Vipin

For the longest time, if someone asked me who my best friend was, the answer was clear: it was Vipin. 

In hindsight, I find my previous sentence a bit disingenuous since our relationship was always a little unfair, and fairness has to be an essential quality of anything that can be called a friendship. It was unfair because he, despite my full and absolute lack of qualification for it, kind of hero-worshipped me. 

When he was visiting a party I had thrown in 2022 and had arrived with his wife, his wife mentioned (complained?) to me that he wouldn't tire of telling her how lucky she was to be coming to my party. It was such a bizarre thing for him to say to his wife that I quietly apologized on his behalf. She is a simple lady and was easily humored, so it wasn't a fraction of the ordeal I had thought it would be. 

In 2024, when I last visited his house in Gurgaon, his mom wept inconsolably on my shoulders - she told me that I was all he'd talk about but I, on the other hand, had gone so far away and for all practical purposes had given up on my friendship with him. And that if I hadn't done so, Vipin would have been doing so much better. The last bit she didn't say out loud, but when she said she was super upset with me, it was clear to me that that's what she meant. Again, I knew no other response except an apologetic nod.

I'm certainly guilty of having avoided or ignored 90% of all the calls he made to me, but I didn't see the point of talking to him for hours (and it would always be hours before he'd agree to disconnect) when he would be inebriated beyond any semblance of sanity (and that was the case, every single time, in the last 10 odd years). The few calls I did take would also be filled with effusive praises of me, much of which couldn't attribute to anything meaningful.

I often thought about what may have led to his alcoholism, but why he felt this devotion to me is something I kind of just accepted as an idiosyncrasy of a man out of his wits, and a not something I gave any serious thought to. It was so strange that you had to see it to believe it. I will never know why he adopted that kind of an attitude towards me, because he is no more. 

Rest in peace, Vipin. I will miss you. And I am sorry.

Questions I must not ask in polite company

Is the experience of absence

an absence of experience?

Is the absence of absence

an absence or not?

We discuss the things that exist, 

but of things that don't exist, 

are there many types,

and do those types exist?

आज़ादी

लिखे स्टैटस तमाम, टेक्स्ट कभी,

कभी पोअम, कभी मज़ाक लिखे,

ये चुप्पी चीखती रहती है जो,

उसे पर आदमी क्या खाक लिखे

America

 In other news, I've moved back to the States.

It's a different world.

America I'd argue is more dissimilar to Europe than it is to India.

I'd never have imagined that before experiencing Europe.

In any case, I am back.

I don't really have much else to say today, just wanted to record this development.

Suffering antidote for the decidedly unliberated

Whoever said writing about suffering in an honest way makes it better didn’t know what they were talking about. Only two things help:

First, wisdom—but not the kind tied to truth-seeking. For example, writing with great honesty about one's suffering can help some people clarify their thoughts, but too often, it fuels self-pity instead of easing pain. True relief comes from stepping away from self-pity, even if it means believing a narrative a little removed from the brutal truth, but a narrative that helps you move on.

Second, time—and really, it’s the only thing. Wisdom just buys you time, so time can do the real healing.

A year in England

By the way, I am not here after a long time. 

I wrote a few posts during the course of this year that I never ended up posting, or ended up deleting soon after I posted them because I found them either not upto the already rather baseline standards, to put it charitably, of this blog, or, realized that they were too personal and felt uncomfortable about their presence on the public web, even though I do fully realize that as public spaces go, this one is exceedingly private.

But this has been an interesting year, in many ways. At the end of last year, I moved to London. Ever since I've moved here, I've lived at a 10 minute walk from work, which has been an enormous privilege. I'm not a particularly materialistic guy, and so, there are very few things which money buys that can bolster my utility function. But I have really enjoyed being able to rent a place so close to work, such that I can walk to work in the morning and back in the evening. It is not so much that there's something really special about this walk, but the avoidance of a long commute is a real draw. In New York, I spent an hour and a half one-way on commute and although I had grown quite used to it, being here in such proximity to work has given me many more hours to just spend with my wife. Also, despite what is made out in popular media, London is nowhere near as expensive as Manhattan. I could never imagine living 10 minutes from work back in NY; my twisted sense of morality about spending would never forgive me for spending so much on rent. I'd much rather commute the long distance and donate the money I saved as a result to my favorite charities in New Delhi and New Jersey than fill the coffers of some rich New Yorker landlord.

The extra time has afforded me the luxury of finally spending some time learning web development, something I'd been wanting to do for the longest time but never had the time to devote to it. Turns out, it is a vast, vast, subject - I've been at it for 75 days today and still feel like I've barely skimmed the surface. At least I'm at a good enough point now where I can concieve of embarking on bringing some of my ideas to life. I don't expect those little tools to make me a lot of money - I don't generally expect success of any kind, for that matter - but the creative satisfaction of even 7 or 11 users finding something I build useful would be very fulfilling. Maybe I shouldn't talk too much already given how there isn't anything I've even begun building as yet. Humility, dear Watson.

Being in London also afforded me the ease of traveling to several European countries. The UK itself, of course, where my favorite city so far has been Edinburgh in Scotland. The most breathtaking landscape has been the Seven Sisters cliffs on the southern end. I quite loved Canterbury for its pristine conservation of what I imagine 17th century England must have looked like. Apriori, I expected my favorite towns to be Oxford and Cambridge as I'm quite fond of university towns, but felt a bit overwhelmed by the former and underwhelmed by the latter. My least favorite town has to be Brighton for being too loud, while Bristol was quite meh for the opposite reason. But it isn't that I have a particular dislike for towns that start with B, for I quite liked Bath. In particular, the tiny quaint village of Lacock half an hour or so outside it was a real delight. Among Cotswold villages, I liked it better -- found it to be more real, really - than the more famous and high-profile villages such as Castle Combe and Burford, which felt a bit too pretty, a bit too cosmetic. I haven't been to the other big UK cities like Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, imagining them to be just like London but less grand, even though part of me tells me this is an ignorant view. There are some other little southern England places that I've been to and liked quite a lot: Jurassic coast, for one, was stunning, but Margate takes the cake - not so much for being stunning but because I had a especially pleasant time there, singing old Hindi songs with my wife while walking along the coast. 

Outside UK, I've been to Barcelona, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Prague and Budapest. I do intend to write a bit about each of these cities I've visited, but I'm going to have to come back to it later and fill those parts out. 

If anyone reads this and thinks that I must be a very avid traveler, or suspects me for being a bit of a hypocrite after establishing - claiming, rather - my frugality earlier on in this very post, I have to posit in my defence that my prolificity here is entirely thanks to my wife. I should also confess that in her view we don't travel nearly enough. 

Next month my parents visit me and I plan to take them to Rome and Venice, and then a couple months from then my parents-in-law visit me with whom we plan to go to Paris and Nice. After that, it'll be almost time for us to move back to the States, and we intend to culminate our European adventure with a trip to Zurich before finally going back to good old New Jersey. 

Hypotheticals

If you ask me 

how it has been,

I wouldn't know 

how to tell you.

Not only because 

the truth is deeper, 

to me, 

than I can express,

but also because 

it would be dumber, 

to you, 

than you were expecting.

Thankfully, 

I need not worry,

cause you won't ask

and I won't

answer.

A persistent companion

He takes a pill,

for he feels ill

with his loyal disease,

which replies with ease

that it will go, for now,

but will be back, and how.

A confession in the summer of 2021

I've been depressed for a couple of months. I use the term responsibly. Having been there in 2011-2013 and briefly in 2017, I know how to separate healthy sadness from depression. A decade ago, I was admittedly less wise, and consequently the phase lasted really long. I was beholden to what Carol Dweck calls the fixed mindset. I simply didn't have the maturity it takes to come out of it. But it doesn't only take maturity. It takes energy, too. That's the hard part, in many ways, since depression actively attacks the very life energy it is critical to muster in order to get out of it. 

In 2017, I almost sensed its onset and started chipping away at it from the very beginning. In this instance, I had the maturity to see how it sets in, how it captures you helplessly if you give it any time to clench its paws upon the ground beneath your feet. I remember I made a four hours long call to my best friend - the call was very honest about my sadness - and yet there wasn't a hint of being sentimental about it, from my side or his. I was interested in a solution, not solace, and he helped me plan one. It worked.

This time, although I'm not as much of a hopelessly immature person as I was a decade ago, I have less energy. It is less certain the escape velocity I need I can muster. While everyone argues against being alone when depressed, I personally feel that being alone worked in my favor in 2017 when fighting it. It gave me greater freedom to be the architect of my comeback. Another unfortunate fact, this time, is that I have already given it couple of months to set in. The earlier you start rooting it out, the better your shot. And finally, and although it's a depressing thought in and of itself, this time around in my life there are things I need to prioritize even above fighting my depression.

That's just the hand I'm dealt. What I'll do with it we'll see. As of now, even I don't know. I'm not being maudlin here. I'm just putting in writing what needs to be recorded beyond any ambiguity. For my own sake, and for the sake of those whose lives I impact.

Hodge-podge

I know, I said this would be the year of reading. Of posts talking about the books I'm reading. And I read quite a bit in the first couple of months. Then life took over. 

It's OK. I cannot focus on reading books amidst what has been happening. I don't even care about the books I so meticulously planned out for this year, to be honest. 

It's in times like these that one realizes one's insignificance. There is no doubt, though, that the cost exacted for a newly humble world is not worth the prize.  

I cannot sleep. Memories from years past keep reeling before me. Memories from times I did not value and spent predominantly memorizing other more distant times, they come home to me and ask me if I like them now.

There is desperation all around. I know so many have got it worse than me. I don't know how to feel anymore.

असमंजस

सीखा अच्छे बुरे का फ़र्क़ फिर भी रास्ता हम क्या लेते 

कभी दो रावणों में चुनना था, कभी दो राम ही स्पर्धा में थे 

In praise of offices

One of the things the last year has revealed to me is how intensely people itch to (and indeed do) go to restaurants, take holidays, go shopping, and hold house parties, even during the height of the pandemic. Granted we're social animals, but the trade-off with a fatal pandemic would have tilted the balance much more in favor of staying put, I'd have thought, than it did. After all, if it were OK to talk with precision in polite society, most of these trips could be categorized even charitably as "somewhat desirable but wholly unnecessary". But even amidst all this 'being realistic and getting on with our lives', any suggestion of reopening offices is enough to make most people shudder in disbelief! "How can they do that, it's so dangerous," they'll balk at the faintest hint of it, even while on their way to the popular Sunday morning brunch hotspot.

But for all the bad rep offices get, they fulfilled a most important purpose even outside of bringing people together for collaborative work: they excused us from ourselves.

While it has been argued that working from home has played to introverts' advantage, I'd argue that introverts, in fact, will relate most with my defence of the office-going routine. As introverts fully well know, their need for solitude has more to do with not having to relate with other people, than being geographically alone. To that effect, the office, in spite of putting you in the same building as hundreds others, offered you a partial solitude. It provided a break from having to perform your personal relationships at all times: imagine the live-in with the relatives you didn't want, and thanks to your office routine, it would never come up anyway. Or the party you had no interest in going to, so you'd just work a little longer. Office was the separation from personal life that gave us a few quiet moments to reflect on the personal life. Equally, going home from work was a breather from the professional race, giving us the moments to make sense of work, to see where it fits in the larger perspective of our full lives. With office and home one and the same, there is no refuge from either onslaughts of experiences: experiences that we consume ever more voraciously but assimilate hardly at all.

In other news, I got promoted the other day, although that has nothing to do with my decision to write favorably about offices today. I do feel the crests and troughs of professional successes and failures, but ever so slightly that I feel sorry that I'm not more excited when it is good news, such as this. It's like being a buzzkill. When it is bad news, I don't feel quite as sorry about not being distraught, since the folks around also don't mind it, of course. The last two sentences are not meant to imply that I prefer bad news, I certainly don't haha. I wasn't expecting the promotion, but then I rarely expect good things to happen to me; I find that I live more peacefully this way. But I'm happy for it, mainly by the almost teary-eyed joy it brings my parents who toiled so hard on me for so many years so unconditionally and plainly. It reminds me of how inspiring they are, and that's the best part of the promotion.

Reading Progress Check-In #1

What I've read so far:

When Breath Becomes Air

King of Capital - pages 1-67

Buffett: An American Capitalist - pages 1-111

Sapiens - pages 1-18

The World - pages 102-125

Big Debt Crises - pages 1-15

The New World Order - pages 1-21

Power - pages 1-17

Thoughts:

I think I need to build more discipline in terms of making sure to finish reading a book before starting another. I've been reading a fair bit, but as we can see it has been scttered across 8 books!

Some of it is attributable to the fact that there are books I read alongside my wife (one of us reads aloud, mostly me) - those are books that are of interest to both of us - in the above list, that's:

When Breath Becomes Air

Sapiens - pages 1-18

Power - pages 1-17

Clearly, I can't really pin my bad habit on this though, since this still leaves many open books. In fact the only book I've actually finished was the one listed above, not one of those I'm reading alone:

King of Capital - pages 1-67

Buffett: An American Capitalist - pages 1-111

The World - pages 102-125

Big Debt Crises - pages 1-15

The New World Order - pages 1-21

I guess I have to make this list smaller, so for the foreseeable future I'll commit to finishing the following books where I've made substantial progress, before I read any others:

King of Capital - pages 1-67

Buffett: An American Capitalist - pages 1-111

This is, of course, in addition to Sapiens and Power, which I'll be reading with my wife per some schedule that would work for us both. 

Reading 2021

I suppose I read more than most people, but I do see how that's not really saying much given that most people don't really have a reading habit at all beyond reading social media messages and news headlines.

When I look back at what I've read over the years it seems like a fair bit, but only when I take it all in at once; it kind of obfuscates the fact that those years were mostly spent not reading at all, with episodic periods of a month here and month there where I read every day. That I have ended up reading a fair bit is more than anything just a testament to my age - I will be 35 in a couple of months and those intermittent bouts add up to something when you've been around for this long.

There is really a lot at any given time that I plan on reading, and despite that (and sometimes because of that) I often end up reading nothing. This year, I aim to change that. 

My list at this point is quite Financial Economics heavy, but there's a bit of History and Philosophy, I'm putting the list out here for quick reference and also to hold myself accountable. 

As I go through these books, I will share my thoughts on the books on this blog. I don't expect to write book reviews - I don't think I'm qualified to do that - just key takeaways or quick summaries for my own later reference. If there's a book I like a lot, I will praise uncritically, too.

Here's the list:

Finance
Efficiently Inefficient (Lasse Heje Pedersen)*
Fixed Income Securities (Bruce Tuckman)
Fixed Income Relative Value Analysis (Doug Huggins, Christian Schaller)****
Smart Portfolios (Robert Carver)
The Alchemy of Finance (George Soros)
Credit Derivatives (George C. Chacko)***
Distressed Debt Analysis (Stephen G. Moyer)
Expected Returns (Antii Ilmanen)*
King of Capital (David Carey,  John Morris)*****
Buffett: An American Capitalist (Roger Lowenstein)

Economics
Big Debt Crisis (Ray Dalio)
The Changing World Order (Ray Dalio)**
Fault Lines (Raghuram Rajan)*
Poor Economics (Abhijeet Banerjee, Esther Duflo)

Cognitive Psychology and Self-Help
Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)*
Misbehaving (Richard Thaler)
Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker)
The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)
Atomic Habits (James Clear)
Incognito (David Eagleman)*

Philosophy
Anger (Thich Nhat Hanh)
The Art of Power (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Edwin Bryant)
Man's Search For Meaning (Victor Frankl)

History
Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond)
Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari)
An Area Of Darkness (VS Naipaul)
The World: An Introduction (Richard Haass)

Mathematics
Learning From Data (Gilbert Strang)

Writing down the list of books was helpful for another reason. It opened me to the possibility that the list may be too long and I would have to prioritize. In particular, it helped me move the following books to stage 2, as it were, in that their turn would only come after I'm done reading each of the books I've listed above:

Economics Rules (Dani Rodrik)
Mastering The Market Cycle (Howard Marks)
The Rise and Fall of Nations (Ruchir Sharma)
Applied Financial Macroeconomics and Investment Strategy (Robert T. McGee)
Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics (Nicholas Wapshott)
Early India (Romila Thapar)

Footnotes:

*These books are ones I've read before, but it's been a while and I want to revisit.
** Preface with CFA L2 Reading 12 and Damodaran YT "Cracking the currency code"
*** Preface with CFA L2 Reading 45
**** Preface with CFA L2 Readings 47-51
***** Follow up with:
Accounting (Damodaran YT Course, CFA L2 Reading 21),
Corporate Finance (CFA L2 Readings 23, 24, 27, Damodaran YT Course),
Equity Valuation (CFA L2 Readings 30-35, Damodaran YT Course 'Valuation')
Equity Investing (Damodaran YT Course 'Investment Philosophies' Sessions 12-21)
Private Equity (CFA L2 Readings 37, 40)

Checking in, because why not

This blog was started more than 15 years ago, and by most measures, that's a long enough time for people to change unrecognizably from their earlier selves. For me, this blog serves a very useful purpose in that it keeps me anchored to who I was then, and also gives me a sense of how, as time went on, I deviated away from that person, and reverted back to being that person, in myriad ways, over many occasions. 

Today's is going to be a self-indulgent post, because, well, it's a personal blog with a readership of precisely one, what other reason do I need? 

Sure, I've deviated, as one should, from that 2005 lad, but there's value in continuing to be that person, in some roundabout way, and in my experience this blog has been as good a tool as any to serve that purpose. Come to think of it, if I hadn't created this blog and decided, somewhat impulsively, to chronicle some small fraction of my life on it, what other tools could I have employed to fulfill this need for anchoring? 

Sometimes I tell people about something that happened in the summer of 2011, and they're surprised I remember dates to that level of precision. I don't quite agree that remembering the year and approximate month of events is too impressive, but if at all it is, I would credit that also to writing this blog. Often, I only remember things because I remember under what mood, in which room, in what degree of loneliness, did I write a particular post, and therefore I remember what had been transpiring in my life in those days.

I am, it is fair to say, a fairly different person from whoever started this blog, even whoever wrote on it in 2007, or 2010, or 2013. As a bundle of thoughts, opinions, desires, character, I'm maybe not terribly different from my 2015 self, but then if I account for external aspects such as livelihood, fitness, marital status, again, much has changed.

Now I'm almost 35 (I was 19 when I started here) and my hair are greying at great speed. In the last 3 years alone, I've put on 33 pounds (15 kgs) of body weight, and I wasn't particularly slim even back then (this is me 3 years ago). Compared to my 2005 self, I'm 53 pounds (24 kgs) heavier.

Internally, I think I verged too far away from my 2005 self in the years 2007 to 2013. The second half of that period was marked by slipping into depression, becoming a bit of a toxic guy, about whom neither my present self nor my 2005 self would have many good things to say. The period since 2014 I've tried to calm myself down, think clearly and work hard. I believe I've made some good progress, but being married over the last year and a half has thrown new situations my way and given me more to adapt to, just when I had started thinking I'd reached a point where I could adapt to anything. Grandiosity is always dangerous, even when it is about how malleable or non-grandiose you are, in fact more so then.

Thus ends this post on no notable note. I am writing this during stolen time, and must go back now to attend to some work.

On loop these days

Visuals, music, singing, lyrics - I'm a fan of all four - here's the song:

वृत्तिसारूप्यम इतरत्र

#1.4 वृत्तिसारूप्यम इतरत्र
हिंदी: बाकी समय, यह मन की वृत्तियों में समाया रहता है
English: At other times, it is absorbed in the changing states of mind.

मन की वृत्तियाँ यानी की भावनाएं, विचार, अंतर्द्वंद आदि: मन इन्हे आत्मा के समक्ष प्रस्तुत करता है. आत्मा, जिसमे चेतना की शक्ति है, इन वृत्तियों पर प्रकाश डालती है, इनसे अवगत होती है. अतः हम इन भावनाओ से अवगत होते हैं, और मन-बुद्धि को श्रेय देते हैं, या फिर यूँ कहें, की मन बुद्धि को ही अपना सत्य, अपनी आत्मा मानते हैं. और चूंकि मन का तो स्वभाव ही है बदलते रहना, हमें लगता है की हम स्वयं (यानी, हमारी आत्मा) बदलते रहते हैं. इस स्थिर, निश्चल आत्मा को अस्थिर मन के रूप में जानना, इसे योग में "अविद्या (Avidya)" कहा गया है, और अविद्या कारण है जीव के सम्सार (https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/essays/samsara-hinduism) के बंधन में बंधे रहने का, प्रकृति से उलझे रहने का. वचस्पति मिश्र इसके उल्लेख में इसकी तुलना एक व्यक्ति से करते हैं, जो एक मैले आईने में अपना प्रतिबिम्ब देख कर खुद को ही मैला समझता है, और परेशान रहता है.

इस प्रकार से अविद्या का वर्णन पतंजलि योग से भी पुराना है. चंदयोग उपनिषद् में इंद्र देवता और विरोचन असुर को पता चलता है की जिसने आत्मा को जीत लिया वो हमेशा के लिए सब कुछ जीत गया. वो दोनों ऋषि प्रजापति के पास पहुँचते हैं यह जानने के लिए की आत्मा को कैसे पाया जाए. ऋषि जानते थे की इनकी नियत भौतिक दुनिया पर वर्चस्व प्राप्त करने की है, इसीलिए परिहास के लिए वे उन्हें अपने लक्ष्य हेतु पानी के कटोरे में देखने को कहते हैं. विरोचन असुर कटोरे में अपना शरीर देख कर संतुष्ट हो जाता है. इंद्र इस उत्तर से असंतुष्ट, ऋषि से पूछते हैं, 'अगर यही आत्मा है तो व्यर्थ है, तो ये तो शरीर के मरने पर मर जायेगी।' इसके बाद ऋषि प्रजापति इंद्र को परत दर परत आत्मज्ञान की सही विधि समझाते हैं.

यह अविद्या ही कारण है की आत्मा, जो वास्तव में सदा शुद्ध और एक सी है, कभी खुश, कभी दुखी, कभी भ्रमित मालूम होती है - हालांकि ये सब तो मन की वृत्तियाँ हैं. राजा भोज इसके उल्लेख में एक झील में प्रतिबिंबित चाँद का उदाहरण देते हैं, जो हमेशा हिलता डुलता सा नज़र आता है, जबकि यह चाँद नहीं, झील का जल है जो हवा से हिल रहा है. जहां एक तरफ चेतना का श्रेय मन-बुद्धि को देना भ्रम है, वहीँ दूसरी तरफ ऐसा मानना की मैं (यानी आत्मा) ये बात सोच रहा हूँ, या वो कार्य कर रहा हूँ, ये भी भ्रम है. सोचने वाला तो मन-बुद्धि है, और करने वाला शरीर है, ये दोनों ही प्रकृति का हिस्सा हैं, पुरुष/आत्मा नहीं। आत्मा इन सब की साक्षी है। योग में आप जब बाहर के सब कार्य, विचार, आदि एकाएक रोक देते हैं, तब ये आभास प्रबल होता की आप तो अब भी हैं; जब मन के विचार, भावनाएं, इनसे आप अवगत नहीं हैं, किसी कार्य से अवगत नहीं हैं, पर अपने होने से अवगत हैं, इसका क्या अर्थ है. आप अगर अब भी हैं, तो आप इन सब से परे हैं, केवल इनको प्रकाशित करने वाली चेतना.

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यहाँ पर एक और प्रैक्टिकल में काम आने वाली बात: अभी तक जिसे हम मन-बुद्धि कह कर एक वस्तु की तरह समझ रहे हैं, उसकी भी कई परतें हैं, जो वैसे तो ध्यान (meditation) से ही बारीकी से समझ आएंगी, हालांकि बात को संक्षेप में रखा जाए तो किसी भी चीज़ के ज्ञान में, एक द्रष्टा होता है, एक द्रिश्य, और एक दूरबीन (ये योग विद्या के शब्द नहीं हैं, केवल संक्षेप में समझाने के लिए इस शब्दावली का प्रयोग कर रहा हूँ). ध्यान करते समय आप इस पर विचार से अपने भीतर झाँक सकते हैं. इससे मन-बुद्धि की परतें भी नज़र आती हैं, उनका उल्लेख आगे:

stage 1: मन (द्रष्टा) इन्द्रियों (दूरबीन) द्वारा बाहर की वस्तुओँ, आवाज़ों (द्रिश्य) से अवगत है 
stage 2: अहंकार* मन द्वारा इन्द्रियों (sense organs such as eyes, ears..) से अवगत है
stage 3: बुद्धि अहंकार द्वारा मन से अवगत है
stage 4**:  बुद्धि directly नहीं परन्तू stage 3 के निष्कर्ष से अनुमान*** (inference) द्वारा अहंकार से अवगत हैं
और ध्यान लगाने पर:
stage 5: "आप" बुद्धि द्वारा अहंकार से अवगत हैं
stage 5 के आभास से अवगत कराना भी बुद्धि का ही कार्य है, इस प्रकरण में यह बुद्धि का अंतिम कार्य है. इसे विवेक-ख्याति कहा गया है, इसके बाद बुद्धि जान जाती है की वह आपका परम सत नहीं है. इसके बाद,
stage 6: आप/आत्मा  बुद्धि से अवगत हैं, अपने शुद्ध रूप में है.

* यहां अहंकार का अर्थ घमंड नहीं है, अहंकार का अर्थ है "अपने कार्यों, शरीर, विचारों को जोड़कर इस सब को एक स्वाधीन इकाई (individual entity), "मैं" की तरह प्रस्तुत करने की शक्ति।
** इसके लिए अहंकार पर ध्यान करने की सलाह दी गयी है
*** चूंकि अनुमान (inferential reasoning) भी बुद्धि की ही शक्ति है, आप stage 4 को ऐसे भी लिख सकते हैं: बुद्धि बुद्धि द्वारा अहंकार से अवगत है

तदा द्रष्टु स्वरूपेवस्थानम

#1.3 तदा द्रष्टु स्वरूपेवस्थानम
हिंदी: तब, पुरुष/आत्मा अपने शुद्ध रूप में वास करती है
English: Then, the seer abides in his own true nature

पिछले सूत्र में अपनी भावनाओं और विचारों पर पूर्ण अंकुश लगाने कि बात की गयी. इसके बाद ये सवाल स्वाभाविक ही है की क्या ऐसा करने का मतलब जीवन त्यागना तो नहीं, चूंकि हमारे जीवन का सम्पूर्ण अनुभव तो हमारे मन के ख्यालों से ही हमें होता है? या फिर क्या पतंजलि एक जड़ स्थिति की कल्पना कर रहे हैं, एक coma के जैसी स्थिति की? इसलिए, इस सूत्र में पतंजलि आपको भरोसा दिलाते हैं की ऐसा नहीं है. वे कहते हैं की वास्तव में, योग द्वारा पायी गयी स्थिति में आत्मा अपने शुद्ध रूप में वास करती है. इसको समझने के लिए हमें पहले ये जान लेना चाहिए की जब वेदांत अथवा योग आत्मा/पुरुष की बात करते है, तब वो आखिर किस चीज़ की बात कर रहे होते है. इस पर चर्चा करते हैं:

जब आप अपनी बात करते हैं, मसलन, जब मैं कहता हूँ की "मैं सुशांत हूँ." तब वो क्या चीज़ है, जिसे मैं सुशांत शब्द से सम्भोदित कर रहा हूँ?

अधिकांशतः जब हम ऐसा कहते हैं तो हमारा अभिप्राय होता है अपने शरीर से, अपने मन-बुद्धि से और उसके विचारों से.

फ्रांस के मशहूर philosopher Descartes ने कहा था, "I think, therefore I am." ऐसा कहकर उन्होंने ये कल्पना की कि मेरा मन/विचार ही मेरे होने का प्रमाण है. जब मैं सोच नहीं रहा होता, जैसे की deep sleep के दौरान, तब मुझे अपना होना भी ज्ञात नहीं होता। अतः सरल शब्दों में कहा जाए तो: मैं कौन हूँ? मैं "मेरा मन / मेरे विचार" हूँ, "मेरा शरीर" मैं नहीं हूँ, मेरा शरीर बस एक वस्तु के समान है.

अभी आपने देखा की Descartes का उत्तर एक आम आदमी के कल्पना से थोड़ा परे था. योग और वेदांत का उत्तर इससे भी एक कदम परे है. इनके अनुसार, जब आप कुछ देखते हैं, तो उस में "दो" के होने का पता चलता है, एक देखने वाले, आप, और एक वो जिसे आप "देख" रहे हैं. यहां पर "देख" शब्द का तात्पर्य केवल आँखों द्वारा देखने से नहीं हैं, दरसल अगर आप किसी चीज़ के होने से अवगत हैं, तो एक आप हैं जो अवगत हैं, और एक वो है आप जिससे अवगत हैं. इस सन्दर्भ में "देख" शब्द को समझिये।

क्या आप अपने कपड़ें देख सकते हैं? हाँ, इसलिए यहाँ 2 के होने का पता चलता है, और निश्चित ही वे कपड़े (द्रिश्य), वे आप नहीं हैं. यहां द्रिश्य (दिखने वाला) है 'कपड़े' और द्रष्टा (देखने वाला) है 'आपकी आँख'. तो क्या आप आपकी आँख/आपका शरीर हैं? अपने आप से पूछिए, क्या आप अपनी आँख के होने से अवगत हैं? हाँ, आपका दिमाग आपकी आँख से आपको अवगत कराता है. इसलिए आँख/शरीर तो हुआ 'द्रिश्य' (अतः आप अपनी आँख / अपना शरीर नहीं हैं) और आपका दिमाग/मन हुआ 'द्रष्टा'।  तो क्या आप अपना दिमाग/मन हैं? इस पर Descartes का उत्तर है "हाँ". परन्तु योग और वेदांत कहता है कि फिर गौर कीजिये, क्या आप अपने दिमाग से अवगत हैं?

अभी तक की सारी व्याख्या छोड़ दें, यदि मैं आपसे पूछता हूँ, "क्या आपको पता है की आपकी बुद्धि क्या विचार कर रही है, आपका मन क्या महसूस कर रहा है?" तो क्या आप "हाँ" नहीं कहेंगे? अर्थात आपकी बुद्धि और मन खुद हुए द्रिश्य, और "आप" हुए द्रष्टा। इस "आप" को योग और वेदांत 'पुरुष' / 'आत्मा' कहते हैं। जिस प्रकार आप के कपड़े केवल एक वस्तु है, उसी तरह, यदि आप अपने आत्मा के द्रिष्टीकोण से देखें, तो आपका शरीर और मन भी केवल वस्तु के समान, और आपकी आत्मा हैं आप।

इस समय, एक और रोचक सवाल यह है की जिस तरह आँख देखती है, कान सुनते हैं, उसी तरह, आत्मा क्या करती है? इसका उत्तर ऊपर की चर्चा में ही है. आत्मा आपके मन से अवगत है (और फलस्वरूप उस सब से अवगत है जिससे आपका मन अवगत है), यह आपके मन-बुद्धि को प्रकाशित करती है, यह "चेतना" ही इस आत्मा की शक्ति है. अब आप इस सूत्र को दोबारा पढ़िए तो आप जानेंगे की उसका अर्थ क्या है: योग के द्वारा "आप" अपने असली रूप में वास कर पाएंगे।

अब सवाल उठता है, आखिर असली रूप में वास करने का क्या मतलब है, क्या अभी, इस समय, आत्मा अपने सही स्वरुप में नहीं है? व्यास इस सूत्र की व्याख्या में कहते हैं की आत्मा तो सदैव ही अपने शुद्ध रूप में वास करती है, दरअसल पतंजलि का मतलब यह है कि जीव को लेकिन यह भ्रम होता है की आत्मा उसके मन/शरीर में हैं (या सरल शब्दों में कहा जाए तो जीव को लगता है की उसका मन और शरीर ही वो है), इसलिए ऐसा कहा जा सकता है की जब तक ये भ्रम है तब तक आत्मा अपने असली स्वरुप में नहीं है. व्यास आत्मा की  तुलना एक कांच से करते हुए समझाते हैं की जिस प्रकार एक लाल वस्त्र पर रखा हुआ कांच खुद लाल प्रतीत होता है, उसी प्रकार मन, बुद्धि और शरीर को प्रकाशित करने वाली आत्मा खुद ही मन, बुद्धि और शरीर के रूप में महसूस होती है, हालांकि ये एक भ्रम है.

आत्मा चेतना है, प्रकाशित करना,अवगत कराना तो इसका स्वभाव ही है, तो फिर यदि यह अपने असली स्वरुप में ही रहेगी, मन-शरीर को प्रकाशित नहीं करेगी, तो फिर यह किसे प्रकाशित करेगी, किससे अवगत होगी?

तब ये खुद से अवगत होगी, और यही योग का लक्ष्य है.

On Black Lives Matter, Migrant Labour Crisis, and Elephant Killing

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/asia/india-elephant-death-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/abhay-deol-is-twitters-new-hero-for-calling-out-woke-indian-celebs-2240094

Please do speak up against the violent death of the elephant, but question yourself, why do we move so swiftly from compassion for the elephant to blaming an entire state and people for supposedly ingrained violent tendencies? No act of violence can define a people at large; is there any other state entirely clean of violence? And while you're at it, cultivate the healthy skepticism that you may not know the full story yet, that the elephant's death might have been an accident, an unintended consequence of saving crops from boars*?

*But then again, question yourself, why it is OK to kill boars intentionally, not elephants unintentionally, with the explosive pineapples? Looking for a reason more convincing than "they damage crops", we are talking about internal explosions here, after all! Are different levels of sensitivity warranted for different species of animals? Is that an extension of how different levels of sensitivity are the norm for different races** of humans?

**Or genders or nationalities or religions or orientations or classes or castes - pick the discrimination that moves you most; and again question yourself, why do I only feel moved to speak up by that particular style of discrimination***, even though they all are in principle the same, that is, discrimination against someone for something that was determined for them at birth, with no input of their own?

***But then again question yourself, what's so wrong with speaking up for only a few of all the injustices? Should one not speak up for any injustice, if he does not speak up for all? If one doesn't speak up for injustice against migrant labour in India, does he have no right to speak up for injustice against the black people in the US? If he remained silent about one injustice, is it better if he keeps shut about all injustices? Would the world be a better place with that approach?

On why, and why not, to condone Virtue Signaling

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opinion/sunday/virtue-signaling.html

Interesting article that compels you to re-consider your own assumptions, and discourages one from dismissing other people's outrage as mere virtue signalling. The authors point out that doing so is ill-advised, because "virtue signalling does not mean that their outrage is not authentic."

Virtue Signalling is when someone expresses outrage over something not so much because he is truly outraged, but because he thinks that doing so will signal to others how he himself is morally superior to those he is outraged by. After all, it is easier to appear environmentally conscious by expressing outrage on social media about carbon dioxide emissions from big corporations, than by turning off your own AC, or even forsaking consuming the products manufactured by those corporate houses. Additionally, it is impolite to just come out say "I care a lot about the environment" - that would just seem vain and off-putting - so expressing outrage at someone else who's being careless about climate change is more clever.

The authors of the article above, however, reached this conclusion (that outrage can be both authentic and virtue signalling simultaneously) in a convoluted way that is far from convincing. 

To summarize their experiment, they showed a group of people a video where a person is given some money, and then given the option to share some of it with another person if he so wishes. The person in the video chooses not to share the money, and keeps all of it for himself. Then the people watching the video are asked how outraged they felt by seeing this behaviour, and they all responded anonymously. The interesting part is that prior to watching the video, half of these people were also given some money and the option to share it (privately and anonymously such that it couldn't be identified by anyone, including the researchers, who those people were that got this deal). It turned out that the half that had got the deal prior to watching the video ultimately reported far less outrage on seeing the video, than the half that did not get the deal themselves.

The researchers' inferential reasoning seems to coersively bring 'virtue signalling' into the picture. They suggest that the first experiment (some participants being given money and the option to give away some of it) reduced the incentive for virtue signalling. This argument is made articulately. To paraphrase the authors: "After all, if a participant chose to share, she would look virtuous regardless of how much outrage she subsequently expressed toward the selfish person. And if she chose not to share, she would look dishonorable regardless of how much outrage she later expressed." And I agree, if there was an incentive for virtue signalling in the first place, it would have been greatly reduced after the first option-to-give-away-money experiment.

However, since the experiment was anonymized the entire time, there isn't a strong basis to suggest that such an incentive ever existed. The argument that there was a hypothetical incentive on the part of the participants (i.e. they acted as if the experiment wasn't anonymous, although it was and they knew that it was) seems to be drawn on a whim out of thin air, and therefore the subsequent assertion that this incentive was reduced is also weak. It would have been better if the experiment was anonymous at large but not to the researchers themselves - then the inference they drew would have been more meaningful. 

To my mind, there is a more plausible route of inference that the researchers could have taken, but didn't, based on their experiment's results; which is that people have incomplete and inaccurate knowledge of their own volition. That is, of what they would do under a given situation. As an example, in this case, they overestimated their generosity, except in cases where their generosity had already been put to the test. 

Again, it might well be true that outrage can be "both" authentic as well as driven by a desire to look morally superior, but their study does not establish it. Their conclusion, on careful scrutiny, seems more like their hypothesis, which their experiment was ill-equipped to prove.

Ultimately, there is a much simpler way to conclude that shaming people for virtue signalling is inappropriate: it is simply hypocritical. When you dismiss someone's outrage as virtue signalling, you may be indulging in virtue signalling yourself. If your retort to this is that only you know your own motivations with certainty and therefore 'know' that you're being authentic, then the argument could be reversed: only the people whose outrage you're dismissing as virtue signalling know their own motivations with certainty. 

Therefore, if you must express your disagreement with a certain expression of outrage, address the outrage expressed and its merits, not the person expressing outrage and his motivations.

Tree

There is a tree outside the window from where I sit while working at home amidst the coronavirus lock-down. I do not know what tree it is, I am no botanist. I don't feel the urge to know, either.

A month ago it was all barren. It evoked the beauty of a radiant sage: simple, sufficient, timeless.

Then it bore its leaves lightly, until about a week ago. When the spring winds blew, the leaves trembled delicately, like vulnerable pets who must be handled with great care.

Now it is dense, and reflects the light shone on it by the sun in short-lived glitters. They remind me of afternoons spent playing outside as a kid, observing these patterns of here-now-gone-now light with the wonder and attention of someone who notices something for the first time.

The tree was beautiful each time. In a few months it will be its most good-looking, waving about almost proudly in its colorful autumn glory.

And then be barren again, beautiful, once again.

योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोध:

#1.2 योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोध:
हिंदी: मन के हर समय बदलते रूपों को स्थिर करना ही योग है
English: Yoga is stilling the changing states of the mind

यह शायद पतंजलि योगसूत्र का सबसे प्रसिद्द सूत्र है। ये छोटी सी पंक्ति है, पर यहां पर हमें कुछ बुनियादी सिद्धांत साफ़ कर लेने चाहिए, इसलिए आज का उल्लेख थोड़ा लम्बा होगा। भगवद् गीता में 4 प्रकार के योग का वर्णन है: कर्म योग (हर कार्य को निष्ठा और निस्वार्थ भाव से करना), भक्ति योग (भगवान से प्यार करना), ज्ञान योग (सत्य को जिज्ञासा और अध्यन से जानना) और राज-योग / ध्यान-योग / सांख्य-योग  (एकाग्र आत्मशोध या अंग्रेजी में meditation). पतंजलि योगसूत्र में जब भी योग की बात होती है, तो तात्पर्य ध्यान योग से है।  प्राचीन भारत में सनातन धर्म की जो शाखाएं थी, उनमे वेदांत से भी प्राचीन मानी जाती है "सांख्य", जिसका उदय ऋषि कपिल से हुआ, और चूंकि योग (ध्यान योग) इस शाखा से निकला, इसलिए ध्यान योग को सांख्य योग भी कहते हैं। आपको शायद रूचि हो की इन शाखाओं में क्या अंतर था, क्या इनके अलग अलग भगवान् थे? नहीं, वे शाखाएं तो कई शताब्दियों बाद आयी, पौराणिक काल में।  उससे पहले वदिक काल में जो शाखाएं थी - उनमे फर्क था उनकी अपनी अपनी सत्य के वर्णन को लेकर - आखिर इस सृष्टि की, इस जीवन का, और सबसे महत्वपूर्ण हमारे अंतर्मन का सत्य क्या है - इस विषय पर इन शाखाओं की अलग अलग धारणा थी।  इनमें बहुत कुछ एक सा था, परन्तु कुछ सूक्ष्म अंतर भी थे।  कुछ परेशानी इनकी अपनी अलग अलग शब्दावली से भी आती है।  मसलन, वेदांत में सृष्टि के सत्य को आत्मन और माया में बांटा है, तो सांख्य और योग ने पुरुष और प्रकृति में बांटा है। पुरुष और आत्मन लगभग एक से हैं, पर पूरी तरह नहीं, ऐसे ही माया और प्रकृति में भी थोड़ा फर्क है, हालांकि समानता भी बहुत है। खैर, ये बस इस शाखा के परिचय के लिए, जिससे योग का जन्म हुआ। योग की शाखा ने सांख्य के वर्णन को सही तो माना, परन्तु योग की शाखा का विशेष प्रयास था उन तरीको के विकास में जिससे ये सत्य आप स्वयं अनुभव कर सके।

प्रकृति वो पदार्थ (matter) है जिससे ये भौतिक (material) सृष्टि बनी है, और पुरुष वह आत्मा जिसमे वाकई प्राण हैं, पुरुष सत्य है, पुरुष असलियत है।  पुरुष और प्रकृति के मिलने से ही इस सृष्टि का खेल चलता है। प्रकृति में जो कुछ भी वो तीन गुणों से बना है: सत्व, राजस, और तमस।  जो जितना अधिक सूक्ष्म है, जैसे हवा, बुद्धि, आग, उसमे उतना सत्व ज़्यादा और तामस कम है, और जो जितना ठोस या स्थूल है, जिसे आप भौतिक पैमाने पर माप सकते हैं, जैसे पत्थर, उसमें उतना ज़्यादा तमस।  असल में जो भी आप अपने इन्द्रियों से महसूस कर सकते हैं, वह प्रकृति का हिस्सा है।  योग का पूरा प्रयास आपको स्थूलता से सूक्ष्मता की ओर, तमस से सत्व की और ले जाने का है। अंततः उद्देश्य है पुरुष का आभास कराने का, जो की सत्व से भी परे है (पुरुष निर्गुण है, उसमें कोई गुण नहीं, सत्व भी नहीं), पर जो कुछ प्राकृतिक है उसमे पुरुष के सबसे समीप जो कुछ हैं, वह सब सत्व-प्रधान है। सांख्य के अनुसार पुरुष और प्रकृति के border पर हैं: बुद्धि, फिर अहंकार, फिर मनस।  बुद्धि बहुत सूक्ष्म, बहुत सत्व-प्रधान है, परन्तु वो भी प्रकृति में है, पुरुष नहीं। मनस के बाद आती हैं इन्द्रियां (sense organs), और उसके बाद हाथ, पैर, बाकी शरीर (motor organs). हमारी इन्द्रियाँ जो भी बाहरी दुनिया की वस्तुएं या घटनाएं अनुभव करती हैं, मन उन अनुभवों में विलीन रहकर उनको organize करता है, इन वस्तुओं को उनके function/भूमिका के आधार पर समझता है. आँखें लकड़ी देखती है, मन तय करता है ये लकड़ी एक कुर्सी है, वो लकड़ी एक लाठी। अहंकार हमारे चित्त का वो हिस्सा है जिससे हमें यह आभास होता ही की यह लकड़ी "मैंने" देखी है, की मैं एक चीज़ हूँ, अपने आप में एक चरित्र। बुद्धि हमारे चित्त का वो हिस्सा है जो हममें विश्लेषण करने की, फैसले लेने की ताकत देता है, बताता है की क्या सही है, क्या गलत, क्या अच्छा है, क्या बुरा।

बुद्धि में सत्व बहुत है, जिसके कारण वो लगभग transparent है, और पुरुष उससे होता हुआ अहंकार वाले हिस्से से मानो आईने की तरह प्रतिबिंबित (reflect) होता है - इसलिए हमें हमारे वास्तविक होने का आभास होता है। हमारी बुद्धि हमें पुरुष के निकट ले जा सकती है, परन्तु योग के अनुसार समस्या ये है की मन/मनस बहुत चंचल है, और चूंकि वो स्थिर नहीं रहता, और चूंकि बुद्धि उसी चीज़ पर विचार कर सकती है जो मनस उस तक लाता है, हमारी बुद्धि हमें पुरुष (सत्य) के पास ले जाने में असमर्थ है. इसीलिए, उपाय है मन को स्थिर करना।   

अथ योगानुशासनम

पिछले कुछ सालों में कुछ बेहतरीन किताबें पढ़ने की खुशकिस्मती हुई, और उनकी बातों के बारे में बहुत अच्छे और दयालु स्वामी सर्वप्रियनंद से सीखने समझने को और चर्चा करने को मिला। आने वाले समय में जहां तक हो सके मैं आसान शब्दों में उन किताबों की बातों को फेसबुक के स्टेटस मैसेज पर लिखूंगा। जहां आसान शब्द संभव नहीं होगा, वहां अंग्रेजी शब्द जोड़ दूंगा। इन फेसबुक स्टेटस मेसेजस में अनुवाद भी होगा और उल्लेख भी।  श्लोक वाली किताबें, जैसे भगवदगीता, को कुछ हद तक सिर्फ अनुवाद से समझने की चेष्ठा की जा सकती है, परन्तु सूत्र वाली किताबें, जैसे बदारायण के ब्रह्मसूत्र या फिर पतंजलि के योगसूत्र, उन्हें केवल अनुवाद से समझना मुश्किल ही नहीं, हानिकारक भी है।  प्राचीन समय में सूत्रों का इस्तेमाल बहुत अधिक वर्णन को बहुत ही छोटे में कह देने के लिए होता था, सूत्र के हर शब्द में अपने आप में एक पूरी कहानी होती थी। अक्सर ये साधको के याद रखने की सहूलियत के लिहाज़ से अतिलघु (succinct) किये जाते थे, ताकि उन्हें कंठस्थ (memorize) हो पाएं, लेकिन उनसे ये अपेक्षा (expectation) ज़रूर की जाती थी कि हर शब्द के पीछे के वर्णन का अभ्यास उन्हें इतना हो की सूत्र के हर शब्द के स्मरण से उन्हें उस शब्द के पीछे की सारी बात याद आ जाए।  खैर, ये तो हुई सूत्रों और श्लोकों के फर्क की बात। अब जल्दी ही हम पतंजलि योगसूत्र से शुरुआत करेंगे।  यदि ये प्रयास सफल रहा तो आने वाले समय में भगवदगीता, विवेकचूड़ामणि, अपरोक्षानभूति और कुछ उपनिषदों तक भी पहुंचेंगे, देखते हैं।

#1 .1 "अथ योगानुशासनम"
हिंदी: "और अब, योग"
English: "And now, the discipline of Yoga"

अनुवाद के नाम पर तो इतना ही है। व्यास, शंकर और विज्ञानभिक्षु ने इस छोटे से सूत्र पर बहुत कुछ कहा है। खैर, किसी किताब की शुरुआत ही "और अब.." से कैसे हुई? यह पढ़कर तो ऐसा लगता है की किसी चली आ रही बात को जारी रखते हुए आगे बढ़ाया  जा रहा है। क्या इस सूत्र से पहले भी कुछ सूत्र थे इस किताब में जो कहीं खो गए?

दरअसल, पतंजलि ने ऐसी शुरुआत की आपको सोचने पर मजबूर करने के लिए।  जीवन में आपने बहुत सी योजनाएं बनायीं, घाट घाट का पानी पिया, बहुतों से परामर्श लिया। ज़रूर आपने ये सब किसी न किसी प्रकार की बेहतरी के लिए किये, परन्तु क्या आपको फिर भी लगा की कुछ छूट गया? आपने बहुत कुछ पाने की कोशिश की, शुरू में असफल रहे पर अपने संघर्षो से आपने अपने आप को समर्थ बनाया और आखिरकार अपने उद्देश्यों को प्राप्त भी कर लिया, लेकिन क्या उस सफलता के बाद आप संतुष्ट हो गए या आप को लगा की इस सब क्या क्या अर्थ था? आपने तरह तरह की जतन किये, तरह तरह की उपलब्धियां हासिल की की, तरह तरह की वस्तुएं प्राप्त की, तरह तरह की तारीफें बटोरी, तरह तरह की जगह देखी , खाना खाया, खेल खेले, तो अब और आखिर क्या? इसीलिए: "और अब, योग".

साफ़गोशि

तुमने किया नहीं लेकिन
तुमको फ़रेब आता है ।
क्या मुझ पे मेहरबानी है
या बस वक़्त का फेरा ?

अगर कुछ छू गया मुझको,
छुआ उसे मैंने भी होगा ।
या छूना बेयिमानी है,
बस एक वहम है मेरा ?

How to be good

Don't be good in order to get favours. It will make you wicked.
Don't even be good in order to get praise. It will make you vain.
Don't even be good in order to get love. It will make you needy.
Don't even be good to get respect. It will make you judgmental.
Don't even be good to get good karma. It will make you fearful.
But be good anyway.

A competition of virtues

Striving for equality is a virtue.

Cultivating generosity is, too.

But whenever the two conflict, choose generosity.

If we choose the former as our policy to break a tie, we will eventually break all ties.

Where will we be when the summer's gone?

I almost feel bad for this blog. Sometimes, it seems to me to be like an old girlfriend: for the first few years you tell them everything about everything, and then there is a long drawn-out period where you are convinced that you still being with them is more than ample generosity on your part. Some other times, it reminds me of aged grandparents who you never think of except sometimes when you are sad.

I was 19 when I started this blog, I am 33 now. But when I think of the days around when I first started writing here, they seem just a short while ago. In between were long periods of depression and long periods of spiritual satisfaction, long periods of stasis and of growth, long periods of turbulence and of boredom. And yet, I am still essentially the same person, closer now to my 19 year old self, than my 23 or 28 year old selves, by a long shot.

Much has changed, of course. Recently, I got married. I am still figuring out how to be a good husband. Some times, in the middle of an animated exchange, I find that my eyes well up. That is as much a matter of respite for me as it is a matter of concern. Respite, because I realize I am still vulnerable to human emotions, something I had become unsure of for many years now. Concern, because I must not fall into the kind of emotion-driven and intellect-devoid patterns of many years ago that I had to then meticulously rid myself of over several years.

More recently, in a large-scale downsizing of the small firm I worked at, I was eliminated. So these days, I am married and I spend my time at this apartment overlooking the Hudson river that I had rented in more economically friendly times.

Tomorrow, I move out of this apartment, back to good old Plainsboro that I had called home for four years prior to coming here. My brother now has an apartment there, and I will move in with him, while my wife and I do the 'long-distance' thing with her job in another city some hours away. Her folks don't know that I am out of work now, so I'll still see her, like a busy man, only on the weekends.

Day after tomorrow, who knows where we'll be.

The enemies of emptiness

The smell of old books

The walking of geese

The dilapidated bicycle

Homework copies marked Very Good

The gossip about other planets

The water fountain in the park

The stains of ink from the fountain pen

The trembling of plants

The bell tolls to end school days

The ineffectiveness of hot summers

The sound of ball on bat

The novelty of all information

The taste of calcium carbonate

The stickiness of Boroline

The ironed handkerchief

The change from the grocery store

The shiny Kiwi shoe polish

The hissing of insects at night

The mother's embrace

अफ़सोस

तजुर्बों में खुद को यूँ घोला तो था, खुद से अमूमन ये बोला तो था
खूब तन्हाई में खालीपन है, खला है, फिर भी बदतर है इश्क़, दूर रहना भला है

था भरोसा हमें हो गए हैं सयाने, नाजाने फिर दिल आज कैसे जगा है
है डरता बहुत फिर भी अपनी चलाता, अफ़सोसन मुझे इश्क़ होने लगा है 

खोज

किसी खोए हुए किस्से के खोए हुए बंज़ारे सा

खोया हुआ हूँ ख़्वाबीदा ख़यालों में इस तरह

जैसे सालों पुराना ऐब कोई खुदबख़ुद खो जाता है

Commotion

On Friday evenings after work,

while walking to the Subway station,

brushing aside pangs of anxiousness,

I stand outside the Rockefeller,

and look at the people

looking at the famous X-Mas tree.

It’s a swarm of selfie sticks.

At every step,

I hesitate.

I wouldn’t want to ruin

anyone’s holiday picture;

“Who’s that in the background?”

It would be a minor shame.

I am not exactly a festive scene.

On 2018

I know we are not through yet, but I have a history of writing end of year posts a fair bit before the end of the year, every year. In these posts I feel impelled to hope as much as to take stock, and sometimes hope for what this year wasn't but could still be in the few days that remain.

Very early in the year, something happened that made me experience the greatest physical pain I have in my life, so far. I was hospitalized for the first time in my life, and my brother came to Princeton to take care of me. It is acute and excruciating in the moment, but in hindsight I think a physical debilitation invariably seems less daunting than a mental one. In the end all that came of it was I started appreciating my brother more than I did before.

Earlier this year, I quit my prior job, a relatively relaxed affair, living in a relatively laid-back town, and started working at a new, clearly competitive place, and with it, moved to a new, clearly fast-paced city. Mostly, I was seeking a change from some sort of stasis and stillness I had started feeling. I cannot say that I am loving the change, but I should also confess I do not quite have a solid conception of what it is that I would love.

The one thing this change has ignited, though, is to seek more change. Although there was another, probably more potent catalyst for that. Soon after I had moved, my parents came visiting me here from India. I would work from early mornings to late nights (I still do, I don't quite have an option, at least as long as I am in this job) and feel bad about not spending any time with them. In my previous job, the two or three months they would live with me used to be the highlight of my year. That 25% of the year in time, I estimate, carried 99% of the year, in terms of meaning. In any case, they did not stay the entire three months. In the second month, my mom was diagnosed with a serious illness, and my parents left for India for treatment, with my brother accompanying them, to take care of my mom. 

He spent four months in India and to be able to abandon his businesses in the US for such a long time, he had to sell them. He returned a week ago to US, my mom's recovery is now progressing well. In the months that he was in India, I felt great gratitude for him. I also questioned deeply what I was doing with my life. Now, he has returned, to what can nicely be called, not much. And again I question what I'm doing with my life. What role am I serving in my family? Why have I been so unable to help?

I still have dreams (literally, in sleep) I do not want to have, those I have had for years now. It is very disconcerting when I think about the fact that I'm still having them, although I have gotten marginally better at not entertaining that thought.

A good and a bad

For the last couple of days, I've started coming to Starbucks for getting my personal coding things done. And so far, it has been so good that I have wondered why I never tried this earlier. True, sometimes, you need the intensity of being alone in the quiet of your room and your bookshelf next to you, but a great majority of the time, you don't, and what's much more crucial is that your practice is more habit-forming. To that end, I think, a kind of quasi-alone state that you get in a cafe where you are surrounded yet by yourself, is a lot more conducive than being in a locked up room. Or so I feel, for now. We'll see.

The other thing I've realized is that good textbooks are a way better way to learn something new, or even re-learn something, than video lectures. At least for me.

I've been thinking a lot about the pursuit of money and what it does to us, lately. I've long held that the utility I, and in my opinion others too in all likelihood, derive from accumulating money tends to zero, even negative, after a certain threshold. The threshold, however, where you feel like you should stop caring about accumulating still more comes much later, and for most, never at all.

I have been thinking about the second stage lately. On the one hand I feel convinced that I do not care about any pursuit the only payoff from which is more money, I think I still have some ways to go before I can say the same about external recognition, even though from what I can tell, it is entirely frivolous, whereas having money (a reasonable amount of it, at any rate) is actually pretty darn important. And yet when I see an old classmate on LinkedIn I've always thought of myself as much smarter and hard-working than, and see that he is head of so and so fancy thing at so and so fancy company, something tells me that I cannot stop running after external recognition just yet, not until I "right that wrong". I know it is immensely ignorant and small of me, but where would I confess it if not here, to nobody and everybody?

Inflection

This is the 15th of September, 2018.
I took a decision today.
I decided to decide.

नयी नौकरी, पुरानी यादें

मई में नयी नौकरी शुरू की थी, तब से दिन भर programming ही कर रहा होता हूँ. ऐसा लगता है की पिछली company में जितनी सवा चार साल में programming की थी, उतनी यहाँ 2 महीने में कर ली है, शायद उससे भी ज़्यादा. पिछली जगह काम थोड़ा subjective था, यहाँ ज़्यादातर बस programming ही करनी रहती है. वैसे अच्छा ही है, दिमाग पर ज़्यादा ज़ोर देना पड़ता है, focused state में पूरा दिन निकल जाता है, अच्छा लगता है.

सुबह आँख खुलते ही काम पर निकल जाता हूँ, और रात घर पहुँचते फिर सोने का ही समय हो जाता है. उसके बाद भी हमेशा deadline की race में थोड़ा देर से ही code ship कर पाता हूँ. इस सब का क्या मतलब है, ये सोचना छोड़ दिया है.

मम्मी को बहुत miss करता हूँ. भगवान् उनको बहुत अच्छी सेहत दे. 

Three things that I initially thought overrated but have with the passage of time come to think very highly of

1. The Mehdi Hassan ghazal: Ranjish hi sahi

2. The Farhan Akhtar movie: Zindagi na milegi dobara

3. The Farida Khanum ghazal: Aaj jaane ki zid na karo

Inflection

This is the 30th of April 2018.
I took a decision today. 
I decided to never be dishonest with myself again. 

Definition

Wishing earnestly for an outcome that you know to be impossible, is insanity. 

Two species of aloneness

On days that I would be alone in India, in the sense of not being around family and friends, I would still run into small, individually trivial but in aggregate meaningful encounters with auto drivers, bus conductors, tea vendors, shopkeepers, ironing guy, vegetable vendors, cows, temple pujaris, street food hawkers, internet cafe owners, and random dudes on the street that I knew from one time and context to another.

On days that I am alone in the US, I am alone.

And then again, days that I'm alone in the US are much more frequent than days that I would be alone in India. And since there is this completeness to the aloneness of the US variety, I'm compelled to intensify my search for what to do with those times.

Mostly, it has helped me explore areas of study, habits of self-sufficiency, and patterns of self-development, that I probably never would have had I continued to live in India, and for which I am grateful, but once in a while, it leads you to a dark place that you either dread in the moment or an escape that you regret later.

Dread alone, and regret alone, too.

Beginnings

It was some time in the summer of 2015 that I started turning to spirituality. Looking back, it was entirely spontaneous and not in the least bit planned, or even something I aspired to at any point in my life before.

True, a couple of months prior to this, my mom had come visiting me for the summer and I accompanied her to temples quite often, and it was one such visit that prompted a great urge, but it's unlikely that the temple visits were what set off this quest. (But quest is what I can call it now; at the time it was more of a refuge for my curiosity.)

A more potent catalyst had already set it in motion, unbeknownst to me, two and a half years prior, when my relationship of more than three years with my then girlfriend had come crashing down. In the year that had followed that, there was a texture of defeated daze to the very air that I breathed. Every waking moment was filled with a kind of uncontrollable self-doubt that surrounds one the foundations of whose well-established world-view are newly shattered, as if a single overarching event swept meaningless all your life experiences, all with a calm, terrifying apathy.

Initially I tried venting out with some friends, but soon realized the futility of that exercise. It became clear to me that the depths of what I felt were unsharable; in speech or text I could at best have created a poor, elementary imitation of the reality within. When I stopped talking about it, my sorrow was complete and pure, uncluttered with imagination of what it made me look like or what its verbal expression to someone might elicit. For the first time, then, I faced my sorrow squarely, with close attention rather than haywire self-pity, and then again, and then again. Every day and every night, for years to follow. That kind of inquiry into the deepest recesses of your mental and emotional landscape does something to you, it transforms you into something new. The word that comes closest to describing it, somehow, is spiritual.

But then again, the very first steps on this path were more likely, instead, those first few steps of my life, when as a toddler I must have found myself focused with all my being on the idea that I was all by myself and it was extremely, terribly important not to fall.

Unfolding

I am aware of you in love with me.
I am aware of you in love.
I am aware of you.
I am aware.
I am. 

Sundays

I came to the library today, like every Sunday, rather aimlessly, like every Sunday, and gazed at people sitting in groups and laughing, like every Sunday, and wondered, like every Sunday, what I was doing here. But unlike every Sunday, wondered also where else might I have been this Sunday such that I wouldn't have had this question, and couldn't come up with a convincing answer, and that is why, I guess, I am, here, this Sunday, again.

Benefits of sleep

That is all very well, but, the problem with sleep is, you wake up. 

Subtle difference

He had thought about every angle of it, from every paradigm possible, in a systematic manner, for a considerable period of time, and was absolutely convinced that committing suicide was unequivocally unjustified, there were no two ways about it. But he really wouldn't mind if a truck ran over him right now making him pulp. That, to be honest, would be welcome.

Rekindlings

They met every other day, although their friendship now was like that of two people who used to know each other years ago, but whose paths had diverged so much that there was little any more to talk about, even if the fondness remained intact, or deepened, even, and now sat awkwardly between them like an empty plate devoid of food they were supposed to share, and while they did now text each other every night, there were hardly any words exchanged, just emoticons of various kinds, at once necessary and inadequate, filling in for that which cannot be replaced.