Have you wondered how a particular person - say your mother, or your friend - can always tell when you're lying? The human brain is a brilliant and natural lie detector; only caveat is that you need to know the person who is speaking, be familiar with his voice and intonation.
It occurred to me that this might be useful to figure out when you're lying to yourself. That's right. Yourself. The next time you have a doubt as to whether you did the right thing, or are doing the right thing - whether you may have deluded yourself that something is true, or lied to yourself because it is convenient to do so, apply this test. Say it out aloud. You'd be surprised. You can often tell from the sound of your own voice, from the conviction in it, if you've been lying to yourself all along.
I had an argument with someone a few weeks ago, and some harsh words were said. When I revisited it in my mind I couldn't quite figure out who had been in the wrong. So I said it aloud, "I was a jerk," and I knew it to be true.
Perhaps this has more applications... a relationship litmus test, anyone? Say it out aloud, "I am in love," and you'll know if it is true or not? ;)
Cheers,
Prashanth.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, February 06, 2009
Short Story: Speak, friend, and enter
(This is purely a work of fiction. Any reference to real life events or characters is simply to give a context for the story.)
People say the internet is getting more and more useless by the day because of the sheer volume of false and unreliable information – and people – on it. But I have always maintained that this is a statement for amateurs. For those know how to find something, the net is a treasure trove.
Take for instance, book clubs. An internet book club is a great place to find people with similar reading interests – something that rarely happens in real life, especially if you are a bit eclectic in your tastes.
It was at one of these internet book clubs that I ran into Dosti.
I had entered a Khaled Hosseini book club and walked into an impassioned speech on the Western perception of Islam. In general, these clubs are like just any other chatroom: there will be a good amount of light and irrelevant conversation going on, interspersed with a thread of genre-related discussion and a thread of interesting interpretation on something in the book. But this… this was different. It was as if you walked into a crowded room and found one commanding presence, one commanding voice, weaving a spell through the audience. I suddenly wanted to know what that voice would sound like, what that face would look like in real life.
Now, unlike most Americans, I can speak a little when it comes to Asian languages. So I knew that Dosti meant Friendship. And true to her nickname, I found her a genuinely friendly person, witty and charming in an engaging way, with an endearing tendency to launch off into eloquent speeches on social issues. I must admit, while I care about the emancipation of women oppressed in certain societies, the hardships undergone by children in poverty-stricken places, that the perpetrators of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism are victims of a sort, and so on, it takes a special sort of charisma to hold my attention on these topics. We all inure ourselves, not wanting to know, not wanting to do, anything about such things. But this woman… she broke through my shell, and even before I typed my first personal message to her, she was a friend. A friend who could make me care about things I thought long buried.
She pried that out, too, so softly that I didn’t even realize what I was saying, without realizing that I was crying. There was a time when I was a student of history, of sociology. A time when I was active in seeking knowledge about the people who live in our world, identifying with them, and thinking about how I could help.
And then 9/11 happened. Followed by a misguided “war” on terror. My father, who was a high ranking military officer, was involved daily in planning “precision” strikes and “snatch and grabs” that inevitably left innocent lives ruined in their wake. And so I distanced myself from it all. From a promising career at Washington, I turned into a consultant for software on history and such.
It was funny, the places I would find her online. Tolkien. Milton. The “I wish I had thrown the shoe at Bush” club. The “Islam preaches compassion, not hate” club. That last one had been started by her.
She was a feminist, but not the kind who wants more days for maternity leave or more executive level jobs for women. She argued for girls to go to school everywhere, for a woman to be able to walk on a road without covering their face with a burkha, for a woman to have the right to choose her husband without dying gruesomely in an “honour killing”.
One day, when I couldn’t hold my curiosity, I invited her to a voice chat. I had to know what she sounded like.
She picked up.
“Hi!”
“Now will you tell me your real name?”
It was a standing joke. Whenever I asked her for her real name, she would evade it melodramatically.
This time, I could hear her mellifluous laugh.
“My name is so lovely, it can open the gates to the mines of Moria!”
Now this one I was familiar with. It was from The Lord of the Rings, where the fellowship seek passage through the mines but are defeated by an inscription that says, “Speak, friend, and enter.” The mighty Gandalf tries a bunch of dwarvish passwords but fails. Then one of hobbits asks him for the word “friend” in elvish. “Mellon” replies Gandalf, and the gates swing open dramatically.
“You are a Melon?” I asked in mock horror.
“Sorry, Walker, wrong again! But tell you what, you tell me your real name now and I will consider telling you mine.”
Walker (followed by the inevitable string of numbers to make it unique) was my ID. It also happened to be my real name.
“My name is Luke Walker.” It really is. Don’t ask.
“Come on, be serious.”
“What can I say, my Dad hadn’t watched Star Wars before he named me!”
At this she broke into peals of laughter. I don’t know how long she laughed, but I would happily have stood at that other end listening to the laugh even if it lasted all day.
“Ohhh, Luke! That was almost worth telling you my name in exchange!”
“Not fair! You said you would tell me!”
“I said I would consider it,” she said slyly.
That was the first of several long conversations. We must have talked about everything, but somehow at the end of it I didn’t know her name or even which country she was in. There was one recurring theme, though. She would ask me what was my mission in my life.
“To raise a family, and live quietly and happily.”
I could almost visualize her making a face at that.
“And you?”
“I want to change the world,” she would declare.
“Hard to see how a kindergarten teacher can do that,” I tried to tease. But at that her tone grew serious.
“I teach the next generation of boys and girls to love and not hate, to live in harmony and compassion instead of war and revenge. If that’s not changing the world, I don’t know what is.”
It was because of statements like that, and everything else. Thanks to her, I changed. Inside. In ways I didn’t realize until it happened.
It began with her giving me her phone number. She said she was going to a small village to meet some relatives, and as she wouldn’t have access to the internet, I could call her up if I got lonely. She had already told me not to try to track her down through her IP address. This was even bigger a temptation, because with a phone number you can find out anything. I resisted it. I didn’t want to lose her trust.
As things would have it, it was she who called from it, even before I called her. And that too at an inopportune time. I was deep in a conversation with Dad, who was upset about a planned airstrike that would result in too many civilian casualties to his liking.
“Luke?”
I could hear a lot of noise in the background. They sounded disturbingly like explosions.
“Dosti?”
“I’m scared.”
“Where are you?”
“In the mayor’s office in ____” she named the same country, the same village that my Dad had just named.
My blood ran cold. My heart must have stopped beating for longer than is safe. I was seized with an overwhelming sense of foreboding.
“Luke…”
There was a very loud explosion and the line went dead.
My Dad would tell me of this day later. How shaken, panicked and desperate I was. How many strings he had to pull to transport me to that village, to get a battalion there and have a hospital of sorts set up in record time. But I don’t remember all that. I only remember walking into the hospital and enquiring about people brought in from the Mayor’s office. I remember scanning the list, wondering if I would even recognize her name if I saw it.
I saw it.
The name was “Dosti”. So she had told me her real name the whole time. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
I asked someone about her. I learnt that her entire family had been wiped out, and that she had survived, but with a broken leg, two broken ribs, and a concussion.
I cried.
When I reached her bedside, she seemed to be asleep. I took her hand in mine. She spoke without opening her eyes. She knew it could only be me.
“Can you take me away, Luke? Back to your country. There is nothing left for me here.”
“I think so. They may take a few days to clear it, but since they have your ID and your papers it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on going anywhere for a few days anyway,” she gestured to her leg in the cast. I smiled through the tears.
“Don’t cry,” she said softly. Obviously she didn’t know that when a girl loses everything, she is supposed to be the one crying and be comforted by the handsome prince.
The time after that, till this day, was a whirlwind. I used my Dad’s connections to resuscitate my career and earn myself a place in the foreign service. Dosti threw herself into one humanitarian cause after another. I put up a sign outside her office saying, “Speak, friend, and enter.” She put up one outside my office saying, “The Force is in every one of us.” They were the happiest days of my life.
We watched America’s first black president give his acceptance speech. I saw her mouth “change the world” while listening to it. A week later I got a letter inviting me to be a member of his foreign policy team.
“Change the world?” she asked as I read it.
“Change the world,” I confirmed. And we both smiled.
X ----- X ----- X
People say the internet is getting more and more useless by the day because of the sheer volume of false and unreliable information – and people – on it. But I have always maintained that this is a statement for amateurs. For those know how to find something, the net is a treasure trove.
Take for instance, book clubs. An internet book club is a great place to find people with similar reading interests – something that rarely happens in real life, especially if you are a bit eclectic in your tastes.
It was at one of these internet book clubs that I ran into Dosti.
I had entered a Khaled Hosseini book club and walked into an impassioned speech on the Western perception of Islam. In general, these clubs are like just any other chatroom: there will be a good amount of light and irrelevant conversation going on, interspersed with a thread of genre-related discussion and a thread of interesting interpretation on something in the book. But this… this was different. It was as if you walked into a crowded room and found one commanding presence, one commanding voice, weaving a spell through the audience. I suddenly wanted to know what that voice would sound like, what that face would look like in real life.
Now, unlike most Americans, I can speak a little when it comes to Asian languages. So I knew that Dosti meant Friendship. And true to her nickname, I found her a genuinely friendly person, witty and charming in an engaging way, with an endearing tendency to launch off into eloquent speeches on social issues. I must admit, while I care about the emancipation of women oppressed in certain societies, the hardships undergone by children in poverty-stricken places, that the perpetrators of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism are victims of a sort, and so on, it takes a special sort of charisma to hold my attention on these topics. We all inure ourselves, not wanting to know, not wanting to do, anything about such things. But this woman… she broke through my shell, and even before I typed my first personal message to her, she was a friend. A friend who could make me care about things I thought long buried.
She pried that out, too, so softly that I didn’t even realize what I was saying, without realizing that I was crying. There was a time when I was a student of history, of sociology. A time when I was active in seeking knowledge about the people who live in our world, identifying with them, and thinking about how I could help.
And then 9/11 happened. Followed by a misguided “war” on terror. My father, who was a high ranking military officer, was involved daily in planning “precision” strikes and “snatch and grabs” that inevitably left innocent lives ruined in their wake. And so I distanced myself from it all. From a promising career at Washington, I turned into a consultant for software on history and such.
It was funny, the places I would find her online. Tolkien. Milton. The “I wish I had thrown the shoe at Bush” club. The “Islam preaches compassion, not hate” club. That last one had been started by her.
She was a feminist, but not the kind who wants more days for maternity leave or more executive level jobs for women. She argued for girls to go to school everywhere, for a woman to be able to walk on a road without covering their face with a burkha, for a woman to have the right to choose her husband without dying gruesomely in an “honour killing”.
One day, when I couldn’t hold my curiosity, I invited her to a voice chat. I had to know what she sounded like.
She picked up.
“Hi!”
“Now will you tell me your real name?”
It was a standing joke. Whenever I asked her for her real name, she would evade it melodramatically.
This time, I could hear her mellifluous laugh.
“My name is so lovely, it can open the gates to the mines of Moria!”
Now this one I was familiar with. It was from The Lord of the Rings, where the fellowship seek passage through the mines but are defeated by an inscription that says, “Speak, friend, and enter.” The mighty Gandalf tries a bunch of dwarvish passwords but fails. Then one of hobbits asks him for the word “friend” in elvish. “Mellon” replies Gandalf, and the gates swing open dramatically.
“You are a Melon?” I asked in mock horror.
“Sorry, Walker, wrong again! But tell you what, you tell me your real name now and I will consider telling you mine.”
Walker (followed by the inevitable string of numbers to make it unique) was my ID. It also happened to be my real name.
“My name is Luke Walker.” It really is. Don’t ask.
“Come on, be serious.”
“What can I say, my Dad hadn’t watched Star Wars before he named me!”
At this she broke into peals of laughter. I don’t know how long she laughed, but I would happily have stood at that other end listening to the laugh even if it lasted all day.
“Ohhh, Luke! That was almost worth telling you my name in exchange!”
“Not fair! You said you would tell me!”
“I said I would consider it,” she said slyly.
That was the first of several long conversations. We must have talked about everything, but somehow at the end of it I didn’t know her name or even which country she was in. There was one recurring theme, though. She would ask me what was my mission in my life.
“To raise a family, and live quietly and happily.”
I could almost visualize her making a face at that.
“And you?”
“I want to change the world,” she would declare.
“Hard to see how a kindergarten teacher can do that,” I tried to tease. But at that her tone grew serious.
“I teach the next generation of boys and girls to love and not hate, to live in harmony and compassion instead of war and revenge. If that’s not changing the world, I don’t know what is.”
It was because of statements like that, and everything else. Thanks to her, I changed. Inside. In ways I didn’t realize until it happened.
It began with her giving me her phone number. She said she was going to a small village to meet some relatives, and as she wouldn’t have access to the internet, I could call her up if I got lonely. She had already told me not to try to track her down through her IP address. This was even bigger a temptation, because with a phone number you can find out anything. I resisted it. I didn’t want to lose her trust.
As things would have it, it was she who called from it, even before I called her. And that too at an inopportune time. I was deep in a conversation with Dad, who was upset about a planned airstrike that would result in too many civilian casualties to his liking.
“Luke?”
I could hear a lot of noise in the background. They sounded disturbingly like explosions.
“Dosti?”
“I’m scared.”
“Where are you?”
“In the mayor’s office in ____” she named the same country, the same village that my Dad had just named.
My blood ran cold. My heart must have stopped beating for longer than is safe. I was seized with an overwhelming sense of foreboding.
“Luke…”
There was a very loud explosion and the line went dead.
My Dad would tell me of this day later. How shaken, panicked and desperate I was. How many strings he had to pull to transport me to that village, to get a battalion there and have a hospital of sorts set up in record time. But I don’t remember all that. I only remember walking into the hospital and enquiring about people brought in from the Mayor’s office. I remember scanning the list, wondering if I would even recognize her name if I saw it.
I saw it.
The name was “Dosti”. So she had told me her real name the whole time. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
I asked someone about her. I learnt that her entire family had been wiped out, and that she had survived, but with a broken leg, two broken ribs, and a concussion.
I cried.
When I reached her bedside, she seemed to be asleep. I took her hand in mine. She spoke without opening her eyes. She knew it could only be me.
“Can you take me away, Luke? Back to your country. There is nothing left for me here.”
“I think so. They may take a few days to clear it, but since they have your ID and your papers it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on going anywhere for a few days anyway,” she gestured to her leg in the cast. I smiled through the tears.
“Don’t cry,” she said softly. Obviously she didn’t know that when a girl loses everything, she is supposed to be the one crying and be comforted by the handsome prince.
The time after that, till this day, was a whirlwind. I used my Dad’s connections to resuscitate my career and earn myself a place in the foreign service. Dosti threw herself into one humanitarian cause after another. I put up a sign outside her office saying, “Speak, friend, and enter.” She put up one outside my office saying, “The Force is in every one of us.” They were the happiest days of my life.
We watched America’s first black president give his acceptance speech. I saw her mouth “change the world” while listening to it. A week later I got a letter inviting me to be a member of his foreign policy team.
“Change the world?” she asked as I read it.
“Change the world,” I confirmed. And we both smiled.
X ----- X ----- X
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Striking items off the list
Netless in Bangalore: the reason for my long absence from this blog. But I'm back now :)
If I had to sum up what I've been doing in the time since my last post, I would put it in this way: I've been striking items off my list. You know. That invisible list that all of us keep, of important things to do or change about your life. Get a job you like. Buy that motorbike. That kind of stuff.
It's incredible, but I've struck off every item on that list. Pretty unbelievable considering the state of affairs in my life for the past two years or so. In other words, I have a stable existence with a good job, good friends, a life outside of work, a sufficiently convenient place to live, time and even inclination for personal pursuits. Wow! Well, forget about goals, ambitions, things to accomplish in life, etc. Can't do those things, and can't take satisfaction in them if you're not happy, right?
So here I am. After a long time and after a lot of dashed hopes, at a place where I can once again start pursuing my dreams. A foundation to start building upon. Different dreams; different hopes; different goals. But you have to play the cards that life deals you. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, they say :)
I am ready to make lemonade.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
If I had to sum up what I've been doing in the time since my last post, I would put it in this way: I've been striking items off my list. You know. That invisible list that all of us keep, of important things to do or change about your life. Get a job you like. Buy that motorbike. That kind of stuff.
It's incredible, but I've struck off every item on that list. Pretty unbelievable considering the state of affairs in my life for the past two years or so. In other words, I have a stable existence with a good job, good friends, a life outside of work, a sufficiently convenient place to live, time and even inclination for personal pursuits. Wow! Well, forget about goals, ambitions, things to accomplish in life, etc. Can't do those things, and can't take satisfaction in them if you're not happy, right?
So here I am. After a long time and after a lot of dashed hopes, at a place where I can once again start pursuing my dreams. A foundation to start building upon. Different dreams; different hopes; different goals. But you have to play the cards that life deals you. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, they say :)
I am ready to make lemonade.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Move in, Move out
Moving to a new place is often an emotional experience. There's sadness about who and what you're leaving behind. There's some apprehension as to how things will work out: will you be able to make good friends? What will your lifestyle be like? etc. And then, there's hope. Hope that you can do better this time with the clean slate you've been offered. Hope that you won't repeat your past mistakes (and not make whole new ones either!).
It was with the enthusiasm, brashness and optimism of youth that I went to the US and returned much mellowed, much more sober, much more a realist. This includes the time I moved to a single bedroom apartment there from the 3-bedroom I shared with many guys: I set up my new place so well you wouldn't believe it was I who did it. I put up photos and even art on the walls. I equipped my kitchen with everything from toaster, blender type stuff to chappathi-making equipment. I kept the place clean, tidy and orderly. I had cable tv and high speed internet. I had some decent furniture. I bought a car (a Honda Accord, at that!). I think overall I spent a small fortune, in terms of money, time and love. And then my health problems returned to plague me, and I suddenly had to leave, dropping everything, and I mean everything. I sold the car and gave away (or threw away) everything else. It was heartbreaking.
So you will understand when I tell you how apprehensive I am about moving this time. I have just joined a job in Bangalore, and am on the apartment hunt again. When I move in completely, what will happen? Will my life be as rich and enjoyable as it was at IITM? Or will it be "move in, move out" all over again, for whatever reason?
I take a deep breath. I plunge, and I hope. I pray. I dream. I dare.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
It was with the enthusiasm, brashness and optimism of youth that I went to the US and returned much mellowed, much more sober, much more a realist. This includes the time I moved to a single bedroom apartment there from the 3-bedroom I shared with many guys: I set up my new place so well you wouldn't believe it was I who did it. I put up photos and even art on the walls. I equipped my kitchen with everything from toaster, blender type stuff to chappathi-making equipment. I kept the place clean, tidy and orderly. I had cable tv and high speed internet. I had some decent furniture. I bought a car (a Honda Accord, at that!). I think overall I spent a small fortune, in terms of money, time and love. And then my health problems returned to plague me, and I suddenly had to leave, dropping everything, and I mean everything. I sold the car and gave away (or threw away) everything else. It was heartbreaking.
So you will understand when I tell you how apprehensive I am about moving this time. I have just joined a job in Bangalore, and am on the apartment hunt again. When I move in completely, what will happen? Will my life be as rich and enjoyable as it was at IITM? Or will it be "move in, move out" all over again, for whatever reason?
I take a deep breath. I plunge, and I hope. I pray. I dream. I dare.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Civilizations Varied, Wisdom Unbounded
That was the logo for the 1st World Mind Sports Games held at Beijing this month. We stayed at an apartment a kilometer away from the Bird's Nest. The accommodations arranged were awesome: we had a living room, equipped kitchen, even a washing machine. I was pleasantly surprised that the food arranged was excellent, after having heard so many warnings from people who had visited China earlier.
They know about the fork
My brother's work took him to Taiwan just a couple of weeks before I left for Beijing, and he was telling us that people ate everywhere with chopsticks. Not a spoon or fork to be found! Not even those plastic ones at corner stores! My Mom was so aghast that she packed a box of plastic spoons and forks for my trip. Needless to say, our buffets were of high quality in every sense of the word and the spoons went straight to the dust bin. My friend said it reminded him of the Seinfeld quip, "They know about the fork. But they prefer the chopsticks."
That's what I call a Bus
I was quite impressed by the infrastructure in Beijing. The roads were excellent, as were all forms of public transportation. It cost 1 RMB (about 7 rupees) for going to most places in the city, often longer than a 45 minute commute. A particularly long commute cost 1.5 RMB. The quality of the buses was very good, and they were as safe as in the US. I spied kids getting into the bus after school, and they would have their RFID bus passes inside their pencil boxes, so they simply tapped the pencil box to the reader when they got in.
Efficiency
I think German efficiency may become a phrase of the past. The Chinese are amazing at getting things done with minimum cost and maximum efficiency. Functionality without sacrificing quality seemed to be the norm everywhere. No frills except where they are expected. I could see it in the furniture. I could see it in their electronics. I could see it in their work ethic. I could see it in their culture.
You don't mess with the Chinese
Security guards were there everywhere I went. I often saw soldiers training, right in the middle of Beijing. Their TV channels showed their most recent military achievement, and displayed their military might and discipline. Every guard or policeman I saw looked well capable of defending himself. No flab on sight. Pot-bellied policeman is an oxymoron, not a norm in China. When I climbed the Great Wall, I found myself huffing and puffing at the steep junctures, but even old men and women walked past me with less effort.
Sightseeing
I enjoyed my taste of Chinese culture. The Summer Palace was really amazing. We hired a guide to show us around and explain stuff, and she entertained us with all the old myths and stories of the Chinese. Little things, like talking about the corridor of the four seasons where the ceiling and sides are covered with paintings, each painting depicting one story or a scene from a story in Chinese myth. There were in fact thousands of paintings, and history says the artist spent 15 years working on them tirelessly. Or the significance of there being 17 arches in the bridge (the royal boat passed through the central, biggest arch, which was deliberately made arch number 9 as it is an auspicious number for the chinese). The Great Wall was also awe-inspiring. A very pleasant place to spend a morning walking, except it was pretty crowded at the area we visited.
No bargain, no gain
I'm a notoriously bad bargainer in India. I was downright awful in China. Whenever I bought something, I would find out that someone else had bought the same thing for less than half the price I paid for it. It doesn't help that in China you start bargaining at 5% of the price they quote and end at about 10%. If you've studied auction theory, throw it out the window. It doesn't work in China.
Oh yes, we were there for Bridge
Almost forgot. How did the Bridge go? Well, we got our asses kicked. The European teams put us to shame. But it was a learning experience, and I know that the next time I play on the international arena I will do better. One can only hope I get another chance.
At the Great Wall. (From left: Vinoth, Myself, Guthi)
At the Summer Palace
At the Bridge Table. How serious I look!
They know about the fork
My brother's work took him to Taiwan just a couple of weeks before I left for Beijing, and he was telling us that people ate everywhere with chopsticks. Not a spoon or fork to be found! Not even those plastic ones at corner stores! My Mom was so aghast that she packed a box of plastic spoons and forks for my trip. Needless to say, our buffets were of high quality in every sense of the word and the spoons went straight to the dust bin. My friend said it reminded him of the Seinfeld quip, "They know about the fork. But they prefer the chopsticks."
That's what I call a Bus
I was quite impressed by the infrastructure in Beijing. The roads were excellent, as were all forms of public transportation. It cost 1 RMB (about 7 rupees) for going to most places in the city, often longer than a 45 minute commute. A particularly long commute cost 1.5 RMB. The quality of the buses was very good, and they were as safe as in the US. I spied kids getting into the bus after school, and they would have their RFID bus passes inside their pencil boxes, so they simply tapped the pencil box to the reader when they got in.
Efficiency
I think German efficiency may become a phrase of the past. The Chinese are amazing at getting things done with minimum cost and maximum efficiency. Functionality without sacrificing quality seemed to be the norm everywhere. No frills except where they are expected. I could see it in the furniture. I could see it in their electronics. I could see it in their work ethic. I could see it in their culture.
You don't mess with the Chinese
Security guards were there everywhere I went. I often saw soldiers training, right in the middle of Beijing. Their TV channels showed their most recent military achievement, and displayed their military might and discipline. Every guard or policeman I saw looked well capable of defending himself. No flab on sight. Pot-bellied policeman is an oxymoron, not a norm in China. When I climbed the Great Wall, I found myself huffing and puffing at the steep junctures, but even old men and women walked past me with less effort.
Sightseeing
I enjoyed my taste of Chinese culture. The Summer Palace was really amazing. We hired a guide to show us around and explain stuff, and she entertained us with all the old myths and stories of the Chinese. Little things, like talking about the corridor of the four seasons where the ceiling and sides are covered with paintings, each painting depicting one story or a scene from a story in Chinese myth. There were in fact thousands of paintings, and history says the artist spent 15 years working on them tirelessly. Or the significance of there being 17 arches in the bridge (the royal boat passed through the central, biggest arch, which was deliberately made arch number 9 as it is an auspicious number for the chinese). The Great Wall was also awe-inspiring. A very pleasant place to spend a morning walking, except it was pretty crowded at the area we visited.
No bargain, no gain
I'm a notoriously bad bargainer in India. I was downright awful in China. Whenever I bought something, I would find out that someone else had bought the same thing for less than half the price I paid for it. It doesn't help that in China you start bargaining at 5% of the price they quote and end at about 10%. If you've studied auction theory, throw it out the window. It doesn't work in China.
Oh yes, we were there for Bridge
Almost forgot. How did the Bridge go? Well, we got our asses kicked. The European teams put us to shame. But it was a learning experience, and I know that the next time I play on the international arena I will do better. One can only hope I get another chance.
At the Great Wall. (From left: Vinoth, Myself, Guthi)
At the Summer Palace
At the Bridge Table. How serious I look!Overall it was a really fun trip, and a nice change from Chennai. It definitely lifted my spirits, quality of our play notwithstanding!
Cheers,
Prashanth.
P.S. The logo is short for: "Civilizations have different origins; but Wisdom knows no boundaries."
Cheers,
Prashanth.
P.S. The logo is short for: "Civilizations have different origins; but Wisdom knows no boundaries."
Monday, September 29, 2008
It's time...
Yep, time for me to fly to Beijing. Already. And I didn't even get in one blog post in two months.
One of the reasons why there was no blog post is because nothing much is going on in life right now, nothing that makes me think. Other than bridge, that is; I've been bridge blogging regularly. It looks like life won't allow me to "turn the page" until I finish this tournament.
Been attending job interviews, a couple of cos look promising; I don't know whether I will end up in Bangalore or Chennai as of now. This job search is taking waaaaaay longer than I expected.
Wish me luck. For Beijing as well as the Job hunt. I will be back in India on the 19th.
Cheers
Prashanth.
One of the reasons why there was no blog post is because nothing much is going on in life right now, nothing that makes me think. Other than bridge, that is; I've been bridge blogging regularly. It looks like life won't allow me to "turn the page" until I finish this tournament.
Been attending job interviews, a couple of cos look promising; I don't know whether I will end up in Bangalore or Chennai as of now. This job search is taking waaaaaay longer than I expected.
Wish me luck. For Beijing as well as the Job hunt. I will be back in India on the 19th.
Cheers
Prashanth.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
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