marbella

5th of May: after much anticpation but not enough preparation, we were off to Spain!

the flight was at 6am from Belfast International Airport, and I did something crazy-ish: drove to the airport, dropped shruti off with the bags, then drove about a mile away to a spot I scoped out on Google maps to be legal to park, unfolded my cycle from the boot, and cycled to the airport! chained my cycle next to another one, and we were off on an uneventful but tiring flight to malaga. landed at 9am, took the bus to Marbella (and literally missed one bus by a minute!), dropped our bags at the Airbnb (Marbella is very hilly!) and then headed out to grab a bite at a street side cafe. walked around a little more, made a dinner reservation at a highly rated tapas place, headed back to the bnb, checked in, and took a quick nap. was so sleepy though, we couldn't bring ourselves to wake up for the dinner reservation at 7pm, but thankfully they allowed us to move it to 9pm and we were ready and fresh by then. after the relaxed dinner, we walked around a bit and clicked photos before heading to our Airbnb. super start to our vacation! 

the next day, we set off for a "local" breakfast place. we had a late start, and it was quite busy by the time we arrived - we would have liked ot sit outdoors but those tables were highly sought after and we concluded it's better to sit indoors without the view instead. we tried what was to become our favourite hot drink of the vacation: "bombon" (coffee with condensed milk). went perfectly with churros!

breakfast was a little hit-and-miss though - the waiters didn't speak english, and our order didn't exactly arrive the way we asked, but we aren't fussy so it was fine.

we walked around town, clicked plenty of photos, shruti shopped a bit (just one dress, to be fair), we made our dinner reservation, headed back to base, and then after a brief nap, we headed down to the waterfront. we walked the "golden mile" (which was actually about 4 miles) of seafront from marbella to puerto banus. it was super hot and we needed plenty of rest breaks on the way, but we made it, and the seafront walk was very well worth it! we had drinks inside pienapples (very expensive, but worth it!) booked the ferry back, had an ice cream while we waited for it, and finally enjoyed the sunset cruise back!

and finally, we had just enough time to shower, change and grab dinner - roast suckling! it was really, really good!

tuesday was our last whole day in Marbella - we headed to the local breakfast place again in the hope of getting an outside table, but the queue was longer than ever! bombon and churros again, and the waiters even remembered us from yesterday!

we then walked around and checked out the local "municipal market" - amazing produce, including seafood - and best of all, a cafe serving more local food! second breakfast/brunch downed, walked around a bit, and got back to our room for a bit of a siesta. we were trying to decide what to do for dinner, and shruti mentioned that we are right next door to a two michelin star restaurant. literally 5 doors down on our street. and they had tables available - nobody had booked a table for that night! shruti wasn't entirely convinced (it was a lot of money!), but to me, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity - one that begged to be taken. after about half an hour of indecision, we reserved our table for 7pm.

the dinner was exquisite and deserves a blog post of its own (after my 40th birthday dinner's blog post - my first michelin starred restaurant experience, just under a year ago!). after dinner, we were well and truly satisfied (and me, also a little tipsy as I had chosen to go with the wine pairing - I really went all out that night!).

back in the bnb, we hastily packed, after I made sure i uploaded each of my photos with the right title. i didn't want any record of that exquisite meal to be lost to the sands of time!

next morning, we headed back to the local cafe for bombon, churros and a sandwich, then checked out and dragged the bags back to the bus station - uphill this time, so even more exhausting! we missed a bus thanks to it being full, but it was already running late, so we were on the next bus to malaga at noon. exactly 3 days in marbella!

hiatus

i only realized 5 minutes ago that my last post (before the one I posted 5 minutes ago) was 3 months ago! in fact, I had so completely forgotten about this blog that I'm now surprised I even remembered to type the last post - there has literally been a mental pathway that I seem to have stopped using! for example my birthday went by a couple of months ago and for the first time since the inception of this blog, I completely forgot to write about it! and it wasn't even for lack of content. in fact, I have more than the usual stuff to write about, and I also have more than the usual stuff to write about that I haven't been posting elsewhere (ie facebook/twitter)!

why then have I stopped blogging?

the answer is literally right in front of me as soon as I consciously started thinking about it: the internet  (specifically social media, or more accurately, Web 2.0) has rewired me.

I have always been big on social media - to the extent that I have probably been called a social media butterfly at one point (at least a few years ago to be fair). the biggest difference though is that while the amount of time I spend producing content has reduced, the time I spend consuming content has increased.

And most of the content I consume isn't particularly high on the cost/benefit scale I'm used to measuring my energy-weighted time and effort by.

Has facebook's algorithm's become inexplicably more addictive? I don't think I'm objective enough to be able to say. But something I'm more convinced of is that I've been trying to apply the same "dopamine feedback" loop that instant-gratification forms of social media promote, to other forms (like this blog).

this blog doesn't provide instant (or possibly any palpable) gratification. nobody comments. there is no like button (it does get cross-posted to facebook and there is a like button there, but I'm not sure if that counts), there are no notifications other than emails that get buried under hundreds of more important ones. heck, i recently exported my email subscribers (yes, google just killed feedburner, they want you on that dopamine feedback loop too!) and it was all of TWO. two subscribers over 15 years.

I know I'm actually writing this (and pretty much everything) for myself, but I can't help feeling that repeated reinforcement that nobody cares has caused me to stop caring too.

except that I do care. I care as long as I type. I stop caring once I click publish. But isn't that what it's supposed to be?

I feel that dopamine hit coming along as I hover over the bright orange button, ready to click - and feel the need to fight it. because too much of this good thing is most definitely bad.

either way, i'm back.

killjoy

apparently, one way to be a killjoy is to encourage others to pursue happiness using principles that seem to have worked for you.

Counterintuituve, but I think this might be because:

• since happiness is objective, nobody is definitively happier than anybody else
• the act of promoting "what worked for me" to somebody else is likely reduce their chances of finding happiness
• pushing somebody to find something they aren't conciously searching for is likely to make said thing more elusive as they're now being forced to search for it
• logic as a means of pursuing anything seems to work for some things more than others, and an attempt to fit something emotional into a logical process seems self contradictory and possibly self defeating

the mask that became me

i think it's time to remind myself that everyone lives behind their masks, and the only thing different about this new layer is that it has been externally prompted. maybe it's time to be thankful that i've gotten this far without having to feel this way.

- Kris, almost 4 years ago

i've thought long and hard about why i don't blog like i used to. it's easy to blame things on being busy, but that's not the real reason.

this blog never really was a commentary about the world around me. it was about me.

and there's something that's changed about me that i can't really bring myself to show from under the mask.

we all have our secrets. our dark side, even. and unlike in the movies, we can't just embrace it dramatically in public. we could, but then we'd probably be quickly consumed by our inner demons or something (i don't know. i've been too afraid to see what happens when i let loose).

life seems fragile.

trying to be be the best version of yourself means there's too much at stake: too many chances to do something you'll regret for a long time.

my mind always seeks out the worst case scenario. sometimes, it seems like it's the only way i can keep myself away from the path of quick self destruction.

but that path sometimes seems like slow self destruction.

another rushed morning, another day at work that passed in a blink, another mindless evening that would probably be kept sane if i don't assert myself or think too much, another night of not enough sleep (even if it's sometimes 12 hours).

halfhearted attempts at eating healthy because i've wired myself to guilt-trip every time i do something else, getting to my activity goals because my phone reminds me to.

because: why?

most of what I do is not because I want to do it. i don't even know what I want to do. when I start thinking about it, everything falls apart.

i remember this friend who, over 15 years ago, said he hits the bottle every night he's alone because that's the best way to stop thinking, because when you think too much, everything falls apart.

i thought he was addicted or something. maybe he was. but i now know how he felt.

anyway.

it's not that terrible.

my problems are possibly not that bad. i know plenty others who have it worse.

my problem is that i thought i could see through everyone else's mask without attempting to see beyond mine.

and, so, here i am. at the end of a long winded blog post that lost its point, just like i did. just like (or so it seems to me) humanity did.

all filler, no thriller

at what point do you stop doing things for the thrill, and start doing them just to fill your time/life?

I had a month to experiment with this thought.

it turns out, the point is much sooner than I thought.

but it also turns out, it's not about what you do, but how/why you do it.

if you keep your mind open to experimentation, and positively pursue it at least a few times a day, it becomes enough to keep yourself on the edge. but if you don't, complacency sets in quickly. and complacency becomes contagious.

for example, my playlist: listening to my ipod on shuffle sounds like it might be un-complacent, but it turns out that not having to think about what you're listening to is actually less experimental than picking an album for your mood. at the very bottom of the scale is of course listening to the same album over and over again because you can't be bothered to change it... as opposed to wanting to listen to the same album over and over again for whatever experimental reason (eg. I sometimes do it to create correlations with feelings/activities/whatever have you, just one of the infinitely possible *conscious* reasons!)

if found that it takes me about two days for complacency to turn into boredom, and suddenly, everything turns into "fillers". life loses its essence.

complacency is a many-headed monster. I've seen it in others, but without asking them (which I haven't done yet), I may be operating on a flawed premise. when it comes to myself though, I've seen it actually varies between extremes of optimization and non-optimization. and this itself is self-propagating. non-optimized activities force me into firefighting, basically hyper optimization. and that comes with the general feeling of not being in control. and of course, how do you experiment when you're not in control? you don't.

it's actually much harder to slip out of complacency than to slip into it. complacency almost seems addictive. experimentation, on the other hand, is self-propagating, but needs constant effort and revival.

and so, the experiment is over, and luckily, I'm back to experimentation with a vengeance.

time to finish my strange-but-nice cocktail (lager + tonic + ginger ale + lemon), the photo of which I did NOT instagram, turn off the radio, and go to sleep on the other side of the bed ;)

the messy dream

chilling at a friends' place, it got pretty late one night. the sofa was nice and comfy, and the music and the spot i was in made me feel a little zoned out.

and so, the inevitable happened.

i don't even remember what the dream was, but it was pretty much me in the same spot, talking to the friends in the room. except that there seemed to be some sort of glitch in the dream, and then i thought i woke up with a start. and so, i asked my friends, "was i speaking to you guys about ****?"

they unanimously answered "no!", but they were laughing about it.

i assumed it was a dream, and attempted to restart the conversation. but again, i woke up with a start with my friends laughing. and again, i asked them if i was speaking to them about the same topic. they again said "no", and i found the conversation strangely repetitive.

and then, the whole thing repeated at least a couple of times. each time, my friends found it funnier and funnier, and i was so sleepy i couldn't even think of a way to break out of the loop!

finally i decided it was pointless trying to stay awake, and literally slept off until an hour later.

i still have no idea how much of the stuff that happened that night was actual dreams and how much was my friends simply messing with me ;)

explaining dreams

i had a strange dream last night. i dreamed i entered an elevator, and pressed the button for the floor i lived on. except that there were already two people in the elevator: sejal and her friend. they giggled to themselves and told me i pressed the wrong button. i was convinced it was the right one though. they explained they thought i was coming over to sejal's place. and that's when i realized i was in sejal's building, which was identical and adjacent to my own. and the building in my dream was completely different from my real life home.

that's when i woke up. it was about 6am, and it was beginning to get light outside. i got out of bed, shut the curtains, turned off the air conditioning, and went back to sleep.

the dream was so funny, i thought i should explain it to my wife. so i woke her up, and told her about it. except that when i was trying to narrate the dream, i couldn't remember sejal's friend's name. i figured i should be able to recall her name using my phone. so i opened google, and started wondering what to search for. i was pretty clueless.

i finally gave up, and went back to sleep.

i woke up at 9 am, as my phone's alarm was ringing.

except that my wife wasn't beside me. i wasn't even at home. i was at sunil's place, while my wife was having a sleepover at our home. that's when i realized the second part was also a dream. and sejal's friend's name was dipti. and, strangely enough, the curtains were wide open, but the air conditioner was off!

why do i blog?

i'm not sure if i've blogged about this before, and honestly, at this moment, i don't really care.

i have forgotten my blog exists. i have forgotten that you, my dear reader, exists.

i have forgotten that if there's something i need to throw out there, make available to the world without any external validation, i have a place to do it.

sometimes, it feels like the self is a mirror. the more you look inside, the more you see outside. and i've stopped looking inside.

i don't know why, but i know that i've stopped.

it's hard to explain the metaphysical phenomenon where the self expands, so that something that used to be outside myself, can now look at me, and see the outside through the mirror... thus rendering the act of what used to be myself looking inside, redundant.

the phenomenon where i don't feel the need to ask myself questions, because someone else is doing the asking for me.

as i think about it, strange diagrams come to mind.

and i'm happy with these diagrams. i'm happy with this real representation of the abstract projection of my reality.

so happy that i don't even feel the need to draw these diagrams and stick them here, even though i know the images in my mind will fade before i even fall asleep, and this blog post will look like gibberish when i wake tomorrow.

and that leads me the answer to why i don't blog anymore.

i started off blogging for others. i then moved to blogging to myself.

but this post isn't even for myself. it's for my present. the intersection of the self and the current moment. something which will not exist at the time anyone (myself included) is reading this.

so... why even blog?

personal

i guess i keep my personal life out of this blog (although i'm not quite sure why - is philosophy more entertaining than juicy gossip from my life? think not!) but recently a lot of things have taken a backseat due to personal stuff that i wouldn't normally talk about.

so what is this big secret?

i'm in love.

again.

but this time, i'm convinced it's for the last time. the one.

and it's changed things.

finding the one you want to spend the rest of your life with is a very interesting experience.

it starts with downplaying it. for some time, you're not sure if it's for real, and it's quite easy to convince yourself that your mind is playing tricks on you (to be fair, my mind does play nasty tricks on me with alarming regularity).

then you see that it is for real. and it's overwhelming. you're like... is this really happening? yes it is really happening! you stop denying the symptoms. you think everything has changed. but the funny thing is that, nothing has actually changed much. most of it *is* in your head.

and then you share that realization. the honesty is a high.

words are said. promises are made. dreams are shared. everything is rose tinted and pretty.

and then, life hits. now that you've got the similarities out of the way, you start seeing the differences. some differences are awesome. some are nice. some are tolerable. others... the less said, the better.

the important thing at that point is to remind yourself that everything is still in your heads and your hands. and even though the promise to stay together, through thick and thin, better and worse still stands, there's a lot of leeway despite that promise. lots of things that can and will change. lots of things that were assumed, will need to be looked at, and worked out again. and maybe, again and again.

it's weird. it's one of those big things for me. it's another level of abstraction that's been willingly tacked onto my life structure. the willingness to throw away well planned, coherent philosophies, because they have evolved to the point where i now have to accept the influence of some contradictory ones.

and that's not the only thing.

i'm becoming like her. she's becoming like me. i find myself reacting to situations in unexpected ways. so does she (i'm not sure if it's conscious on her part - but given that it's subconscious on mine, i'm willing to bet that it's the same for her).

i realize that i'm not sure who i am any more. depending on my state of mind, existential crises that i thought i solved 15 years ago present themselves again. sometimes it's awesome. sometimes it's weird. sometimes it's scary. i wonder if this is how it's gonna be forever. are we gonna be two people together? or are we gonna merge into one person-couple? are the questions gonna get deeper? or will we figure out all the big things and start debating curtain colours?

in a way, my life has prepared me for this. prepared me through the realization that problems are proportional to abilities (or do we only tackle problems on a level that matches our abilities? seems like a self-referential question!). i wonder if we will somehow find a way to turn picking curtain colours into some sort of paradigm-changing debate, just because we've reached the point where we eat paradigm changes for breakfast.

and that's where i am. that's where we are. working towards the big day, when it's no longer just in our heads. wondering what will change, only because we're sure of the one thing that won't.

living the dream

there's a tag for it, but this is something more:

bike overnight to goa.
3 days of relaxing, exploring, with good food, beer and friends on the side.
one morning of biking to gokarna.
4 days of exploring, relaxing, surfing, again with good food, beer and my best friend on the side.
and there's still a weekend in goa and two long rides to go.

this is what I live for.

office shenanigans

it's been 9 months since i joined the new office. my first few months were kinda lonely there, and the few attempts I tried at making "frandsheep" failed quite tragically.

still, my nervous attempts at being sociable and the general niceness of my office-folk ensured it wasn't a permanent situation, and i'm now quite well-settled. not like the previous place, where well over a 100 people knew me personally (yeah, 5 years is a *long* time!), but it feels like i have some real friends here, and that's what matters.

anyway, what's friends like without a few shenanigans? since we mostly hang out over (and after) lunch, the stories are mostly food related.

like this one day, when i refused to share my gulab jamun dessert. and coincidentally the veggie was something with baby potatoes.

after one slightly sweet spoonful of veggies, i realized what my friends had done: swapped the gulab jamun with a baby potato. lucky for me, i swapped them back... no damage done.

But then, the day came for revenge.

The friend who did the swap was poised with his dessert in his hand. don't remember what it was, but it was something dry and sweet.

and he was engaged in conversation, looking at whoever was sitting to one side... while i, from the other side, liberally sprinkled it with salt from the shaker.

The expression on his face after that first bite was priceless.

ps: typed in a bandra-fast from borivli, while sipping on my party pack of monk and coke. funfun!

pps: title dedicated to nickolai, who is the only person i know who uses the word "shenanigans" :)

the cyclical dream

last night, I had three vaguely connected dreams. The funny thing is, each of the dreams seem to lead into each other. anyway.

part one:

i was dressed in my suit, with my brother, and we were in a train. It was late at night (post-midnight, from the feel of it). We were traveling down central railway to an unnamed distant station. We were going to my friend saket's place. saket was in a different coach in the same train. also, there was another friend of saket, who was traveling in the ladies compartment. my brother and I were near the south end of the train, while saket was near the north end. At every station, my brother and I would get off, run one compartment north, and get back in. until at one point, where we found saket's friend also on the platform, running north. We asked her what she was doing, since she was already in the ladies' compartment to begin with. before she could answer, the train started moving. She ran and jumped into the last coach, while my brother and I missed the train (since the last coach is only for ladies).

part two:

i am at saket's place, which strangely looks like my grandmom's place. my brother doesn't make an appearance in this part of the dream. it's still night. while we're making the bed, his mom (who I've never met in real life) is complaining about the number of empty wine bottles in the house. He sneakily hid an empty wine bottle under the bed when she wasn't looking. we then went to sleep... and woke up in the afternoon. We were supposed to go out somewhere for a function in the evening, and we'd have to get ready and leave quickly for, to make it in time. I decided to have my shower first. since the layout was the same as my grandmom's place, i thought i knew where the bathroom was.

except that when I opened the door, it opened onto a grassy downhill sloping lawn, which ended in a forest. and yet, right next to the door, was a shower. in the open.

There was nobody around, so i turned on the shower and put the upper half of my body under it, with my towel still around my waist.

just as I was about to take off the towel, i saw a few workers at the edge of the forest, within the trees, looking at me.

At that very moment, someone knocked on the door, from inside the house. I hurriedly turned off the shower and opened it.

It was the maid, telling me that the bathroom was next door. When I checked that door, I realized that what used to be my grandmom's toilet, was this house's bathroom-cum-toilet.

part three:

it's evening, around 8pm. i'm at am outdoor lawn, decorated like it's some sort of function. everyone around in suits and gowns. i was seated with saket and his parents, at a table that was much larger than the rest, and heaped with brightly wrapped gifts. at one corner of the table, there was a heap of pastries. saket offered me a chocolate croissant, which i had. He then offered me sugar sprinkled pretzel, which i ate half of, and then decided to walk around.

And then I bumped into another friend of mine, myron. he asked me whether I had dinner, and what i thought of the food. I told him I wasn't hungry. He asked if that was because the food was bad. I told him it wasn't, and (jokingly) said he could have my share if he wanted.

and that's my three dreams... in one.

ps: strangely, this blog post was typed over an evening, while traveling by train, wearing my suit, to my friend satej's wedding reception... and on the way back, in a cab, thanks to my friend amit and i missing the last train home :D

relief

what a relief, to open your eyes, and to see the world exactly as you imagined it!

the morbid

I've been dreaming a lot, daily. been trying to remember them, but it's now a little too much to write.

anyway, one of last night's dreams included, among other things, a friend (actually, two "friends", of which I could only identify one.) who tried to dig a tunnel straight down, into the wet sand inside a cave.

to cut the parts I don't remember, lets say that he somehow disappeared underground. since we have had no idea, we sent crabs to look for him (in my dream, I could speak to crabs, and they could speak to me).

the crabs came back in a couple of minutes, saying they had found a couple of "graves".

later (in the dream), I read in a book that an unidentified friend of mine who loved to watch volcanoes, lost both her arms in an eruption but otherwise survived fine. she continued to watch volcanic eruptions from up close after the accident, but always took someone along to watch.

road tripping (part 2)

it had all the makings of a great evening: a couple of hours of roaming the anjuna flea market, a perfect beachside sunset, a band playing awesome music while we sipped our drinks, and a bunch of some of my best friends.

but I never knew there was something better coming up.

all I can say is that I've never experienced such a blend of togetherness, while we still did our own thing...walked in small groups, sat and gazed at the sea together, walked around alone while the waves lapped at my toes, made some long overdue phone calls... and the best part is, we all had the time of our lives.

I think I've seen enough to say: this evening was as near perfect as it gets :)

the perfect weekend...again?

I'm sure there's another post titled "the perfect weekend". so this will be another.

anyway, here's what went into my perfect weekend:

- a birthday
- a midnight ride
- a trip to my friendly neighbourhood mechanic (well, what can you do?)
- a second breakfast (cheese garlic bread, woo hoo)
- street shopping
- mangoes and milk, shaken together
- a new  bag!
- my favourite friend
- twitter at home
- a chicken sannndwich for lunch
- a long ride without rain
- a trekker-adventurer friend
- a short ride without rain
- one of my first "new"  friends
- her dog
- giving aformentioned dog (with friend) a ride to marine drive
- chaat at chowpatty
- a doggie walk in a drizzle
- a short  ride with rain. and the dog and friend.
- a longish walk in the rain
- a long chat...in person, after ages!
- a long ride with rain
- a 2 hour nap
- a train to karjat
- lots of deep fried, batter coated goodles. with chai.
- a 6 seater with 9 people. birthday boy included.
- a hike in the rain
- a head and back massage in a waterfall
- rum, rain and ham-and-cheese sandwiches
- a brisk walk through a downpour to get to the nearest cuppa chai
- a 6-seater race for a train (that we lost)
- a hour's wait for a train
- a 2 hour's wait for the train to reach our destination
- one of my best "old" friends
- falling asleep at midnight out of sheer exhaustion

yup, this was just one weekend.

happy eather

so, it's easter evening. my hangover has subsided, and i'm now ready for a round of visiting relatives and some more merrymaking. yeah, i know, i didn't really have an excuse for all the frivolities of last night, considering i didn't fast, sacrifice, or do any sort of penance this lent. heck, i bunked confession, even.

sounds like this is everything easter isn't supposed to be, right? there was a time when it felt like that to me too.

but not any more.

what is easter? it's a celebration.

it's a celebration of hope. of salvation. of having a singular purpose to our lives, however wayward our means may be. it's the spirit of christianity. to me, the rules, the norms, are all secondary.

eat and drink your fill. be merry. but do not forget that christ is risen, and we will rise too. all we need to do is the work of god.

happy easter!

um...and pass the easter eggs, please? :P

The compulsive communicator

I can't believe i was an introvert around 5 years ago.

i'm now at the crazily opposite place, where i go insane if i think of something to say and don't have someone to say it to.

the blog, twitter, facebook (and to an extent, even the people i offlinely hang out with) are sometimes just avenues to express myself.

even if nobody's listening.

the only things that probably let me get away with not being able to speak out are my short attention span and my appetite for #awesomeness :)

Keep walking.

2009 felt like a year when lots of good things were started. 2010 was a year of the culmination of a lot of those things, and realignment with some others.

2011, on the other hand, might prove to be a tough nut to crack. The stage has been set for bigger and better things, but lofty goals require a greater sense of direction, and the strength to stay true to that direction.

that's what i pray for today: direction and strength.

may god bless us all.

merry ?mas

one of the weirdest things i've ever done on christmas, is to try and convince my friend that she shouldn't go for mass, when she was doing her best to make it.

and i wasn't exactly trying reverse psychology on her.

it's strange but true. if you do something without knowing why, you lose the point of it all. what's religion without that deep inner drive to apply someone else's inspiration to your own life? to me, it's nothing.

religion isn't the only way. belief in god isn't the only way. when you choose them, also make sure you choose to understand why.

else it's all just a waste of time.

merry christmas!

ps: she did go for christmas mass :)