Life is series of Cathartic episodes - Fursat by Vishal Bhardwaj

Life is series of Cathartic episodes.

As 2023 started, I watched Fursat, a film Shot on iPhone 14 Pro by Vishal Bhardwaj.
Before you think this post is a movie review, wait!
I won't divulge anything about Fursat. 

Watching this film, triggered few dormant, ungerminated emotions inside me. I went into a state of reminiscence. This made me jump from one episode of my life to the next, realising that we don't really move from sorrow to serenity, it's only sojourn which halts us! Then catharsis follows, it heals you, it makes you another person.

Now, another note : The film has nothing to do with nostalgia, healing or melancholy. That's how catalysts work. 

Life goes on, we are a creature of habit & adjust to all hardships, to go through a series of cathartic episodes and keep healing and evolving!

Well, on a slightly unrelated note, crying is also good for health. And, crying is part of Catharsis too! 

The Worth of an Option

What do you need to recuperate from, after the death of a loved one? And, what does society offer you the luxury of?



Almost towards the end of Norwegian Wood, the main protagonist runs away into the hills to recover from the loss of a person with whom he shared a difficult relationship. 
We all lose people. People we love, people we care about, people we want to hold onto. And, sometimes we feel their worth, their importance, once there is no way they can walk back.
"The dead remain dead." 

When you lose someone and it triggers an unusual feeling in you, a confused state. A state which shouts at you, "You never cared about the existence of this person. Yet their departure, their ultimate absence is gnawing you from inside."
This is the loss of option. 
Now, you longer have that person.
Now, you can't muster up the courage to resurrect them back into your life. This death of an option is more palpable than the death of the person. This is how some people go away, their involvement in our lives, is categorically more important than them as a person!
Such a tragedy! It is!

Some people die early, some people die alone, some people don't die, only their worth as an option dies, as they were long dead much before their body succumbed. They were dead for the people they considered to be the most important people in their life. This is unfair. Is life fair?

I Heard Everything

When I was in class 4, I was in the swing(Jhula) like just another toddler experiencing the new found joy of oscillatory motion.
Going back & forth, with full gusto!



My uncles broached a sensitive topic. They started talking in English, oblivious of the fact that kids of my age could also understand English.
 That was just so naive, on multiple levels! I heard everything.
Yet I didn’t respond or react. I kept enjoying my swing.

 Maybe I learnt to selectively not respond from this incident!

                             
I met Purna, while she was almost about to alight from the metro train. It was not out of the blue. We had coordinated that, to the T.



I just didn’t give her the agency she deserved. In the hopes of bringing fun, to the otherwise mundane lives of ours, I chose spontaneity.

I’ve always fancied my choice of spontaneity & extempore, over the carefully curated version of life & speech led by most folks. Of course, excess of most things are/is bad!
I just feel that we might have exceptions to this thumb-rule quite often than we realise.



So, Purna was visibly a bit displeased.
 Perhaps, she had something else planned in her mental itinerary. 

We kept on talking on our metro ride back to the place where I thought it would be more appropriate to spend some meaningful time.


She kept on bringing new conversation pointers, and I got immersed in them. It was as if I was trying to hold arrows coming towards me in a basket.


And, she started to complain that either am I not listening to her or I have a hearing problem.

How do I tell her that 'I heard everything', I noticed everything, I took all the cues. I just chose not to respond to everything or at times I just wanted to confirm what she said.
Maybe to give her a chance to rephrase or choose a different topic to broach. Makes Sense?

I heard her joke about the 'fallen bread slice'.
'Kitna Gira Hua hai!' (How fallen is this slice of bread!)

I listened to the joke, smiled mentally, savoured it and didn't show any reaction.
She was unhappy about my lack of acknowledgement. 
As if, I am just not interested in the conversation.

She wanted to know. She wanted the feedback. Did she also want approval? My approval?
Why so? Who am I? And, what does my approval mean to her?

Of course, if it was Validation which she was seeking, I'm at fault. Validation when sought, must be provided. I have learnt this from her.

Purna (पूर्णा or पूर्ण) in Hindi means Complete. She is complete. So, why she seeks my approval or anyone's approval?

Yes, I must hear everything what she says. I must listen to her like an obedient student. I must give her the agency, the power of choice when she deserves it.
We all keep learning & evolving. Maybe we are not  पूर्ण yet!

Of course! I heard Everything, Purna!

PS : Work of fiction
PPS : “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” - Mark Twain

The Accidental Everything

Don't get me wrong! I have traversed a whole lot of distance away from identifying myself as anything.
For the utilitarian sake of setting context, when I was a toddler, an Astrologer told that I would either become a Judge or a Doctor.

"Are these Respected People?" I asked my Uncle

The answer no longer feels relevant to mention it here.
Decades later after a series of missteps, mostly likely resembling brownian motion I have become 'Accidental Everything!'

Engineer - This didn't put a morsel on my plate!
Banker - I always liked Maths & Money; was only a fling!
Teacher - This was the closest I was to finding something to settle down with!
Economist - I never knew I could like this subject; now I can't switch off the Economist's Lens
Statistician - When the world was finding Data Science as the sexiest Career; I found my calling!

And on 77th Independence Day, I have to revisit my rumination of 2020!
How accidental it feels to live in a country as diverse as India, the largest democracy. Almost crucifies one of the most fundamental underpinnings of Microeconomics (& Political Science) - Arrow's impossibility theorem.

As of 2023, 'Voting' still remains the means to the end of Democratic outcome. Is it flawed or not, is another question altogether. 

As an idealist 20-something, Nationalism sounded too straightjacketed to associate with.
With passage of time, my perspective has shifted. Amidst the chaos, it's still a wonder that we are one of the most promising emerging markets!

If you look closely & a bit cynically, you might call it the 'Number Crumble'.
Our geographical extent & the scale of its inhabitants, are enough to salivate any western Capitalist.

Market! Market! Market!

Investors invariably think in terms of how big is the 'Market Size'? How big of that pie can we capture?

India, or more acceptable these days, Bharat is much more than its market, people or diversity.

India is the only Wonder...ergo...Bharat Bumps all Bullies of the West!

Happy 77th Independence Day!

Alternative Kafkaesque

Franz Kafka's most famous Metamorphosis is widely remembered as a Man who turned into a giant insect.
Is this what Kafka meant? Is this an exotic style of writing? Or was it just a metaphor lost in translation.
Most of Kafka's Novels/Stories feel like a weird world. Readers take everything literally, and they don't even consider the point of view that it could be just a way of Kafka; a technique to tell his stories.
Like Orwell's Animal Farm.

I personally used to read Kafka because of the technique of Kafkaesque, not because of the underlying intention of the writer.
On careful rumination, it feels that Kafka is just writing about contemporary issues with his own style, with his own uses of metaphors, by creating his own world of expressions.
Much like the Vector Spaces of Linear Algebra, where you could construct 5-D which can't be visualised yet the mathematics would be tractable.
Similarly, Kafka's work could have been an imagined literary space with an underlying contemporaneous issue.

This can be appreciated more if we understand how Mathematicians & Physicists look at the same things quite differently.
Abstract Vs Applied!   

Philosophy of Love - What do I know about Love?

Most people in love, proclaim : -He/She is the one -This is the best thing that has happened to me -I have never felt like this and will never feel like this, again in my life

None of the above statements have the gravity to last long. It's just a concoction of hormones, childhood issues, availability & desperation, that makes people feel so utopic about their state of mind.

People in love idolise the other person, they want to see everything from a rose-tinted glass. Each and every inadequacy or shortcomings appear kitschy, endearing & cute.

What really has happened is that they have found a sense of assurance, comfort, and a non-judgmental sphere. The sphere in which they want to coalesce together.

Now, if they really wanted to become one, they started with two ones, they joined themselves into one! Is this really necessary?

Now, you may say they have physical, emotional & dare I say, psychological needs. Yes! You are in the appropriate direction. This is ‘Need’!

Our ‘needs’ camouflage in the form of love.

Now, if I may ask, What is love? What do you love about the other person? Or Why do you love them? Stop! Don’t Answer! Any answer or even an attempt to answer these questions mean you don’t love them!

Love is not dependent on reasons, love is not a means but an end in itself.
Well! What do I know about love, you may ask!
Don’t you think even I happen to have the above mentioned follies in me?
Yes! I have fallen head over heels not once but … leave it at that
And, each time I felt enamoured in a new way altogether!

Truth Time!
You only love, truly! You only love yourself! Everything else is just our inadequacies, lack of connection with the self, finding a refuge in another person!

You will have to take my word for it!

Is Recession Nearby? : Recession & Inflation – Relationship Explained

Recession and Inflation – Relationship explained

While there seemed to be a sudden spike of enthusiasm among the youth on investment decisions, the World Back became a killjoy with regard to this optimistic environment. Lay-offs became a leading light in the current economic condition as companies started looking for every means to survive this downturn until sales spike up to dependable conditions.
All of this accounts to economic slump called ‘Recession’.

To comprehend what exactly is happening, we’ll figure out the two buzzwords in the market at the moment: Inflation & Recession.

The gist of rise in inflation is in its cyclical behaviour, meaning, when there is a lot of economic activity in the form of sudden spurt in production and the industries seem to be set up in plenty. As a result, the economy booms or let’s say, overheats. (See the video above)

Why? There’s a substantial increase in income generation and at the same time the Central Bank also starts printing money in the initial stages. Subsequently, the economy observes a rise in price level which therefore turns out to be inflationary. When this inflation kicks in, the Central Bank tries to bring down the supply of money by increasing the interest rate.
This automatically reduces the money supply since the demand for money increases and consequently the economic activity reduces.
This is because the investors start chasing interest rates and not economic activity. So, when this happens, economic activity slows down and inflation declines. Hence, Cyclical!
Sounds simple right? Well not really.

This reduction in money supply is fertile for recession which happens due to fall in economic activity. What could be the possible reason for this recession? An idea is that, a boom in the economy results in inflation, and when you try to control inflation, you have a dip or slump called recession. Recession is commonly defined as the two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. “It is a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts  more than a few months.”, defines the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The effects of recession might quite possibly amplify the effects of inflation although it is in the cooling period. Since recession is roughly the slowdown of economic activity, businesses struggle to keep their head above water and lay off employees to curtail expenses until the resumption of reliable economic activity. Since labor is one of the crucial factors of economic activity, there will be a spike in unemployment.
And, this will last about a few months or up until the output that has plunged among businesses goes up significantly.

Punardarśanāya (पुनर्दर्शनाय)

Goodbye is a misnomer. How can be parting any good?
Only, if you had said Good-riddance, it would have made sense.
What we like, we always wish to postpone its departure.

You see, life goes on, we feel that a phase of life, a moment, could be captured and relived as many times as we can, or worse, we wish to freeze moments and live forever in moments; life doesn't work like this expectation of ours!

We always need to let go of 

I'm reminded of this famous line, "I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go..."

The intention of a 'Goodbye' in my mind & heart, is : It was great to spend time with you, I wish you the best, take good care of yourself!
And, you just let go of the sight, touch & physical presence. How? How are we supposed to take good care of ourselves in the absence of what kept us ticking, what motivated us from the troughs of our menial existence? How?

Perhaps, we could pack it up with hope? Let's do it sooner (and mean it!)

पुनर्दर्शनाय! (Punardarśanāya)

A Clean Slate

Human beings are more than nature or nurturing.
Every human comes with immense potential to make everything a reality, whatever he/she can think and put his/her attention towards.

Now, all of us, are surrounded by so much noise of society, its bundle of one-size-fits all processes & guides, that we cease to access our own individual source of authenticity. We start becoming copy of a copy of a copy, that too with our individuality smeared across each copy!
Who gains? 
Greed of Society!
Who loses?
Need of Society!

“He, who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.” - Viktor Frankl

Each one of us, have different 'Why's', our own 'Why'!
Once we figure that out, we can write any script on our clean slate. Yes, we need to erase every impression of the societal conditioning before we can start chalking about our life plans. We need to seek originality, this requires utmost honesty with our true self; which is the 'clean slate'. You can be whatever you put your thoughts, intentions & actions to.
There is no need lamenting your flaws, lack of privilege, unique circumstances or any such constraints, which seem to bind your tether to the state of inertia. Your authenticity stems from your rough edges, so stop seeking that ideal situation!

I do understand that we all have different abilities & Pātrata, it's wise to understand what could give us the maximum returns for our labour & time, that being said, it's just a constraint, nobody can stop someone who has decided not to quit!