What is it that separate men from boys (or for that matter women from girls).
Is it the knack to spot an opportunity and capitalizing on it?
Is it the perseverance to cling to a chance with all one has got?
Is it stamina to run the course?

To me I think it's none of them ....all this could make you a prodigy but test of character is how you react to failures. It’s how do you gather yourself after a fall and how do you spring back. It’s how you don't let anyone else influence yourself worth. It's not about not losing but it's about to lose but still not be lost and that’s what defines character.

And one man whom I can't I help admiring for all this is Sourav Ganguly - Prince of Kolkatta.

He indeed was a prince till his much hyped exit. He was someone who had all the power vesting in his hands. No one could have questioned him. And he had done enough to deserve that power. But as they power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And I would admit that when he was finally consigned to ignominy I thought that was deserved too.

For someone who was a monarch - to work as a commoner and force his way in, knowing pretty well that he could never be the king again is very difficult. When you know that lost glory can never be regained, it's difficult to find a motivation. Many would have given up in a situation where they know that they are not just fighting enemies within but even enemies outside. But for a guy to battle to all that and come out trumps as he has is fantastic. I don’t know whether it was hurt pride, passion for game or hard commercial sense that drove him to work his way back. But instead of lying on his back and crying hoarse about being wronged, he bent his back and proved what he is made up of.

I won’t exaggerate and call him a modern hero or something of that sort but yeah I would admit that there are things or two that all of us could do well to learn from his example.

-sid

Music has immense power.

It’s your companion irrespective of whether you want to party or if you just want to be alone. It’s a great buddy to have when you are happy and wanna dance or if you are sad and just wanna hide. Sometimes it fills an empty day and on other times it provides a soothing relaxation during a hectic day. It gives voice to unsaid and pull out smiles out of nowhere.

Together with poetry, the two weaves a magic as no other known to mankind. At times, I think words were not invented for communication but for poetry coz nowhere else do they seem so comfortable and so apt. A beautiful song is like words dancing gracefully on the tune of music. So sometime you look at the dancer and get wowed by her elegance and grace and on other times you just let music sweep you off your feet.

Poetry is like a sea, majestic when you look at it from a distance, comforting when you let waves come and meet you, deep and magical when you dive in and every time you dive deep inside you find something beautiful to bring out with you. It has got something for everybody…beautiful corals, lively fishes, precious pearls, dangerous sharks ……....That’s poetry.
It doesn’t matter who you like, Shakespeare or Ghalib, Frost or Nirala, Floyd or Gulzar, who creates the magic is not important as long as you can feel the magic, sense its existence and turn to it when you need it.

-siddhartha

Song recommendation of the day:
Am listening to this beautiful song from Parineeta and as is my habit with any song that I like, this song is running in continuous loop…again and again and again.

Raat humaari to chand ki saheli hain
Kitne dino ke baad, aayi woh akeli hain
Sanjha ki baati bhi koi bujha de aaj
Andhere se jee bhar ke, karni hain baatein aaj

Andhera rootha hain,Andhera raitha hain
gumsum sa, kone me baitha hain

Andhera pagal hain, kitna ghanera hian
Chubhta hain, dasta hain….phir bhi who mera hain
Uski hi godi me ,sar rakh ke sona hain
Uski hi baahon me chupke se rona hain
Aankhon se kaajal ban , behta andhera

I like the word ‘inertia’. First I read about it was in class 11th in physics text book but as years passed by, I have grown to associate this word more with psychology than with physics. May be inertia was never a physics term, Newton must have read psychology and he just saw that physics can do well with this concept. It’s amazing how we let ourselves drift just because we are not ready to force ourselves to stop and turn or we just stay rooted even if we want to move ahead.

Force that is needed to change this state of inertia has its origins in our minds. And that force is generated by vector addition of two decisions – one, to act or not to act and two, when to act if one need to. Sometimes, we like to trick ourselves, we tell ourselves it’s not the right time to act when we actually are not even sure if want to act. It’s convenient and it keeps the difficult question away, rather it allows us to pretend that we have an answer when we don’t have one. I can confidently and with a voice of authority tell myself…it’s not the right time, as if I would know what the right time would be. This I guess is one reason why clairvoyance has enthused humanity for ages, because ‘when to act’ has been one of the key drivers of the force that move people.

But ‘to act or not to’ is definitely the complex of the two decisions. This decision is basically a function of our experiences, our perceptions, our apprehensions, our ambitions and our need to get it right. If life was a recipe book then recipe for making this decision would have read something like this - Take all these ingredients, put them in a bowl and stir well, then let it boil in your mind you might first see some indecision frothing at the top but soon it well get cleared and you will have your decision ready to be served hot. Those who might have tried cooking with the help of recipe books would know how it never works out the way it is written. The froth of indecision never goes, that mixture of experiences, apprehensions, perceptions etc. is always more fluid than how it was supposed to be and when you boil it, it always get overcooked. And maybe this is the reason why people prefer a home delivery for a decision like this rather than showing off their skills.

And this brings me back to what I have written once earlier that sometimes we like our decisions to be made for us if we are not sure that we can get them right. Come to think of it, this post was a prequel to that one. And people think only RGV can do that ;-)
Well given I have dabbled in this ‘decision theory’ of mine quite a few times in last 2 months, am sure a sequel to that post would come too……but for that to happen I guess I may just need to go and find me a bodhi tree ;-)

-siddhartha