Photo by ~Preppy Guy2~

Caught myself saying this while watching some martial arts movie. Every time these visions of perfection are paraded on TV, for the next few minutes, dreams of me with six pack abs and strutting like a proud rooster fill my canvas. Then a long sigh, back to munching on the potato chips.

I’ve been on a “fitness regimen” from when i can remember- seriously for about 3 years. so far i have gained about 7 kilos.

Only if the 5 coffee a day and the pizzas and the donuts were not an unavoidable part of my day, I would eat healthy, sensible food. Only if I had better footwear and a lighter laptop, I would walk instead of taking an auto.

Only if i didn’t have osteoarthritis in my genes, I would be running regularly now.

Only if I hadn’t gotten my wrist injured playing football, i would be doing a hundred push-ups a day.

But I would kill for those abs

Lot of belief.

But faith, that legendary entity is lost to me. I catch glimpses of it in some writings. I can see it in the works of CS lewis, his stories, his essays and lectures. To me it is a dream-skill that I have always wanted to own. Peace tranquility and assurance of the most difficult questions, questions I can only bypass or find inelegant and ugly answers for.

From where stand I can barely understand how a man like Lewis, could have such faith. Perhaps a lifetime of training in sciences has stripped away my ability to feel the presence of the unsee-able.
That pristine mind was one of the best ever to have wielded a pen. His lucidity and simplicity have opened so many eyes, stimulated so many minds. But he knew something that is denied to many followers of his, like me; faith.

Met up with Sthuthi, one of my best friends, after almost a year. We spent a great long weekend catching up and reminiscing good old times, as old people do.


Met Bathsheba, best friend/cutest batch-mate/eternal crush, and introduced her to 2 of the most important women in my life.

Met Arpitha’s dad (father- in- law to-be)

Mom and dad visited

The hospital’s new block was dedicated. I MC’d and smiled officially.

Had a day in Goa all to myself. I visited old goa, made friends with an old beggar lady near st. Fransis’ church and took wedding pics of a bridal procession. more pics at my flickr photo-stream.

Right after I finished my theory exams I made plans for what to do with the extra six months I was sure to get. Surgery was bad, pediatrics was impossible and I knew there was no way someone could read my paper and give me 50%. Then I forgot about the plans temporarily because I had practicals. They went astonishingly well. I know full well I did not know enough even on the day of the exam, particularly in orthopedics. But I passed. pediatrics , the scary one, went without much trouble. I passed that too. So I celebrated, since they were over, and buried the worry of the results. Just looking forward to the well deserved break, I took off.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Became chubby, went to Gwalior, blogged and what not. All his time the results were the last thought on my mind. Then time for the break was over, and I was to go back.

That was a terrible thought.

They wanted us to join internship even before the results were out.!!! What if I failed? I wont, they told me, I told myself. So we went through orientation with grumbling, expressed our opinion, got lucky. Then we waited and waited.

Somewhere along the line I began to hope.

It might have been during my holidays because I was drunk on pleasure, or it might have been the in Vellore, among the cold and impersonal concrete monuments and warm and special friends.

Hope that somehow the corrector will overlook my Himalayan blunders and black hole sized holes in the fabric of my answers. Hope that I will graduate with my friends. Hope that things will be alright.

That is what causes most hurt, hope.
And love.
Faith I have little, so that did not dig in.

Wonder why of the pantheon of virtues and godly characters mentioned in the scriptures  Paul mentioned only faith hope and love?

They are what has given mankind its happiest moments. They are that which empowered social change, brought about justice and kept peace. Harmony needs hope and love. Service needs love and hope.

They are also behind mankind’s bleakest hours and greatest miseries. Misplaced love, reasonless hope, and blind faith. These have not just caused wars and crusades, but everyday kill the spirits of million of souls world wide.

Our greatest assets are also our greatest weakness and sometimes, enemies.

Ain’t man thoroughly messed up.

Alas, you made a promise to yourself sometime ago, that whatever happens, THIS course you will do for he sake of learning and excellence and not just acquiring the letters after your name or forwarding your career prospects. so, what do you do?

If you care about excellence, then you will quick find out that it comes at a steep price. So  you find yourself asking yourself repeatedly:

Do you care?

Do you dare?

Do I?

His arguments against twitter can be summarized as:

Twitter is silly because;

1. People mostly use it to share mundane stuff like what they have for breakfast
2. 140 characters is too little to write anything good
3. All/most twitter users are youngsters who are lonely and want validation/connection
4. Twitter will kill or is killing serious thought and dialogue

While he give no evidence to back up his claims, underlying his assertions seem to be a belief that  online social networks are somehow inferior to real world ones, and that these networks are a sign of degeneration of the society.

What he gets wrong:

1. Confusing the user with the media. Mobile phones are used by terrorists to talk about killing people, are mobile phones evil? Even if it is granted that tweeting about ones breakfast is silly, how does it make twitter silly?
2. The mundane is not. I don’t know Mr Chandan personally but I doubt he can get through a day if he does no “mundane” talk at all. Sharing how your day was with your friends and family is one of the commonest and greatest forms of “bonding” exchanges. If we only spoke of policy, politics and philosophy, we shall either go mad, or turn into fanatics.
3. Ignorance of social media and what makes it great. I think Mr Chandan has not understood why facebook, twitter and blogs have taken the world by storm; the power of social media lies in the centrality of the individual. No longer must he be limited by the tools given to him by traditional mediums of thought exchange. What can be done by social media is limited purely by the ability of its users.
4. Bad basic research. If he had dug just a little beneath the surface, he would have realized that an immense amount of good is being done via twitter, from raising funds for Africa to creating awareness about domestic violence in India. His own associate  editor recently managed to expose the hypocrisy and shallowness of the ruling party (ref: cattlegate)

I sincerely hope, that as a member of the main stream media he will give twitter more serious thought, or at least be informed in his derision.

Here are some further readings for those who wish to know that twitter can be used for and what brevity can do.

How to do good on twitter (Mashable)

10 most creative uses of twitter including quitting smoking

Twitter as a teaching tool

Use Twitter to become a better writer

How to make a plant talk using twitter

How a student twittered his way out of prison

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything By Bill Bryson
2. Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang
3. Wonder That Was India by A.L. Basham
4. Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft , Ronald K. Tacelli
5. The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
6. Narrative Poems by C.S. Lewis
7. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton
8. The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain De Botton
9. Letters from a Skeptic by Edward Boyd , Dr. Gregory A. Boyd
10. The Granta Book of India
11. World of Gurus by Vishal Mangalwadi
12. Woe Is I by Patricia T. O’Conner
13. Rebuilding Your Broken World by Gordon MacDonald
14. The Dip by Seth Godin
15. Poems of Kabir by Rabindranath Tagore

I am not sure if Asha and Immanuel (my sister and the latest addition to the family, her husband) will be very happy to hear that I think of the wedding as in interruption, but the latest (pleasant) break in my rhythm is now officially over.

I have finished maintenance tasks on the main site, this blog and others. Up ahead are

• A free ebook “A manifesto for Indian Writers” which I am editing now and will be launching with my dad’s new site about writing.
• Articles on depression, homosexuality and changing India on Cerebral salad
• Submission of my first set of assignments for PGD’s; Health and hospital management and medical law
• Presentation to the hospital board about the plan of action and priorities for the next year

Oh, and six pack abs.

ciao

Anand P

The house, as I expected, has been given a makeover, though by someone with no aesthetic sense, which could be either of my parents. I have caught a bug in my traveling and so have advised Asha, my sister, to stay away from me; last thing she needs is a red nose and cough just before her wedding. The house is not the only thing that’s getting a makeover, dad tells me sis has a strict beauty regimen for each day of the week, printed and posted above her table.  Today was “scrub your face with walnut scrub and then put a multani mitti face- pack” day.

I am used to book-clutter in my house, everyone at home loves to read. We read all the time and anywhere, so typically I am greeted by magazines on the tea-table, books on the chairs around the dining table, books on the staircase along with dads writing paraphernalia and my room, of course has an overflowing almirah, books stacked on the floor, my bed, and my table.

This time though, the tea-table had just, gasp, news paper, the chairs were empty and dads writing papers were neatly arranged on one of the stairs. To make things worse, someone (mom) had managed to arrange all the books in my book almirah, close it, lock it and lose the keys!! What’s more, the remaining books were missing!!! I was told later that they had been filled into cartons and put away into the loft. Even dads office looked clean and orderly, the first time I have seen it like this in about ten years. Looks like mom finally had her way.

Fortunately I had enough books on me to make the room habitable, even if barely so, then I raided dads office and shifted the books he had ordered for me, into my room, so now the room looks normal with multiple open magazines on the bed, my PGDM textbooks and two or three other books on the table, sharing space with dad’s new laptop, and the floor is sufficiently untidy to call it mine. Whew.

Here is some of those unaesthetic changes I talked about; my mom wanted the railings to look like wood, so now they look like zebras in sepia.