Skip to main content

Arbit sawaals and questions

This is just another incoherent random collection of arbit thoughts ... rather questions, one of the posts of "direct dil say ..." kind of posts. Some of these are within some corner of my heart occasionally venturing to the surface and often close to the outer word but are once again sent to the same obscure corner of the heart where it was before.

What motivates us to do things we do?
I think more often than not we are guided by the fact that everyone else is doing it. There maybe a small element of "we wish to do it" ... but again after some probing it comes to XYZ is doing so OR others are doing it kind of things. Maybe it is too deep rooted.

Why do people expect us to be different ... yet be like "everyone else" ?
Maybe, it is due to a kind of peer pressure, or due to a fear of 'rejection', Or is there any other reason?

Why are many people not even open minded enough to realize the need of being open minded. And how can we make them realize that they should be open minded, because they may not realize it, coz they are not open minded enough to realize to listen about the need to be open minded?

Why do people 'order us' while apparently they are advising us and why they often assume that we are completely incapable of understanding what is right or wrong or good or bad ?

Why is it often others who define what is good for us, what are parameters for our success, how life should be lived, code of conduct and all, and if you have your own definitions you are labeled as someone who is some kind of a irresponsible idiot ?

Why is it often that we need to do things not because of any logic but because it has always been done so OR it is the way it should be done (though no logic might go into doing of this!) ?

Maybe these are often the fear arising due to risk of failure due to not following a tried or tested thing ... Or maybe there is some other reason ?

These and many more prakaar of sawaal ...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Shop @ Amazon

Popular posts from this blog

An area of darkness ?

The title of this post finds its origins in a novel with simlar name written by VS Naipaul. Set in India, some 40 years ago or so, this is a kind of travelogue of author's brief stay in India where he found it to be full of superstitions, ignorance and darkness! Many decades and many MNCs and malls later, few parts of India seemed to have chucked off that tag, but there are many places that haven't and continue to remain shrouded in ignorance. Move few hours away from a city, travel in a second class train compartment or a dilapidated state transport bus and you get to see the dark underbelly of India Shining. As one of the characters in the movie Rang De Basanti says "Yahan zinda rehne ki jung mein logo ki zindagiyan nikal jaati hai" . So true it seems! My day today was spent being kind of lost in similar thoughts. To start with, I when I boarded the ST bus, a woman was wailing. She may be in her 20s or something, but she was crying in some peculiar musical tone. At
13 comments
Read more

Beyond the facade ...

"Hi, How r u doing ?" "I am fine" "Howzz life ?" "M doing great. Life is great." "Great. Life is great at my end too... you tell, What's new ? "Nothing special. Enjoying at Delhi" How many times has this or one of its variant been repeated! Maybe often, be in case of two friends catching up after quite some time catching up probably on a social networking site like Orkut, or catching up through chat or mails. Maybe, in case of a telephonic conversation, it may last a bit longer getting to some the specifics. But more often than not, the script is similar. Usually people are always doing great, they are always happy. The facade usually remains similar. But how much of those times do we actually manage to look beyond the facade? Maye, very rarely. Maybe many of these goody goody things are quite 'good' if not great. But often behind this are many layers - layers which are hidden from majority of the outside world by means
5 comments
Read more

The local train

That was when I saw her. She had almost missed her train. There was another in 8 minutes, but she always preferred to catch this one only. It was a long ride - Mira Road to Churchgate and it took nearly an hour to reach there in a fast train. More than three hours a day she spent in commuting. It could have been more had her home not been near the railway station. I had moved to Mumbai recently and was still trying to catch up with its pace. I was yet to get accustomed to the local trains. Slowly and steadily I would. Sometimes I wished that I stayed near my office, but it was too expensive. So I chose a distant suburb, trying not to dig a hole into my pocket and screwing my life inside stuffed trains. This continued for few weeks. I always noticed her getting to the station, catching the train and alighting at the destination before briskly walking to her office. Mine was nearby, but that was it - I never manged to talk to her. She was somewhat reclusive and I didn't have any p
3 comments
Read more

Cycle

After a failed attempt at jogging, I roamed about aimlessly when an idea struck me to have a ride in a cycle, couple of which is lying in the “recreational area”. I was longing since long to ride a cycle sans motor. There was no particular reason for this feeling; it was that just I wanted to have a ride. The 2-3 km ride was a tiring experience, especially for one who is having this after a long time; but I was gleeing all along. As an infant, I loved going about in a tricycle. Then I became too big for it and got a cycle. After several attempts and many falls, I mastered the art. I used to flaunt it in front of my friends, who flaunted theirs. As I entered teens, the bicycle seemed smaller; so I got a bigger cycle. As years progressed, I learnt to ride a 2 wheeler. Now I started to find the bicycle too childish for my tastes. I tried to reason out why I should get a 2-wheeler to go to a particular place. Sometimes I succeeded to get it, and sometimes I didn’t and had to go around in
5 comments
Read more

Assured returns from stock markets?

Stocks (and hence mutual funds) are often sold as something that give "assured" long term returns over a period of time. While this has been true for most of the times, and all time if we consider a long enough time horizon in India's recent history but is this always true? Can it be possible that stock markets can give lesser, say 10% returns over next 10 years? Or 5 percent annual returns? Or, taking inspiration from Nicholas Taleb, a black swan event happens and your end up barely recovering 80 percent of your principal amount (i.e. 20 percent loss) -   Theoretically yes.  Hopefully no.  I am not a predictor of future, nor are thousands others who claim to have more than 1000% percent surety of future events. So, if you are contemplating taking a personal loan @ 12% for some financial need and want to be invested in a mutual fund for "assured" 12 / 15/ 18/ 25 percent returns, maybe you need to rethink. If you want to borrow money @ 12% just to inv
4 comments
Read more