Muse:God ! what?

This small blog of mine was initially named "handshakes", but then i wanted a better name for it,because i dont usually handshake with people a lot and it sounded tacky.So i named it "The desert king and I".Classy isn't it?

Obviously when i say classy the "desert king" must have some meaning and it is my moral duty to explain what in the gods name does this "desert king" mean?

If u have read shantaram and like kaderbhai then u already know what i mean by desert king. If not please read on. The lead character of shantaram "lin" and his godfather in mumbai "kaderbhai" have some interesting one to one conversations. when they meet in solitude over a couple of drinks they usually talk about philosophy,existence,god,consciousness etc. So on one such occasion in the book kaderbhai starts explaining lin his views on what he thinks about who is god and why are we here??(I know this is part philosophy and it is difficult to understand,but then it is equally difficult to write so please read on).He says we are nothing but one single lonely soul standing in an infinite desert, and by infinite he means the infinite granules of sand, golden sand, that is spread in that grand desert.Now out of that infinite desert if one grabs one handful of sand in the fist,then that limited amount of sand in the hand is our consciousness. Our souls and our mind can focus only on that fist and the sand in it and hence all our thoughts,feelings,expressions,leanings and likings are limited in someway or the other because they are based on that limited consciousness that is in our fist.Our task(or the reason of our existence) is nothing else but to widen our souls gaze and be able to view the entire desert.It is to escape the lure of focusing only on our fists and spending our lives in the bliss of ignorance.Education,exposure,love and faith are all tools to help us reach this goal.

But then there must be someone who can view this entire and infinite desert in one frame of the eyesight,in just one 6/6 snapshot. He might also,at the same time be able to view each tiny granule of sand in the smallest of its details. He is my desert king. He is the one with infinite consciousness. He is GOD. That's the Desert king I am talking about and that's why this blog is bloody classy.

I have never been a non-believer of god. But i rarely visit temples or take time out to pray at home. Temples in my memory are places where i have seen people with blind faith, fighting,pushing and rushing for a glimpse of a statue.Crowding holy places with incense sticks ,flowers and coconut shells carrying faith that such rites and rituals will give them a "panorama desert view",the infinite consciousness.It is no ones fault but the number of devotees that believe in this system are soo many that a simple boy cannot just question the effectiveness or the faith that is vested in it.I can't do that.God for me is in my heart and mind. And i try to understand him in my way,worship him in my way and hence choose to not crowd the already crowded temples of worship.

There is one another explanation of god, which i have derived out of 2 very enlightening reads(Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance & The Sophie's World) and i think that it is something that i strongly believe in.

I believe that all, and by that i mean ALL, that mankind and every other living and non-living matter in this universe ever does is to make things more complex. Isnt it?

Think of it.. right from the time of stone age till today, every step of scientific invention, every discovery, every biological development has happened only to make things more complex.Even when we say lets simplify things we are actually simplifying things to make something bigger more complex. Even un-willingly the entire living population (animals and plants and cells) are continuously becoming more and more complex. The darwin's theory of evolution says the same. We mate to bring babies to this earth and a long string of such new babies over generations becomes more complex.So everything that is happening in this universe is trying to become more complex and more evolved. But then there must be an end. An infinite complexity. A final goal to complexity that is in itself so complex that everything and everyone becomes ONE complex "unity".That final complexity, that final infinite goal that all of this universe is moving towards is 'god' for me. All the natural forces like gravity, magnetism,fire,matter,energy etc is into existance because the ultimate complexity wants us to use them to reach it. And that is the reason why we are here.With our bloated egos and a self centered sense of existence,we are nothing but a teeny tiny and a very very very small step towards that infinite complexity. It is in our hands to choose in what way and to what extent we contribute towards that goal of reaching there.Fate is written but the path is for us to chose. Fate is the ultimate compelxity but then our free will is still ours and no one messes with that.

I think i have never doubted the existence of god because of this explanation. There are natural laws like gravity which have been in place since always.There are atoms, and particles even smaller withing the atom than that follow certain rules.There are huge masses like the sun and billions of other such suns which follow the same pattern and laws. Who created those laws in the first place??? the all encompassing laws that run this show of reaching some ultimate complexity??? I think that's our man. The "Desert King".

Music :Gulam Farid and Jagjit Singh..

"Kis wal akheya ve Majnu nu
O teri Laila disdi kaali
Majnu ne jawab ditta
Je teri ankh na wekhan waali
Je tu wekhe meri ankhaa naal
Teri surat na jaye sambhali
Ved bhi chitta, te Quran bhi chitti
Wich syahi rakh ditti kaali ve
Ghulam Farid, jithhe akhiyan lagiyan
Othhe kya gori kya kaali ve..."

verytime i hear this song from the album parwaaz , i recall the innumerable times that i have recited this to friends :P cheers to all those who "wah wah 'ed " in the merry nights....

Jagjit Singh has sung it almost heavenly in the song "Chulhe Aag na ghadi de vich paani" in the album PARWAAZ.. Just get that song and give it a listen.. amazing work.. :)

Above is the punjabi original version of the couplets... and below is my humble translation into hinglish ... Enjoy..

Kisi ne majnu Se kaha...
ke teri laia dikhti kaari..
majnu ne jawab diya...
ke teri nazar parakhne wali nahi hai...
Tu meri nazar se dekh...
to apne expressions control nahi karpayega..
Ved ke panne safed hain, aur quran ke panne bhi safed hain...
Uspe kaali ink se likha hai...
Gulam fardi(the great sufi poet and writer of these lines) jahan aankh lad gayi kisi se..
udhar kya gori kya kaali ...

A new beginning!! - Social media marketing and the 'n' things assocaited !!

Hey there bloogy!!

back after a long time !!

Converted my first B-school call some days back SCMHRD!!

now working on something concrete after a eureka discussion with nitin sir.. and for a change in a set direction and with some good goal in sight and most improtant something that i like !!!

soo many excalmations hahahaha >>> this is something different..

Okay ! started my journey on understanding that social media /networks like twitter, facebook, orkut and some innovative ones...their utility in terms of marketing ,their effectiveness and a 100 things surrounding it. lot of stuff already available on it but in the indian context not much is there... so on my own right now .

Also found some really interesting people on the first day .Just realised my twitter followers are 98 today !
back to interesting people !

• SETH godin

• SAGE lewis

Also read about the success of zappos ceo using the twitter to get close and personal with the users and creating sort of an underlined marketing for his website selling shoes !! really really interesting thing!! http://www.zappos.com/ .He has used his twitter to get say 3 lakh follwers and never said a word about buying shoes from his company and still created a huge buzz for his company.!!

Read this interesting article also about 7 THINGS WHY ALL BUSINESSES NEED TO BE ON TWITTER but i dont think all businesses need to be on twitter.. there is a huge potential but then its not for all frankly!!! that where i come in ..hahaha.. its a long journey ..just the beggining..

Started my study with a small experiment. with the founder of CONNECT2MBA ankur jain.. gave a brief on a new twitter account and how to use it .lets see the results of the experiment.

the entire experiment in the next post.

cya!! will be here for the updates on my study ,insights and ideas that will change the indian marketing scene for the good...

Shrouding Lies...

This is to some people who believe they can get away with their petty lies...
What bugs me is not their stupid lies...
It is the art work that they put into shrouding these lies...
The mocking manner,as if I am complete nut head and in my entire life I wont be able to tell if that fucking sentence was a lie...

But believe me ...the eyes..the justifications...the grimace..and every inch of your body shouts ...beep beep beep...lie lie lie...

Try using a straight no ...or the ever golden silence...

Boss....You have to be a real pro at shrouding lies....else just Quit...and stop making a fool of yourself....

Walk Away...

Some lyrics i wrote ....


'WALK AWAY'

Walk away,
Coz i dont care,
Coz i dont care if u are already gone...

And as you drift away,
Shed some tears from your heart,
To wash away all the times that we spent...

Theres no need to tell you why,
I ask you to go away,
Can You give me a reason to let you stay???

And as we spend each other away ,
From different sides of a wall,
More interested on the other side...

Riding through the loneliness ,
With borrowed friends and foes,
Waiting for a life to belong...


Varun R.

G-talk chats about nothing...

My favourite line while G-talks is " Aur bolo...".After a few minutes of chat whn there's nothing more to talk..i start this "aur bolo...".The fact is even after all the necessary talk is done,sometimes you dont want the conversation to be over...and just enjoy the green tab of "available" button on the screen...besides the photo...staring .....smiling..

It just came out after one such chat..trying to explain my friend why i use "Aur bolo..."

Chat about nothing...
Thinking about everything...
Feeling the bliss of all the mistakes that we made...
And grieve about all the times we wont be able to spend togather...

Guess what the reply was...." hmmmm...aur bolo...."

The PJ affair..

Since the final year began( 3 weeks now), it seems i have developed some serious PJ sprouting ability. Until last year if u'd ask any of my batchmates about me ,they would surely sputter out some gibberish about my CG, or may about be my involvement into college politics or at the most my college affairs( it should be i*affairs( imaginary) ..Aha!! I came up with another one).
But go to my class mates now (even those who sit remotely adjacent to my seats) and they'd go" Oh ,varun, boy his PJ's, Shoot me in my B**ls"

And so I have been trying to analyse the reasons behind this new found powers( Remember the Peter Parker Dilemma in SP MAN1),and after much muse ,it seems like they are the side effects of one or more of the following reasons.

1.) 2 month long vacations full of void.
2.) Some Inspirational super humans of the league. (Guruji kaa naam nahi lete..)
3.) The zeal to do something that people thought i couldn't.(But this is not what i wanted to do).
4.) Half hearted Cat preparations.(believe me it helps...)
5.) The jury comments on Indian Idol.
6.) 6 hour long news bulletin on some rajesh acting like a cross between devanad and clooney.

And perhaps more of such fictional facts. But i guess the above 6 reasons show what i have been through.All of these reasons somewhere build up a bulk of super-semi-amorphous-colloid liquid( possibly Brain slag) which is a major produce of the gradual bombardment( non U.S) on the normal brain cells(grey ones)which usually do not work.(Except in case of women engineers,non-existence and malfunction of brain cells are separate phenomenas). It is necessary that this slag be pushed out of the head .So they transform themselves into curt intuitive PJ's and just come out through the panama canal.( see one more... you know where they come out from). And when this happens, those falling under the radius of ur speech range feel kind of hit on the face with your brain slag(super- semi-amorphous-colloid liquid ..remember!!!). And this in-turn starts a process of conversion of the grey cells of the listener into new brain slag in their heads fueled by revenge or hatred, compassion or brotherhood ..cant say precisely.Thus the priory of the PJ masters survives....

My winamp this week.

1.Jeremy (acoustic)-Pearl jam
2.Sad but True-Metallica

3.Eye Of The Tiger-Survivor

4.Fortunate Son-Creedance Clearwater Revival
5.My Sacrifice-Creed

6.You Belong To Me (OST - Shrek)-Jason Wade

7.Nothing else matters-Metallica

8.Master of puppets-Metallica

9.Dust in the wind -Kanasas

10.Pink bullets-The shins