MARCH

came march and it was indeed a very busy month.
each weekend had something or the other for me.
the first weekend there was pragyan, my college tech fest.
the second weekend there was something else (i dont remember exactly)
the third weekend there was Currents -my dept. symposium
the fourth weekend there was a programme at anna university
this is the fifth weekend a breather after struggling my way through 3 days of cycle tests!!
another thing...
i want to tell that the blogging workshop at currents, though turned out not so crowd-pulling, had some tips for ppl like me
1. to have a specific blog filled with no one else is interested basically serves not much.
2. to have a blog and post once in a blue moon again is worthless
3. to not publicise a blog is as good as not having one!
4. to blog is not to submit a thesis. it is to showcase your observations(yo "observer"! a pat on your back)
5. to write a blog like your research paper is like producing a movie that will never be shown!!
so i thanked Rashmi Bansal in my heart and decided that i will reinvent my blog.
(no!no! for those of you who said,"another new one?!"; i am just continuin in this).
so let me get some fresh air these days and i then i will post about all these stuff!

CAN U DISCARD??

As a kid, I grew up just like most of us, regularly admonished by my father for my poor maintenance of my books and stuff. And the one thing I always found quite difficult every time I did the repair work was to churn off the unwanted things. The decision making of whether a thing falls under the category of ‘wanted’ or ‘unwanted’ seemed to be a herculean task. I still remember the advice my father gave me years ago that “the ability to discard the unwanted and retain the wanted takes one closer towards success”. Today, I understand the value of this wisdom and the inherent meaning in what he meant.

Have you ever noticed someone telling, “I don’t know why, but one can never expect to get a “yes” out of his mouth for the first time”? I first learnt about this phenomenon in a book on Psychoanalysis by Ian Craib. In his analysis of the human mind and its reactions, Craib takes a look at the theory put forth by Freud in the 1980s. He explains Id to be something inside that can push in one direction or the other against our will, something that is beyond our control and that reassert itself against all attempts to control or divert it. In much more conceivable terms, one can understand Id to be the immediate temptation to deny an offer which is made (though you would have always loved to have had it), the tension and its effects, or in a deeper sense even the tendency to cut or kill oneself. Basically, these are reactions to the mind’s desire to find immediate solutions to internal problems and its attempt to find a reason for it in the outer world.

Another aspect worth considering in this context is the mind’s inertia against change. In our day to day life, we would have observed our tendency to sit in the same seat in the classroom, restaurant or train, prefer the same costumes, same food etc. All these are refusals of the mind to change, in a way similar to the concept of Id mentioned above. The mind places itself in a comfortable cage in all these conditions. A failure to break from these shackles spells failure on a long term.

It is important to train the mind to keep away from what I would call the cushion of repetition. The only way to effect this would be to consciously identify our tendency to repeat something and change it. Such an attempt only can make changes an integral part of our life. As far as Id is concerned, again all methods must be employed to prevent it from taking control of our actions, for a healthy person has a clear sense of self and of others and is not subject to inexplicable waves of feeling released by Id. Hence it is all about differentiating the wanted from the unwanted things around and not letting the mind control you with the unwanted things.

LOUD MUSIC!!

Music has been always been man’s prized passion. It is beyond comprehension how various forms of music originated and evolved into such complex forms as we have today. It has been a long way since the chirping of birds and conch shells to the latest digital music systems capable of delivering any intensity of sound at any rate.

Another significant change I observe around me is in our way of listening to music and appreciating it. There was a time when ones favorite music was close to the heart and the gadgets like walkman allowed us to lock it within our ears. These days, no one wants it to be kept locked so. Instead there is a growing tendency of playing music at loud volume such that it is audible to everyone in the near vicinity. I can hear them from hostel rooms, corridors, on the road, in restaurants and where not!

I happened to ask my friend as to why was this trend growing? He told me, “It’s simple! People want to show off their mobiles”. That set me thinking into the different new versions of mobiles that have beautifully transformed from a communication device to more of an entertainment device.

In India mobile phones have come into the market on a large scale in late nineties. The cellular phone boom in India can be said to have happened with the penetration of Reliance mobile phones (whose offer of cellular phone with connection for lifetime at Rs. 500 was irrefutably attractive) and the sudden increase in the service providers. Today, there are around 37 cellular service providers in India according to the TRAI website.

Looking at my friends too, I find a significant change in mobile phone purchase and usage. Today, people prefer the latest camera phones, music player phones over other models. They all have the Motorola L series, Sony Ericson’s K series or Z series or Nokia’s music-series phones. People have all of a sudden become rich! (Or the phone rates are drastically coming down?!)

Whatever be it, I definitely see evolution of a new trend at the behest of an existing one. A new kind of music is evolving, mobile phones are becoming mini-computers, and entertainment is becoming an integral part of mobile phones and to end it all, the growing passion for loud music among people is threatening the very existence of walkmans, Discmans and iPods that do not provide them.