The Chronicles of a Happy Life

I watched the sunrise today, after a really long time. It’s such a beautiful sight! Weirdly, when I saw the colors of the clouds change from light pink to orange to white.. I absent-mindedly started thinking about how to code this on a computer. That led me to questions - who created us? What is the purpose of our lives? If it’s nothing, why did someone take the trouble to create so much? Here’s a theory - maybe we are all just a simulation - you know, like in a computer game. What if a ‘foot soldier’ of the enemy army in ‘Age of Conqueror’s’ were to ask the same questions? Technically speaking, at an abstract level, that soldier was created by the constructor of his class (assuming that Age was coded using object oriented programming). At a deeper level, that question has no meaning. The soldier has no existence. He is just one of the many manifestations of the same computer program - a sequence of bits being crunched by a heavy-duty-processor over and over again. What is the purpose of his ‘life’? It could only be to do his duty, without thinking about the results. Don’t these words sound familiar?

Does he have free will? Yeah, if you define free will as his ability to do things that are not completely predictable. Every age player knows that nobody can exactly predict what an individual enemy soldier is going to do next. He might have a big impact in his world, for example, he might be the soldier who kills the last soldier of your army, declaring victory and ending the game. Or he could die unnoticed - just one of the many soldiers killed in a battle.

Maybe it is true that God did create us in his own image, and that our lives are truly inconsequential and that we are all manifestations of the same single being.

With these deep thoughts, I turned around, climbed down the stairs and went to sleep.

I do not consider myself to be one who easily bends under pressure. Yet, after almost a year of constant badgering by incredulous (that I STILL hadn’t watched it) friends, a cousin, an aunt and even my mother, I finally sat down one fine Sunday and watched Munnabhai MBBS. I didn’t regret it. It is the coolest, funniest Hindi movie I’ve seen since.. Well, a long time. It is an amazing movie. There is the occasional bit of Hindi-movie-senti, i.e. hyper-melodrama but it can be tolerated. Also, the arrow keys on my PC (I watched it on mplayer) helped.

The senti feeling is still there :(

Today afternoon, I eavesdropped on a couple who were fighting in the Microsoft Canteen. Hey, before you get all judgmental and accusing, know that I had no choice - the woman was speaking loudly, and I was standing right behind them in the line for the dosa. Apparently, the guy had said something that had unknown to him, terribly hurt the woman and she was giving him hell for that. I realized that I had been in so many conversations like that (obviously the one getting hell), that I could perfectly predict the words and body language of the girl. Then, I realized that for every time I had been thus lectured, there must have been many times when I had hurt somebody and that person had not said anything. So people, I’m really sorry if I’ve hurt you in the past - guys included ;) - please feel free to give me hell when I’ve been an ass. I mean it. I’m trying to improve.

I now have friends in FOUR different time zones - Chintz and Sid in America (MSR, Redmond); Siddhu in Korea; Kesu in London and of course all my friends here in India. I don’t know why, but I miss all my friends (esp the bombay ones) a lot this summer. Yes, I miss them all the time, but its more this summer.

I saw the movie, Million Dollar Baby.. Well part of it.. I didn’t have the heart to see it after it got sad. I really can’t understand the point of watching sad movies. One watches movies to escape reality, to go to a place where there is no sadness, to be happy. Why would anybody want to see something that makes them cry?

I also saw Lolita. It’s an awesome movie. Till a few minutes ago, I was terribly eager to see D. Then I found out that it was not directed by RGV (RGV => Ram Gopal Verma, for the uninitiated and those who don’t know my movie tastes :P). It’s only produced by him. But I think I’ll still see it. I guess my standards are dropping… What’s next? A cricket match? After all the pressure is relentless…

Dear friends, thanx for your support. Too sleepy to write anything now… For ppl who are so desperately vella that they’ll read anything (that means you :P) Here is a link to an amazing blog.

For the first time in ten years, I forgot to wish my parents on their marriage anniversary. Felt terrible. Told my grandparents that I wouldn’t be going to Delhi as planned and that like last summer, this time too I wouldn’t be able to meet them. Felt disgusted with myself. Then, had to tell the same thing to my parents. The disappointment in their voice showed clearly. I’ve never felt this guilty in my life.

Some of my friends crib that they need a (longer) break. Some say that they are feeling homesick. Others say that they are lonely with most of their friends gone. I envy them. My problem is not that I’m homesick but that I’m NOT homesick. My problem is not that I’m lonely, but that very often, I find myself avoiding company. The guilt stays all the time, everywhere.

Nothing of this sort happened in Bangalore. I don’t know how to get out of this mess. Throwing myself into work does help. It prevents me from thinking about all this weird stuff. That Microsoft is an amazing place to work really helps. Sitcoms are also a good opium. Bronzebeard, I owe you one.

I had hoped that writing all of this down would make things better. It has not made the slightest difference.

Some people of my batch have taken to playing a very primitive game on the first floor of our hostel, late into the night. I can’t believe they are wasting their time and energy like this! Don’t they understand the value of time?! They should be sitting in front of their computers, searching for and downloading good TV shows like ‘Sex and the City’ (dunno why some guy downloaded only a few episodes scattered over a few seasons. Isn’t that against the sacred law of downloading or sth?), ‘Simpsons’ (I want more) and the 70s show (the person who stopped downloading right after ‘Donna’ got that uniform should be tried as a war criminal!).

Now, back to this primitive game - they give it the name of a noisy insect, which in a weird way makes sense since it involves people making much ado about nothing at frequent intervals. So what if some spherical object hit three thin sticks instead of hitting some other thick stick?!

As I’ve said time and again, I’ve nothing against sports. But these people insist playing right in the middle of public shortcuts (Isn’t the ground only intended for people to walk along the diagonal from one corner to the next?). Not only that, these people also have the George-Bush-syndrome, they believe that everybody has to either be a fervent supporter of whatever they are doing or be crazy! And it gets worse. If the beastly spherical object gets thrown/hit at you for no reason at all, instead of being sorry and apologetic they expect you to throw it back at them - and they maintain an expression of angry impatience while you are doing it!!!

It also gets stranger when people on TV play it. How can anyone watch 22 grown men, who should know better, chase a little ball, and then when they finally see it coming to them, do their best to bat it as far away as possible? Some people who watch like to hurl obscenities while all this is going on. And then they call it the gentleman’s game!