The Pursuit Of Happiness (No this isn't a review for the film)

As I stated in my title, this is not a review for the film. Fortunately or unfortunately I have neither the understanding of film critiquing, nor the inclination. Now if we're talking about writing a script for a really bakwaas movie, maybe I stand a chance. Heck I may even win some award like say if they had a FILMSHAME award or something similar..getting my point na :) Basically what I'm saying is that I suck at those kind of 'arty' things. Give me genes and chromosomes and I'm most comfortable.

This blog entry essentially is my take on happiness or the state of being happy. Ok, what is happiness? Princeton dictionary says it is the state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Being a wikipedia fan, I have to add their definition as well. They say it is the state of being happy (like I didn't know that). They also say that the definition of happiness is one of the greatest philosophical quandaries. Proposed definitions include freedom from want and distress, consciousness of the good order of things, assurance of one's place in the universe or society, inner peace, and so forth. ... I like this second part.

But when is a person happy? Is happiness the same feeling as being content? Can I say that if I am happy then I am content, or vice-versa. Or does someone achieve the state of being happy when they are free of greed? If all my wishes/desires are satisfied am I happy? If I am not sad, am I happy? (definitely not going my state of mind presently). Your guess is as good as mine here coz there are no right or wrong answers to these questions.

When was the last time I was happy? I think the last time I was really happy was when I had been to India in December. It just 'felt good', it 'felt right' and that was freaking 6 months ago. It was almost after a year and a half that I felt that no one was judging me, I did not have to think before I said something, not every word that I was saying was being closely monitored, I could scream as loudly as I wanted to and no one would mark me down. Going by this, happiness would be not being depressed (well not clinically but I was very close).

If I think about the future, what will make me happy? The perfect job, the perfect boss, the perfect salary, a perfect partner who will stand by me in this otherwise imperfect world? Will perfection make me happy? NO, it certainly wont. Will I be happy to go back to India and start working there in the future? Perhaps...I do not know. One thing that I know will make me happy is, the day I start a training program in Genetic Counseling in India...and I dont see that happening for at least 12-15 years. Do I have to wait for happiness for that long then? No I don't think so...

After penning down (well not literally, typing down if you will) my thoughts, I've come to the conclusion happiness is a variable state of mind which can express itself with numerous different emotions at different times in one's life. (much like a certain four letter word which can be used to express numerious feelings!)

Any thoughts??

Intriguing Behavior

One of the things I can never quite understand is why do girls almost always go to the loo together? Okay before you'll get any funny ideas no there is no ulterior meaning(?) (heard of ulterior motive not sure if meaning can quite be used, but I'm sure you'll have figured out what I want to say) to this comment. Guys think abt it, have you'll ever noticed a girl going to the loo alone?? Almost never. And I have often wondered why? What is more interesting is that there is a pattern to this. There are two different categories of girls here. The first one is what I call the direct one. She will directly announce, " I am going to the loo", then quickly glance at her friend and be like "Are you coming?"... I feel tempted to ask her, "Why, do you need her help?"...but wiseness prevails and I shut up. The second category is the more girlie category. This girl will look around for a bit, see what the situation is like, what is everyone doing, how many people are looking at her, most likely remove her little mirror and adjust her hair (which is fine, so is her face), but she will still adjust her hair impulsively. Now here's the interesting part...her friend understands exactly what she is doing, while to all others (and by others here I mean men...we are dumb, hints dont work with us) this is as good as unnoticeable. And without us (men, believe me I am not a MCP, in fact I am just pointing out how dumb we men are here) even realizing the two (or more) of them have already gone... Now what are the underlying reasons for this remains to be the question no man will ever figure out. I tried... Moral support?? I dont quite think so, I mean there really isn't much moral support one would need anyways rite... It's like a Ram Gopal Verma mystery...till the end you never understand what the idea of the entire film was?!?!?!

But let's leave the ladies aside for a minute and focus on men. Now thankfully men don't look for company to go the loo, but their behavior is no less wierd...in fact most times it is quite obnoxious. We are all thankful to the govt. for starting these public loos all over the city. And dont ask my why I have observed this behavior....the only thing I can say in my defence is that I have taken a course in photography and that's where I started observing human behavior. Anyways coming back to the point... 7/10 guys when they come out of the loo are seen tucking their shirt in, or worse zipping up. WHY?? I mean why do we have to see that? If you have taken the efforts to go in, pls for our sake spend two more minutes in tucking your shirt in and zipping up. In case you'll are unaware, it is NOT something we are dying to see. And it's not as if you have done something that is very time consuming. I mean without going into too many graphic details, all that you have done is aim, and in case you are carrying some suitcase, look to it that no one steals it and runs away. So why can't you take those extra few precious moments which will spare us (and here us is for both men as well as women)!

Some human behaviors can indeed never be understood!

About love being blind and soulmates...

All of us have at somepoint of time or other heard "Love is blind"....(blah blah) and that "I have at last found my soul mate"... I wonder whether people actually think before saying this, or is it one of those statements which are made just coz they sound good? I think more often than not it's the latter.

Soulmate, a term derived from essentially two different words, soul and mate. Soul which is immaterial part of a person or the actuating cause of an individual life. And mate which in very simple terms means one of a matched pair. Far too often for my liking these words are linked together by people without really understanding what they mean when they are combined. Most of us assume that we can and should (for moral reasons) have only one soulmate. I disagree. No I am not talking about open relationships (and just a side note in a open relationship, there essentially is no soulmate). So let me explain...

Often people talk about 'the one'... is it true that we can only have one kindred spirit in our lifetime? Or is it possible to have a couple of them? ( for someone like me a couple also sounds less). We often hear about the 'perfect one'...the one who will stand by you in this otherwise imperfect world (at least we seem to have made peace with the fact that we dont live in utopia...good start eh??).

Why do we keep trying to find a reason for everything? Is it b'coz it's human nature to find a cause and effect relationship, or is it b'coz it may relieve us of tension, perhaps guilt? Why do we think about the relationship that didn't work, comtemplate that it still feels unfinished, empty? Why do we feel that "oh I thought that person was my soulmate?". Perhaps our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them what would shape our lives? What happens to love when relationships are finished? Does that fade away too? Perhaps if we never veered off the course, we would never fall in love or be who we are. After all seasons change. So do cities. People come in our lives and sadly people go. But it's comforting to know that the ones you love and care about are close in your heart and are only a phonecall away...or perhaps a plane ride away.

Why can't we look into our own circle of friends and be our own soulmates, to love, to look after, to guide and to inspire? Why does it always have to be that stranger, who have to come and rescue you? I consider my friends to be my soulmates, the same friends who have seen me grow, fall, and pick myself up again, to continue embarking on the journey that is life. There are so many soulmates in my life...or are we just confusing the idea of being in love with somebody as the soulmate?

Sure I like to believe in the crazy romantic idea of sipping a cup of coffee with someone into the sunset. And if she is 'the one' as people say, then she can find ways of being my alter ego. But to be my soulmate, she's got to try a lot harder!

Ahem..ok the second part now about love being blind?? If love indeed is blind....then why is Victorias Secret so damn popular??? Answer that, then we will talk more about love being blind.

Table Manners

It's kindda difficult to explain why I think of such odd things...but I do and that's the reason I have the statutory warning on my blog. One of the things that irritates me most is people with long legs sitting on the same table as me while eating. I would like to believe I am taller than the average Indian guy (5 ft 11 inches for me is taller than an average Indian guy, though I am sure the Punjabis will have a different opinion).

I think restaurants these days should have comfortable accomodation for tall people to be able to sit aaramse. By aaramse I dont mean you sit with your feet on someone else's chair. Almost always the table that you sit at is at the height where your knees will hit the table from underneath and so to avoid this discomfort, as you look into the eyes of your significant other with louuuuv, or try and avoid the eyes of your boss, you stretch your legs. Now they say that a person usually hangs around with other people similar to him/her. In my case this goes to the extreme level, I usually tend to hang around with people who are of similar stature as well (at least in terms of height if not anything else!). So now you have two tall people :), sitting at one uncomfortable table (alliteration???).

Ok now that I have built up the scenario, what happens next?? Duhh their legs are bound to hit each other and for me that is one of the most irritating things more so in monsoon...I hate anyone's leg touching me when I am eating (even if it happens to my gf, no footsie for me, not at the table at least...in a movie theatre perhaps!). Its one thing for legs to brush against each other and then move away as an immediate reaction, but what do you do about a pair of legs that surreptitiously find themselves on your side of the table, practically under your plate! And unfortunately I cant even turn to these people and say something like "Abe gende ke bacche, saale apne pair apne paas rakh", coz invariably these people turn out to be those 'old uncles' or 'you sister-in-laws aunt' or some obnoxious family friends!

It's one thing to sit at a small corner table and whisper sweet nothing's but I am more and more becoming a fan of large tables where you practically have to throw food across the table! A little inconvenience over the table is acceptable to the discomfort that otherwise I have to bear under the table!

Journey or Destination?

It's one of those perennial questions that comes back to haunt us at least on a couple of occasions, isn't it? What's more important the journey or the destination? It's also one of those questions that I have struggled to answer. The idealist in me says no doubt it is the journey that is more important, and the practical person that resides in me at times says, no yaa it's the destination that counts for just as much if not more. So here I am caught b/w these two alter egos of mine trying to answer a question, which I am sure many have tried to do with varying degrees of success.

Let me side with my idealist(ic?) twin first. Being in grad school I've been asked, what will my first pay cheque look like, far too often for my liking. And the reason I am mentioning this is b'coz that is where the origin of the larger question I am trying to answer lies. Take a minute to think...why am I or for that matter why does anyone go to grad school? For the majority, the answer is to acquire knowledge, to gain a better understanding of what we want to do with our lives and to a certain extent to give a proper direction to our lives. So if we are here to acquire knowledge why should we preoccupy ourselves by thinking of the end product, if you will. Isn't that something that will happen in due course of time? Way too often I have spent time thinking about the grades that I want to get and how to get them. Now instead of thinking about what grades I want, had I spent that time in studying for the grades, wouldn't the grades have taken care of themselves? Speaking about my own profession, genetic counseling...what happens in a session when I am with a patient is a result of what has happened much before I see the patient actually. It is the result of the hard work of preparing for the case, all those role-plays that I hated doing, the numerous times I have 'played' the session in my brain. So instead of putting in effort here had I been preoccupied in thinking about how my session would go, would I be a good enough genetic counselor? Being a sports fan, I always like thinking about examples from sport, especially cricket. Say before any series if a batsman sets a goal of scoring 'x' number of hundreds or 'y' number of runs, doesn't he then get preoccupied by these figures, rather than saying, " Ok let me bat to the best of my ability and the runs will come". I mean what we see in a cricket match is just the end product of all those training session, the net practice and everything else that cricketers do isn't it? So what becomes more important here, the result or the preparation; the destination or the journey?

Ahem...now my practical twin is speaking. Sure the journey is important no doubt, but what does this journey count for, if at the end there is nothing to show? In corporate world especially, does the argument that my idealistic twin put forth still stand? Or in a world where the profit that you make is all that counts, the way you get there becomes immaterial? Perhaps this would lead to an entirely different argument...an argument which can go on and on about the six letter word, which most of us are forgetting. and a word which most people in the corporate world are ready to bury...ETHICS. If I am a businessman, what should I be concentrating on, my turnover or whether people in my organization are enjoying their 'journey' in the corporate life? In cricket in the end what are you recognized by, the number of runs you scored in a series or whether you 'learned' a lot in the series? Perhaps in your first series people will look at how much you learned or improved, but when you call it a day what gets published, the number of runs you scored, the number of wickets you took, the number of matches you won...right.

And so after hoping to come to a conclusion, I am still just as confused, if not more confused about the question I was trying to answer! But for still making a transition from a student to a professional I will stick my neck out and say it is the journey that is more important then the destination :)