Fall in the UK

The weather in Oct/Nov is mostly pathetic in this part of the world. Dull days, duller and cold nights. The sun hardly shines through, and the haze makes it a little difficult for the likes of me, whose soul object of living weekends is to go out and make this country look more beautiful than it actually is :).

Also, I have just realized that autumn is not the fiery red here, as it is in the US. Autumn is the colour of rust, and if you are lucky, when the sun does peek through and you are out and about, it could be a very soothing gold.

P.S. I shall be back home in the new year. The only thing I will miss from my life for the last year or so, is the opportunity this place gave me to explore something I hadn't known I had any talent for.

You have one life to live. Or atleast you cannot hold more than one lifetime of memories at any time. So make sure that you can count yesterday as having been spent in a manner, the same you'd love to spend again tomorrow. If being carefree makes you happy, then so be it! If falling over trying to follow your curly stubborn tail makes you laugh, do it. There is no shame and no honour. Both often involve third party emotions and hence are not the kind of stuff you want to bank on. There is just one person who mostly always plays along, .... it's You. Listen to what people have to say, but never evaluate yourself solely on what They have to say.

And stop trying too hard. You cannot always do what you love. Someone has to pay the bills and maybe you are born of the lesser fortunate. Accept it. Appreciate yourself because of it, inspite of it. The world around is still not exacting or equating. But remember to take some time out to do what you love today. Don't push it off till tomorrow as tomorrow you have no control over, never.

The essence of all good things lie in their Timing. Ace it.

Back home on a 3 week relaxation scheme? Nopes. More like planned 2 weeks of resolving things that have piled up in my 8 month absence and 1 week kept aside for incidentals. By incidentals I mean falling sick and one or two surprise invitations. One year I have spent in a city called London, and fingers crossed, I can say that I am immune there! A year when I was at my physical best, never lying down when not wanting to, almost. And I always had a feeling that my usual self will catch up with me as soon as I touch my home soil. And it did! I am floored by my old arch enemy! The common cold. Always on the lookut. Ever vigilant. Catching me on the sly and then tormenting me. Like a long lost and despaired lover, who I had injured once and who now and forever hungers for vengeance. Leave me be!

Went to Isle of Wight during Easter. Went alone. It's a marvellous thing if you travel alone. It's different. It's calm. And it feels that you own yourself for the time being. It is a wonderful feeling.

And there are lots of photos to share! If anybody cares that is! :P
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59166866@N07/tags/isleofwight/

At different times in life, I have had different passions. One can say, photography is the latest addition to that. But as with me, these passions don't seem to last. Like, for example, I bought a decent digital camera last winter, which gives you all these damn good pics, but they now do not appear good enough when I have seen what you can achieve with a DSLR. Well I already new that when I bought it I guess, but then I had no idea that this whole concept would interest me much. And now that it has consumed me, I am seriously thinking of putting up my digicam on eBay and use the sales to boost the budget to a DSLR.

And I have been educated by a friend that these lenses apparently don't come cheap. Well atleast all the good ones don't. And even if I do buy them, it doesn't guarantee that I will use them faithfully...

Like I said, I am smitten!

And for more, http://www.flickr.com/photos/59166866@N07/

In Retrospection

I am at a point in my life when one needs to decide a few things. The happy-go-lucky way has to end. One is supposed to start thinking about the future, about how and where and in whose company one will be spending it. In my case, it boils down to me deciding whether I want to study further. It is a popular fact that one can study whenever one wishes to, that one can accumulate degrees much later in the career and still benefit from them. The soul reason for me studying my ass out through school years stands so very much in contrast to norm that I am better off keeping it to myself. And I know that that reason will not suffice as a motivation for me studying any further. Truth be told, that reason does not justify me studying as much as I have! That reason cannot justify anything! So? Where does that leave me?

Many of my friends never left studying. They continued with researches and publishing papers and more researches after graduation. But retrospection leads me to see that their motivation was different from mine. That even when in college, where most of us had given up the concept, they had still continued to flourish as students. They simply are continuing what they set out to do. And that there has not been a gross change in perceptions, or so their behaviour suggests. (It is perhaps of some worth to mention here that few possess the strength, or better put, the will to change the equations of life, in that they deal in constants rather than variables, and align them to ever changing perceptions. Hence even when perceptions may have taken a 180 degree spin, behavioural tendencies may show no signs of shear or tension. That according to me defines complacence, but let’s not digress here.)

Then I also have friends who had landed up in meeting rooms directly from class rooms. There are generally speaking two kinds (arguably) - People who had taken up jobs because that seemed to be the best option open, and people who had taken up jobs because that seemed to be the only option open. I believe I belong happily to the latter kind (happiness may also lie in not having to choose) when my friends are of the opinion that I belong to the former. But whichever the kind, many have began migrating from jobs onto further studying, and every single one has chosen to do this abroad (I do not know what to read in this last fact). So I am fast running out of peers who are simple graduates. Does this have a potential threat hidden somewhere which would have me run head first into a mid-life crisis (reserved in context of my career)?

So let’s discuss available options at this point in my life. What if I do decide to study! What do I study? Certainly not core technology. I was never meant for that. (Remember my motivating factor? It did not justify this even when it served as a motivating factor.) Then a Masters in Business Administration or Finance perhaps?! Finance is number crunching to a thick skull like mine and that sort of thing may have dire consequences to my sanity and appetite. The MBA seems more and more a ball game but then it’s a tough nut to crack and knowing my number skills, may be honestly beyond my reach. One argument that I may put forward here is that the IIMs are producing more and more shit these days (and here I am quoting an ex-IIM graduate and a present leader of my firm) and that I can be as worthless even when the MBA curriculum’s through with me.

The other and more complacent option is to stick with the current flow of things and stay put as an employee with a distant hope of one day making sumptuous gains from loyalty and hardcore hands-on experience. This is the easy bit and won’t require any theatrics on my part; as is the case, this comes naturally to me.

I am a person who has expected the benefits of a disciplined life without having to lead an actually disciplined life. I am a lazy man who demands much. But on a number of occasions I find myself equally satisfied with less, much less. And so I am a little bit confused. It has started to dawn on me that what you deserve and what you wish to achieve are one and the same. And there, I am confused.