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Monday, June 27, 2005

Dear Blog,

I recently attended 'The Innovation Summit' organized by CII
at The Leela Palace, Bangalore. It was about Indian businessmen
succeeding against all odds using 'Innovation'.

Totally loved it. I was amazed by Dainik Bhaskar's philosophy of
'Leadership from Day 1'. The CEO went on explaining how they
managed to be No.1 from day 1 when they launched their newspaper
in Gujarat.

Dainik is now entering Mumbai with DNA. I am looking forward
to the battle and its outcomes.

**

I suddenly lost drive to attend parties or to meet people. I am
sitting in my own shell and letting in only a few. I have no complaints.

**

A good friend is staying with me now. We discovered a park nearby for
our morning walks. We also discovered 'talking to each other' which
we used to do a lot when we were much younger. These days I am
looking forward to getting up early in the morning.

**

7: Number of people who called me on my birthday
3: SMS I received
0: E Greetings or Greetings I received
3: Number of people who I invited for the party
0: Number of gifts I received

What a contrast!!!!!

**

Watched 'Aparichitudu' (by Sankar) and 'After the Sunset' recently.
Loved them.

**

The movie I am looking forward to is 'War of the worlds'.
The book I am looking forward to is 'The world is flat'.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Day 6
Anischya. Anischya.

On day four they asked us to observe something called a samkara, rougly
can translated as 'sensation'. Four days of meditative silence by then, calmed
down many of the chirpy voices that usually play at the back of my mind.
Uneding loops of ad jingles to upcoming tasks. All died.

By Day 5 I was very calm. Almost with no thought. Except for a worry that
I might catch cold. Juxtaposing the power of now, every now and then, in
every break, I would come out and watch the trees and listen to the birds.
Being completely present. It filled me with a feeling of triumph.

In order to understand Vipassana, you need to understand Samkara.
To begin with, the instructor asked me to observe the sensations I have
ON my nose. Concentrate on nothing but ON the nose.

Did you ever experience going numb? Your leg gets numb, you feel nothing
and you do stuff like rubbing or shaking to bring it back to senses. Remember
how is feels like? It feels like stages or onion skins. Stage by stage you finally
regain total sensation. Observing your nose is exactly opposite to that. At first
you observe a tiny pressure spot here, a tinge there, a twitch, slight vibration
etc. They appear and disappear. (Anischya, Anischya, or This too shall pass).

Then you enter a stage two. Now you can observe more number of samkaras.
Some of them lasting a longer. Most of them lasting only for a second. Some of
them pleasant. Some of them itchy, some of them painful, some of them just
neutral.

Anistchya. Anistchya.

You then enter stage three. Now you can observe samkaras that are not just
ON the nose but area little deeper inside the skin. You can FEEL, the upper
skin, the flesh behind it, the insides of your nostrils, the beginning of your
nose, the tip of your nose, the end of your nose. Its not visualization. It is
feeling it. You can observe samkaras passing through, emerging,
disappearing, reappearing, piercing, swimming, cutting through, dissolving
and solidifying.

Anistchya. Anistchya.

You then enter stage four. Now your nose is nothing but a collection of vibrant
appearing and disappearing sensations. There is no solidity anymore.

Anistchya. Anistchya.

Every sensation that you feel is temporary. It is going to die. This simple
excercise is the foundation of Vipassana. It is mind blowingly simple.

As simple as E = M*c*c.

You like some of the sensations. You will develop a craving for them.
You hate some of the sensations. You will develop an aversion for them.

You become happy when you are able to observe the sensations as
instructed.You get frustrated when you dont observe the sensations.
This is the fundamental building block of human sorrow. You apply
labels to everything you perceive.You like some.You dont like some.

You want some.You dont want some.

When you get what you like, when you get what you want, you are
happy.When you get what you dont like or when you dont get what
you want,you are unhappy.

You want to be happy. You dont want to be unhappy.

Coming Next...

Day 7
Inside, outside. Outside, inside.

P.S: All the opnions and conclusions are strictly mine. That was my
experience and my conclusions. Truth or whatever is experienced
in totally different ways by each and every individual.

I am sure, if I take up the same Vipassana course again, my
conclusions will differ, given the new circumstances and new
experiences that I added up in between.

Truth I say, is what you experience 'now'. Its not your past
or its not your future. It is impermanent. (Contrary to the
popular belief that truth is absolute.).

My good friend Leela, with her superior writing skills, did a great
job of narrating her own Vipassana experience. Interested readers
might want to check her blog http://absolutelee.rediffblogs.com
Just In



48 laws of Power
Why men dont listen and women cant read maps

Two seemingly odd books to read on a single day. Both, thought provoking.

Why men dont listen...confirmed some of my worst fears about feminism and
womens lib. It also confirmed some of my little own theories about
men and women in general.

All in all, it was a good Sunday.
Love

Foot prints
on a beach.
Twined.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Day 4
The art of women

Day 4 was an extraordinary day. In a way, a very good day. I was already
ahead of the pack (Thanks to the realization of little dudes in my mind).
I was able to observe every pattern of thought and able to come back and put
my attention on the breath, with little trouble. (It was like playing solitaire.
You have just arranged the last of the cardsand now its time to send them to
the decks in sequence. Every thought pattern was identified and just observed
and then dismissed.)

By afternoon, I kind of entered a zone. It feels very light to have no thought,
to have no future, no past and just be present.

By evening I was beaming.

Day 5

On Day 5, they introduced something called 'Adhistana' which roughly can
be translated as 'Strong Determination'. When you take an Adhistana you
have to fulfill it. That day's adhistana was 'Not to move any part of the body
and from the position you sit in, for a full hour, doing nothing but observing
samkaras'. (More about Samkaras later).

The zone continued. I observed my samkaras successfully. I observed my mind
becoming sharper and sharper in the observation. I successfully managed the
'Adhistana' in my very firstsession itself. During Adhistana, my legs went
numb, my back exploded, it itched everywhere, you know the kind of itch
that you must scratch, but I managed to just merely observe all these
preprogrammed mind patterns. On the end of the day my mind was so calm
and serene, it started all kinds of visualizations with absolute clarity.

For a long time, I didnt realize that I entered another pre determined pattern.
I so identified with those visuals.
It took me another day and half to realize my craving for the creative zone and
a desire that is bigger than me which I often call 'The art of women'.


The Art of Women

Why?

It occured to me in a strange way (once again) while preparing my master plan.
I had six master goals, several long term goals and a lot of short term goals in
the plan. I suddenly asked myself the bad ass question 'why'?

Why do you want to be fit and healthy?
Why do you want to get rich?
Why do you want to get into profession you are planning to get into?

To bring clarity to the plan and orient the goal towards a common greater goal,
the book asked me several questions. I had to answer all the questions.

If you have one thing to choose (only one thing) what would it be?
If you have only one month left to live what would you do?
What makes you happy?

The answer my inner voice gave to all of those questions was always simple and
clear. I always laughed at the answer and used to shake my head and tell
myself 'Come on get serious dude, lets work on this plan with some real goals'.

It took me a full two years to realize that my inner voice was not joking. He was
giving me the right answers. The real goalsI have been trying to set are once
again oriented towards this greater goal.

My selfawarness graph kind of hit a peak that day.

Why do you want to be fit and healthy?
So that I can attract fit and healthy women and enjoy better sex.
Why do you want to get rich?
So that I can get whoever from wherever into my lap.
Why do you want to get into profession you are planning to get into?
I always wanted to get into media..hmmm...and have sex with dozen sex bombs.

If you have one thing to choose (only one thing) what would it be?
A sex bomb.
If you have only one month left to live what would you do?
Have lots of sex.
What makes you happy?

Sex. (Of course).

This actually puzzled me a lot. Yeah, like many men the first thing that occurs
to me when I look at a girl is sex.

But what puzzled me most was my desperation for sex.

In reality I am very picky and choosy when it comes to my women and sex.
(Not that I had a wide range of choice to choose from, but from whatever I had).

Kamasutra, a girl friend, porn flicks, a hustler and lots of art.

Actually the root of this fascination can be traced back to the age when I was
twelve. Thats when I read a copy of Vatsayana kamasutra. I was totally
hooked. I had a wild and vivid imagination. It added to the fire and created
an unlimited fascination for female anatomy.(At least thats what I thought so.)
When I was fourteen my dad bought a new apartment and we moved into it.
What came to me was my own bedroom (my brother stayed in a hostel) and
unlimited privacy.

It was also the year I graduated to Pastels and postercolors from water colors.
It was also the year my brain discovered the realtionship between a soft pastel
and the divine feminine form.

I fell in love with a blue eyed babe (she was two years junior to me) when I was
sixteen. I did everything a rowdy boy would do. I yelled her name whenever I
saw her. I bumped into her accidently on a daily basis and touched her.
(We called it a 'dash'). I wrote her name on the walls and everyone's desk in her
classroom. All my friends told her that I love her. I followed her to her bus stop,
to her classroom and to her restroom. I waited patiently for her upskirt view
while she played kho-kho.

I complimented her sexy thighs. I complimented her sexy blue eyes. I told her
I loved her spongy boobs. I told her I liked her smell.

She complained to our class teachers. Strangely no one believed her.
Smiley the gentleman can never indulge himself in something as cheap as this.
They adviced her to settle the matter on her own.

One day, her dad came to the school without a warning, looking for me.
I hid under a desk. No one found me that day. Another day, her brother came
to the school without a warning, looking for me. My friends gaurded me.

At the end of the year, that blue eyed sponge boob babe fell deeply and madly
in love with me.

We went to the local 'exhibition' and took agiant wheel ride, had a large papad,
jilebi and mirch bajji. We went to a hindi movie with our friends and sat next
to each other. The gentle rise and fall of her bosom, her smile, the pink in her
baby fat filled cheeks, the touch of her hand, the softness of her form (which
I could feel through her dress) simply awed me.

That night I drew my first nude.I tried to capture her in very few continuous
storkes. That night wasalso my first sleepless night. Within an year I was
drawing nothing but nudes. A good friend of mine and I joined hands (he is
now an art director for movies) to draw a book, titled 'How to make love
to a pregnant lady - 12 different ways'. It was also the year in which more
than half a dozen of my cartoons got published in leading local magazines.
I never told anyone about it. I never felt great about it. But I always proudly
displayed my nudes. It was also the year we discovered 'Debonair'. Nudes in
'Debonair'can at best be described as 'lousy'. But it was that age when you had
an erection before you finished saying 'cleavage' or 'boobs'.

Soon my art buddy and I discovered pornography (Popularly known as 26aka
BF which in turn is a short form for Blue Film, then).

Our first flick was a rude shock. (Lets call it a cultural shock). Till then women
were some kind of divine things we craved for and worshipped. The mystery
behind a girls dress was more fascinating than the girl herself. The flick broke
the magic. It was like your parents telling you that Santa is just another Banta,
or PC Sorcar revealing you the Great Indian Rope Trick. Poof. All the fucking
and sucking and all those eruptions of bodily fluids screwed the naive and
almost sacred fantasy world we lived in.

Your coolness factor exploded exponentially everytime you watched a porn
flick amongst your buddies. (Back then internet didnt exist andto get hold on
a tape in a small conservative town like ours was an adventure itself). We were
the cool dudes who had access to porn flicks. HilliBillies residing in the hostel
used to beg us to grant them moksha.

That year, VPSingh implemented Mandal commissionsrecommendations and
all hell broke loose. Our college was closed fortwo long fucking months. Hostel
hillibillies died of boredom. For aselected few we organized a porn flick (and
granted them moksha, forwhich they had to donate generously). On that show
we collected excess money, in other words,we made profit. Art buddy and I
bought our first beer (Golgen Eagle) with that money.

To this day, I am proud that I earned my first beer.

It took a smuggled 'Hustler' magazine to bring back the love, fascination, for
the female nude I had. Ironically, I regarded the pictures in Hustler as art.
(So did my art buddy). That book wasnt anything like we had everseen.
That high quality print, with resolution that we had never seen before on
such a high quality paper sure was art for us. That book wasthe most
valuable thing we possessed then. Art buddy and I replicated almost all the
major nudes in that book.

With all those replications we learned intuitively the female proportions,
curves, qualities, textures and tones.The more we learned the anatomy
the more fascinated we got.For a full month we drew and recited female
anatomy. I was more interested in 'curves' that were feminine and that
are feminine. Art buddy was moreinterested in accuracy. I never really
replicated. Rather, I explored with my pastel. Every new white sheet
was a new journey and a new possibility.

I would just draw a line that forms the lower half of a breast and continue
till the beginning of arm pit. I would pick a dry pasteland smudge evenly
a triangle. The triangle that begins with two soft dimples formed at the
end of the spinal and ends at the beginning of buttocks. I played a lot
with the 'volume' of a breast. and the finesse of a nipple.

I learned that the color and size of a female's nipple have their own
personalities. I lived in a world of tones, qualities and textures. Art
buddy lived in a world of proportions. He used to comeup with crazy
equations like'the proportions of the sides of a triangle that forms the
eyes and the chin are equal to the proportions of the sides of a triangle
that forms the nipples and the navel'.

Little did we realize that we unknowingly 'entered the matrix'. Little did
I realize that I developed a fascination that would become the defining
value for all the decisions that I would make in my future.It is that drive,
it is that longing that unsettled me, settled me, drove me places and
firmed me at places.