Ramblings of a madman

I've been humming this song called "Hard Sun" by Eddie Vedder which was used as a soundtrack in the movie "Into the wild". The song has a whole country music feel to it, I've always liked the tempo and the guitar riffs, but I've never really paid attention to the lyrics, until yesterday. It is a magical feeling when you suddenly find a song that totally fits your frame of mind. It is indescribable. I am reproducing the lyrics here. The song on the outwards looks like a tale of a relationship between a man and woman. If you delve deeper you would realize it is actually a guise of a person singing about their destiny. How one has to live with the pressures of this world, over how one wants to lead his own life. The woman is a personification of the inner voice and the hard sun, the unforgiving world we live in.

I was looking up on the weekend getaways from Chennai during one of the long weekends in October. I wanted to go this place called "Senjikkottai" aka "Gingee fort". I wanted to get there with my TVS Wego but ended going to Kancheepuram, instead. That was one heck of a 140 km ride. I just couldn't imagine myself riding 140 km to and fro, Gingee. I buried that plan and went ahead with life. Suddenly one night, I rang up my friend, Machiss and asked him whether we could go to Gingee fort the next day morning. The plan was made in a matter of minutes and we were good to go. Things have not been easier. We parked our bike at CMBT and boarded a bus to Gingee at 6 in the morning. It is not the most comfortable way to travel, but it is my most favorite way to travel. When traveling in a public transport, you get to see the different cultural subset of people from various suburbs and towns around Chennai. They have their own routines which are ethnic to them. It is...

I wouldn't call myself a wanderlust, but I don't mind traveling. From the age of 5 to 22, I hardly traveled within the city, let alone outside the limits of the city. I spent all my childhood and weekends within the confinement of the neighborhood that I lived in. I didn't know many places in Chennai until 2011.  I've just gathered my thoughts about traveling, so that I could refer to this after a period of time. Hindsight is always a better vantage point, isn't it? More than the serenity of the destination, what has always amazed me, has been the journey to that place. Beauty no longer fascinates me, it is the oddities that do. I dont want to go beautiful places, i just want to go to odd places, the mundaness of the place that people look over when they view with a romantic eye. My ideal kind of wander would be to choose to travel like a common man, stay in a humble place without any luxury and experience the place like how any local would, in that area. I do...

There are days when you wake up and do not want to face people. You just want to avoid the whole world and then sulk in frustration. If you actually take the plunge and get out, it is amazing how your day changes. There is no point in sitting and mourning over spilled milk. If you are not getting something that you need from somewhere, don't cry about it, just go "Well, I am gonna go here and find what I need". At least that's how I have been, all my life. It is not reflecting poorly on the places we don't get what we need, rather puts the stress on the reluctance to make a fuss about not getting something.  In my opinion, what comes towards you is more important than things you go towards. I have let go numerous opportunities because I thought I will be of no use for the other person or they really didn't need me. I honestly think the world will be a better place and free of any disappointment, if we only did what we would offer others normally, rather goi...

When I was a kid, my father used to sit me on his lap and tell stories. All the stories would be me saving people, wearing a "power shoe", tossing groundnuts into my mouth, riding an "Oo ve si" (USA) cycle to the crime scene. The first memory of me trying to actually ride a cycle was when I used to visit my grandmother's thatched home. There used to be shops dedicated for letting cycles on hire. I would give 2 rupees, hire a cycle for an hour and try to ride it, but to no avail. My mother then got me an used ladies cycle to learn cycling. After innumerable number of falls and jamming the cycle into the curb, I learned to cycle. I rode that cycle to my school with so much pride with that feeling of having grown up.  After moving to a new home, new neighborhood and new school, my parents decided to buy me a new cycle. My first proper cycle was a "Hercules Top Gear" with 5 gears aka The Black Panther. All the kids at school would muck around wi...

One fine Sunday evening I was watching the final episode of "hunter x hunter" and Ging uttered the words that would resonate with the core of my existence.... I met the oldest friend who is in my life right now, when I was strolling along the street one day. Fate decided we would play Ashes 1999 cricket and Brian Lara cricket 2000 for hours together and that would then evolve into us playing for hours and hours breaking windows (physical) now and then. It was always the two of us. We were the outcast because we sucked at it so much back then. The first time I met the closest friend I have right now, we quarreled over, me swearing at him. Umpteen number of walks and strolling the cycle back home, we found each other to be great companions. Those 3 years, everywhere he went, I went. Everywhere I went, he came. He challenged me at everything I did, took me along and fought for my opportunities. All I did was, listen patiently to whatever he had to say. Circumstances would ...

Consider two foetuses, F1 and F2. F1 was conceived before F2, but was delivered after F2. Of the two, which one is older?  It would be F2 as it was delivered before F1, even though the latter was conceived earlier. As things stand, one's existence is recognized only when one gets out of their mother's womb. Why not recognize the existence of a life from the day it was conceived, if your birth date is truly the date of your origin. Is the birthday that you are celebrating, really your birthday? http://www.whenwasiconceived.com/  : This website lets you to find the approximate date when your mother got conceived you, what song was topping the charts in the US and the movie that got released at that time. Give it a try. That brings us to the question what is 'you'? If you consider from a physical standpoint, the cells which are building blocks of our body, get replaced constantly and with passage of time, the cells which used to be you, are no longer you. No...