Untitled - 26 Feb 2017

This week (and most the month) passed away in a blur. I was away (do see some of the pics I put up on Instagram) with super limited access to Internet. And unlike other times when I did not have Internet, I did not do any soul searching. I was merely living in the moment, seeping in the scenery and all that.

So the week after I came back from the travel, all of it was spent in recuperating from the laziness that had engulfed me over the previous three weeks. Its hard to get back to the groove but slowly, I am getting back. Thank God for that. There is so much to think about, capture, say, write. This is first in the edition.

So, a few lessons, observations and reflections from the trip are:

1. You are not irreplaceable. At work or at home. Or at friends. Or with anything else. Life goes on. The ego about you being the immortal and all that is so superficial that its not funny. Apart from work, all those pet projects that you want to nurture and grow, no one gives two hoots about them. You think you are adding value to people's lives and they must care? Nope! You are wrong. Nothing adds any value to anyone. And if it does, they dont care. Life is too busy and they'd rather do more things with their time than pause and reflect. Not everyone thinks about larger issues that surround them. May be everyone does. Well, am rambling.

2. Kids can be great! While I was in Mel, I met this Indian family and the young one, a 6-year old girl, was so innocent and so endearing that for those few days, I actually wanted a kid of my own.

P.S.: Now that I am back, I dont think I want a kid. I am happy with once-in-a-while meetups with Myra. And if I get more craving, there is N.

3. It sucks to be a dark-skinned man in a white-country. You may claim that beauty is deeper than skin and your mind is more beautiful than the body and all that. Bullshit. The fact of the matter is, the way you look makes a HUGE difference. You get judged moment you walk in. And why not? We are evolved animals and we have survived all this while by merely relying on the mental models we've created. If we know that we would be safe in the company of people that look like us, we go out and seek the company of similar people. And if you are brown, apart from the billion and half of us that predominantly live in the Indian subcontinent, you will be "them" for the rest of the 5 odd billion people. I dont know if we can fix this but there has to be a way for me to not get bogged down by things!

4. Poker is a tough game. Played at two casinos and both times I was card-dead. Well thats not an excuse. The likes of Negreanu are card-dead all the time and still do well. If they can, I ought to. But I dont. Thing is, I have been playing it pretty regularly (at a point I was playing it once a week, now I get to play once in three months) since 2012 and these three sessions at at the casinos has made me realise that I suck so bad at it. In all I've lost about 75K, not including travel, accommodation, hours and all that. I thought I was good but clearly I am not. I do think that I have what it takes to do well but I am not sure if I have the time to practise. The ones who do well, the ones I know who do well, they get in a lot of hours on the table. More on this some other day.

5. Loved the professionalism and the respect for time in people there. If someone told me that they would meet me at 2, they met me at 2. Irrespective if it was raining, middle of the day, bad weather, they had a bad day, it was their birthday or whatever. People respect time like nobodies business. Here in India, well. Time is like that thing that we want to be strict about but are not. I wish I could live in a society where time gets such precedence as it gets down under. Of course all things are not rosy there but then time has to be THE most important thing that we have and if we cant respect it, what else is there to life?

Apart from time, the other great thing was that people do it with all their heart. If they are working on something, they are in it. They are not slacking. They are not cutting corners. They are not sweeping under the rug. They are doing it as if its going to be the last thing they'd ever do. Something that we have to learn here in India.

So yeah, thats about it for the time being. Over the next few days I hope to write more. Even though there is travel planned but I am going to not let that affect how I live my life. I am pretty lucky that way.

Over n out.

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