not to be afraid of the consequences. I realised that love, even if it ends in defeat, gives you a kind of honour, but without love, you have no honour at all. "

4th in a row!!

Yes its another Diwali away from home. 4th in a row. Damn. And all of a sudden I have an intense loneliness pang. What am I doing? I should have been home right now and not sitting alone here in Chennai. Agreed Diwali is not to us what it is to so many, atleast not from a religious point of view. And agreed that the last Diwali at home wasn't too extraordinary either. But c'mon yaar its Diwali. It's my favourite festival after all. I don't know what it is but no other festival in India evokes the kind of feeling that diwali does in me. Images which float in my mind are those of ppl clad in ethnic indian wear, lighting in the house, ppl talking and having fun and thn silent but radiant phuljharis in the hands of kids and adults alike. I know its all very filmy and cliched and that my image is a copy of some filmy scene but what the heck!! It still is a wonderful image to have. And thn I have my own idea of an ideal diwali which has happened very rarely so far but still. family get together, games, chatting, friends and by friends I mean strictly RatPack and no other ones. Shit I miss not being in Kolkata right now!! And I miss some one else as well.. Gosh its been a long time!! How do I just erase something, how do I clear those images, how do I mute those sounds!!

Thing is its another lonely Diwali and I feel terribly lonely again. And truth is I am longing!!

Loneliness again!!

"Yeh zameen chup hai, aasmaan chup hai.. " Beautiful words.

Well its one more time again.. The setting is the usual, all pieces in place.

Beautiful songs- Check

Night time after 1 p.m.- Check

Comfortably slouched on bed- Check

AC on- Check

Semi alive state of being- Check

A sense of lot of things complete and good- Check

A sense of something missing- Check

I often wonder these days whether I feel lonely and the fact that i think abt it may be is an indication of the same!! I am sure when I will look back on these times that I am spending in Chennai, I would look back on them with a lot of smiles. It's been a good stay so far, one for which I am grateful in my own way. I so firmly believe that life is so much about stealing moments from it, about being happy unless you have some strong reasons not be. Neutral is definitely positive in the scheme of life. And chennai has been good. A very dear friend as a roomie, good work so far, financially ok, family doing well, health ok. It's almost perfect. Yet there is a void. And not a void in a negative way. It's not a negative feeling that is killing me, it's not a deep malcontent. No sir!! It's a void in a "longing" sense. I wish for something or someone and I don't even know what is it. But maybe I know and may be thats the reason for this sense of loneliness. Damn I so wish that there was someone at this point in front of whom I could speak, speak about everything. Someone who would not judge me or who would not advise me. There are people like that but still they have their own issues in life. I so wish that I could have had that someone special. I so wish I could have been in love at this point. I could have had that someone perfect. Someone who would just understand and would just love. Who would reassure me and tell me that I am a good person, who would tell me that I wait for you, that you bring a smile to my face. Someone who would make me want to a better person (as good as it gets rocked!!) May be it's that age when one needs someone, may be it's the lonely beast in my mind. Who knows!! But what I do know is that I could have so done with someone who would have made me feel special, Who would have hugged me and give me that warmth. Man!! It's almost getting too mawkish (smile on my face and "tere bina jiya jaae na" in my ears :) )

I have been happy and I pray I could always be. But yes, I have missed someone as well!! :)

Incption, Keynes and the stock markets

For those of us who have seen the movie inception, this is a rather apt and quirky similarity that I just stumbled upon from the world of finance!!

It is called Keynesian Beauty Contest!! Following is the wikipedia entry for it..

"Keynes described the action of rational agents in a market using an analogy based on a fictional newspaper contest, in which entrants are asked to choose a set of six faces from photographs of women that are the "most beautiful". Those who picked the most popular face are then eligible for a prize.

A naïve strategy would be to choose the six faces that, in the opinion of the entrant, are the most beautiful. A more sophisticated contest entrant, wishing to maximize the chances of winning a prize, would think about what the majority perception of beauty is, and then make a selection based on some inference from their knowledge of public perceptions. This can be carried one step further to take into account the fact that other entrants would each have their own opinion of what public perceptions are. Thus the strategy can be extended to the next order, and the next, and so on, at each level attempting to predict the eventual outcome of the process based on the reasoning of other rational agents.

“It is not a case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degrees.” (Keynes, General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, 1936).

Keynes believed that similar behavior was at work within the stock market. This would have people pricing shares not based on what they think their fundamental value is, but rather on what they think everyone else thinks their value is, or what everybody else would predict the average assessment of value is."

...

so here i sit alone thinking

oh! what has life become

and there she sits alone

wondering why i made that choice

Loneliness..

And yes here I am again, sitting rather aimlessly and somewhat restlessly on my bed at 1 in the night and listening to a beautiful song-moonlight kiss- from one of my fav movies. Boy did I enjoy watching this movie in SCM. Man!! It seems so many of my recent great memories are related to that heavenly place. And just for the record I have been missing it badly for the last 2 days or shud I say last two nights.
Well I don't know for sure but I think I have felt lonely recently. And,, I know the trigger or rather the reason behind it. But knowing, sometimes, is not enough. What a strange emotion it is; loneliness.. As much as I tell myself and as much as I run away from it

Nights like this..

And sometimes on nights like this, I lie on my bed listless and aimless, drifting gradually to a world which does not exist. Life or rather the present at least, starts floating and the very existence is reduced to nothing more than a limbo!! The world which sometimes looks so wonderful suddenly starts looking so indifferent. Some emotions which are relegated to the back of consciousness suddenly start popping up and reminding that it's but a strange thing this life. And while I think of these things there rings one more voice in my head, which tells me why are you thinking currently, why are u using words like life etc. when you know that you are not even remotely active or alive to ponder or theorize about life and its ups and downs. And that voice is more often than not very true as is the case today also. But then it is fun to note some of these moments also, moments when one writes or thinks in a somnolent state, almost as if one is not writing at all.

Another Incomplete..

Well as always, I have been thinking f writing something for quite sometime now. And as it happens ever so often I just dont seem to be able to do it. But writing I wanted really today and writing I finally am (though going by my track record, don't know for how long and don't know whether this is ever going to see the light of the day) [and a thought just crossed my mind right now that why is it that i feel like writing so much.. hmm I think following are some of the reasons {and i am going to write them as points because thats also something that I have been wanting to do ever since I read Amartya Sen's Argumentative Indian (writing or talking in clearly demarcated points that is)}

1. I love reading what others write. It is just so much fun to read some of the things that some of my friends write.. It has its own charm and is so different from whatever is written by the PROs. And then I can't write so well which makes me feel so incapacitated sometimes
2. Despite feeling that I cant write (as mentioned) there is something within me which does not want to accept that and which sometimes sincerely believes that may be its not so bad
3. Even though I share what I write with many people, the praise from some of the closest friends who are forced to read it is sufficient to keep the narcissist in me happy
4. It is genuinely nice to revisit some of my thoughts at a later day. Writing has this magic of storing memories in such an honest manner. (not being able to put some thoughts to words here)]

Phew!! I realise that just like in real life I have strayed so far and used so many words without even touching the main reason for this piece. God help me on this front please!!

So yes, I really wanted to write today. For the last few days I have been missing SCM again. In fact I forced myself to miss it again.

Aimless Afternoons

Afternoons often make me feel really bad about myself. I don't know why but there is amazing lethargy that permeates me during afternoons. It's that part of the day when irrespective of how much i have already slept, how relaxed i already am. i always feel lazy and sleepy. I might wake up at 12 in the noon (like today) but within an hour i again feel like sleeping. And i sometimes wonder why is it this way. I mean why can't I be at least 50% as active in the noons as i am in the night. Really don't know why.