10 reasons why Shopping is good for you!

We fight it, we argue against it, we try hard to be rational about it... We resist temptation...

But we do it anyway...We all love it... At the end of a work day, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when we are depressed, when we feel up, if we need something and even if we don't need anything.

You don't have to be a shopaholic to love shopping. Shopping is therapeutic, it is called "Retail Therapy" after all! If you don't believe in Retail Therapy, here are 10 reasons to convince you to think otherwise:

#10 - Free Stuff 
Let's start with the obvious, we all love free stuff. Where else do we have people following us around to give us free samplers? Even when we don't want to spend a penny, the good stuff is always free. You can sit in Landmark & read for hours or listen to the latest tunes at Music World or have a MAC professional work wonders on your eyes.

#9 - Keeps You Fit
Hitting the gym may not be our strong suit but moving from window to window and staring at retail temptation is definitely a work out. It gets your lazy a** off the couch and keeps you moving for hours. So, men, please stop complaining. Walk your girlfriends around & carry their bags. It is definitely a rewarding work-out. ;)

#8 - Motivates You To Lose weight

Shopping can be a rude intervention when you suddenly realize that you no longer fit in to your old size or when you see an amazing dress that is so you but fits someone 5 Kgs lesser. That moment of truth in the trial room is the only time you FEEL that you need to lose weight from deep within. At all other times, it is just in your head as one among many things to do in your hectic life.

#7 - Gives You New News
The average person receives about 63,000 words of information in a day or roughly 5000 ads. But our brain is in a constant state of shutting out all the unnecessary information out of your head. Shopping is the time you let this guard down, you soak in the new sites and information. Because after all everyone is curious to know just what reconstructed jeans are or what motion control can do in a TV or how the hell can it be low-sodium salt. (Hello, Sodum Chloride!? - Na+ Cl-)

#6 - Doing the Math
Even if you don't calculate how much more you can put on each of your credit cards or how much you are saving when you have 30% discount or  wondering if you could survive the rest of the month on air. Shopping counts or at least makes you count...

#5 - Making Compromises 
At the end of the day, we don't always get what we wanted. Shopping teaches us that lesson too and helps us reach a compromise. One that we have the power to make & accept gracefully.

#4 - Creative Rationalization 
Shopping can make your brain work overtime. You can come up with a 100 different reasons to buy something you don't need. If only we could talk ourselves into more productive things as easily!!! 

#3 - Welcome Distraction 
There ain't nothing like indulging in some Retail Therapy when your brain is fried and your nerves are frayed from working & thinking too much. Shopping is deeply sensorial, it takes over & helps you forget the bad and ogle at the good.

#2 - Fires your Ambitions
We all want pretty things that are bigger, faster and obscenely priced all the time. Be it the shiny metallic sheen of swanky new gadgets, the gleam of couture shoes or the rev of the engine in a convertible. Shopping is sensorial, we are not just looking or thinking, we touch, feel & smell all these temptations that sends a message deep within. "Buck up mate, get a job, get a raise, start out on your own or maybe just marry a rich guy...", it motivates you from the pit of your stomach, to do more, get more so you can buy more and be more.

#1 - Ego Boost
We can be ignored, ill-treated & insignificant at work but at Retail Paradise we are KING! With the power to summon & dismiss sales people as you seem fit. Make queer requests and watch them scamper to have it fulfilled. The only place you can get all the info & items you want at a command without having to do any work. Now, if that ain't a tempting offer after that bashful meeting with your boss, I don't know what is.

So go ahead, stop resisting temptation and just give in. Indulge in Retail Therapy, it does wonders beyond the obvious.

The Fire Within

I stood on the rocks that broke the waves, the sky was grey and cold. I gazed ahead at the ocean, a soft orange, lazily stirring in it's own eddys.  And behind me, I saw rocks that rose to a jagged cliff that hung over me like a bad omen. All around me was a vastness that engulfed me & humbled me in to submission, for I was a speck at the whim of a greater force.

Be the rock I was told, still, unflinching, cold & relentless. I was amused at the simplicity of my task, I threw up my head & laughed. Is that all you can throw at me, is this the only challenge I am capable of? Surely, they did not know me. I took my stance up on the rock & looked towards the warm hues far away & there seemed like there was nothing to tip me over, it was so far away & I was untouchable.

I stood there as if in a trance, rooted to my spot as red clouds rolled over above me. The orange sea seemed to stir in response, like they were lost lovers rushing to meet each other. They met, swirled & merged in to one another like they were making love. I watched as their demeanours changed. They got charged & suddenly I realized they were not embracing each other, they were at war. One striking out at the other in a torrent of orange waves & red sparks.

As I watched this debacle far away, the orange waves were licking at the rocks below me like a dragon's tongue, hungry & thirsty for more. They kept coming back persistently, like they were collecting a debt unpaid. I froze to my spot and the ornage waves were steadily rising & the fury of the war afar had suddenly started grazing my rock and moving up towards me menacingly.

The violent waves were rising up aginst my rock & smouldering anything in their path. As they kept approaching me, they grew from violent children to violent giants.

Suddenly, there was a moment of calm, I was relieved thinking the worst is over and closed my eyes. Then the cruel wave came out from under me and broke their untold fury on my legs. The searing pain was inside me, the waves had lit a deep dark fire within me.

Then came the next wave as it hit me square in my stomach, I could feel myself burning within.

On & on the hungry waves kept licking at me, and the fire raged on inside me. I looked to the sky to help me stay on the spot, to not be moved by it's fury & wrath. On & on the torment kept up, with the waves rushing in to me, beating me down & then pulling back, just as I was able to breathe it would strike  down on me again, more furious than the last, deeper & hotter.

On & on it went, I look to the skies & asked, "Why me? What did I do?". I could only here a loud boom that could have been a celestial laugh or a grunt.

The fire had burnt through me leaving behind a hollow charred shell with nothing on the inside. On the outside the searing continued, I staggered & finally with an effort, I broke my stance, my silent promise, my pride, my chance at joy and jumped in to the orange sea and melted in with it.

The Passée and the Passable

My dad's first car was a Nissan Datsun bought in 1987, it was a great car, with a powerful engine, sturdy body, great pick-up and automatic windows that I loved to play with. He loved that car too and called it his son. Over the years, the car met with a few accident but it was built to take the blow & was built to be fixed quickly without much trouble. It was with us for 13 years before its started falling apart. The engine though was still in top notch condition. 


After giving away his first son - Nissan, reluctantly though, my dad bought a Toyota Corolla and unfortunately he met with an accident few months after buying the car. The car crumbled like a biscuit. "They don't make things the way they used to anymore", he said shaking his head slowly with sadness, looking at the carnage. 


Today, I see what he had seen then.... For gone are the days where things were made to last, the days when time was taken to fix things rather than throw them away. We now live in the upgrade era where you can upgrade anything from your mobile to your wife.


The age of just getting by than working hard. Because hard work is for the retards of the world. Working smart (What does that even mean?) is the new catch phrase till an even more emptier phrase takes its place. Working hard is no longer a virtue I am being told with conviction, it is a relic of a bygone era, a passée notion we should not concern ourselves with. Hard work and its cousin excellence is dead... Long live the dead!


Even at work we are pressurised to deliver faster and all deadlines are EoD (I wanna kill the guy who coined this!). Quality of work has taken it's beating in the never ending onslaught of intense pressure from deadlines that have inadvertently eaten into the quality of work like a virus that progress slowly and steadily. Your turn around time is more important than the quality of ideas you bring to the table.


It is now acceptable & rewarding even, to create sub-standard work, just as long as you wear your flashy suit & confuse your boss & client with snazzy presentations and convoluted expressions like "Our core competence is unparalleled in disambiguating the disintermediate agenda". Even products are excused for their lousy life time, cause "Hey, we were gonna upgrade it in 2 years anyway!".


Products or our work are sold by how they look & how well they can be talked up rather than hard performance facts. Cause saleable is the new standard to achieve not quality and never excellence. Products are created & sold just as long as it is  saleable  & passable. 


We now live in a world where talent is scantily praised and inability is showered with hype, brilliance is ridiculed and the idiots praised. The wardrobe malfunction of a celebrity makes more waves than a cabinet reshuffle. Welcome to the 21st century where hard work and excellence are passée and the barely passable drives the world.

*KWAA-TISSSSHHH*

I was startled by a faint sound in the distance, my eyes opened to a world, familiar & new, fuzzy & sharp, colourful & grey like something left behind from a dream, like a place I was meant to be but was always hidden in the mysterious shrouds of my conscience. *shhh*


I knew I was dreaming, I had to be. It didn't make any sense but I knew that I was there for a purpose. Then I heard it again, far away. Something calling out to me from afar, *tisssshhh* its incessant almost stubborn, rhythmic continuity, made me move closer to it. The sound was harsh *tisssshhh* and I knew I should not go anywhere near it but I found myself slowly creeping towards it, like a moth to the light.


*kwaa-tisssshhh* As I drew near, I could still hear the *kwaa-tisssshhh*, *kwaa-tisssshhh*, something about that sound was giving me an ominous feel, a sense of helplessness, mixed with panic.... There was a stench in the air, like no earthly odour, a stench of  burning tears, silent screams, dying hopes and dreams on fire. Yet I had to see it, I had to know, I could not turn back... 


A part of me knew that I didn't have to see this, that I would be scarred if I did & that I'd  be better off without knowing but I knew it was a band aid I had to rip open.


*kwaa-tisssshhh*  I could hear it more sharply now, it felt as though the sound was coming from within me and from outside. There was a crowd gathered there, some uninterested, some silent, some pointing, some mournful, some grinning, some laughing,  all of them standing rooted to the spot and staring in to the centre...


I couldn't get a look at what was going, as I pressed on through the crowd I felt it *kwaa-tisssshhh* and winced, a stream of pain coursed through my body and then again *kwaa-tisssshhh* it was a burning searing pain. *kwaa-tisssshhh* I could have stopped, I could have turned away but I had to know. *kwaa-tisssshhh* There was some part of me there and I just had to claim it.


Then I saw him, a man I had never seen before but always knew. A silent unflinching figure who I wanted to embrace as well as run away from. *kwaa-tisssshhh* He had cold grey eyes that were fixed on me like he knew I'd come to stand in that exact same spot. Like he had been calling out to me for so long...


He was standing there naked and I could see his magnificent physique & yet for all his glory I couldn't understand where the noise and my pain was coming from. Then I saw a quick flash accompanied by *kwaa-tisssshhh*, another pang of burning pain and I saw it....


A thin brown flash that crackled the air *kwaa-tisssshhh*, a serpent with no end & no beginning sticking out its forked tongue. The serpent was coiled around his hand, I stared at it and realized that it was not alive, it was not a dreadful serpent but an inanimate WHIP. I couldn't decide which I liked more. *kwaa-tisssshhh*


He wielded it with grace, taking it over his head, an elegant captivating manoeuvre.... Then a moment of vaccuum with no sound, no stench, like the calm before a storm, a moment that drew me in. 


And then he brought it down on himself with a resounding *kwaa-tisssshhh*. I winced from the pain yet he stood there calm & his grey eyes boring into mine. I wanted to surrender myself to him. 


He then spun it around him again and brought it down *kwaa-tisssshhh* and that awful noise was reverberating within me. *kwaa-tisssshhh* He did not even flinch a muscle. As I stood there, I realized that with every lash he brought down, he was growing and becoming burlier and more menacing. Yet his grey eyes were like a calm cold pool tucked in the heart of a mountain.


*kwaa-tisssshhh* I wanted to be one with him, for the pain was mine to bear.I wanted the people around me to look at him & see me, *kwaa-tisssshhh* point their leering fingers at me & slowly shake their head *kwaa-tisssshhh* or grin with malice or even laugh for as long as I was him I was the centre and nothing else mattered. *kwaa-tisssshhh* The pain was hard to bear but it was the price to pay. *kwaa-tisssshhh* With every new lash came a wave of pain and a heady rush of numbness.


*kwaa-tisssshhh* I smiled, winced, cried, screamed and reveled in that enrapturing moment. Suddenly, I realized that the sounds were becoming louder & came faster. 


As he kept whipping himself and looking at me, It dawned on me that I was making this happen and not him, it was me and not him.*kwaa-tisssshhh* And with every lash I was fading, I was becoming less of me and more of him. It shocked me to realize that I was making him bring down the whip  and I was inflicting this on myself for that elusive moment of rapture. He was forced to obey my biding and I was pushing him to be bigger and better for it was my window to the world.


I knew I had to stop but through that window I could see the bright light flowing in. I felt light and looked down at myself, I could only see grey swirling mists. I could see all the colours leaving me, colours that were a part of me leaving me, running away from me like a rain drop scattering into a million pieces on a green leaf.


I couldn't understand why I was being abandoned when I was about to reach my moment of glory. It was frustrating, I had to make a choice the fleeing colours of my soul or the window of light. And then I froze and fell down with a thud. The colours swarmed around me and blocked my vision. When it cleared I could see his grey eyes fade into a grey swirl and was swept off in the wind.


I found the whip at my feet, I grabbed it and staggered on to my feet. I knew I could summon him back but only if I wanted to.

Last Among Equals

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a new classroom or a party and you feel like just you don't belong here? Or that moment when you look at yourself in the mirror & can't identify yourself and you realize that you are changing for people around you & the change is so not you!?

I've lived that feeling for 15 years, staying outside India. For 15 years, I have had to follow my faith in secrecy, celebrate my festivals in sobriety and speak in a language that would just not sit well on my tongue and be a shadow in the crowd... A last among equals...

Today, I've been in India for the last 10 years and I have loved every single minute of it. It is hard to describe my feeling but it is that sense of relief and emotion that washes over you when you return home from the hostel after a year, like slipping into your flip flops after a full day on those killer heels or like slipping into that favorite pyjama with holes that your mom just wants to throw out...

When people tell me that all they wanna do is go abroad, I find it very disturbing....

Is our country so beyond redemption that the only way out is a Masters degree in the US?

Why would they be willing to give up being comfortable in their own skins?

Why would a 20 year old want to change their life, culture, belief systems & life style for a new country? 

Why can't they make small sacrifices & smaller initiatives to live on the soil they were born in?

Honestly, I have no clue... I am no altruist, nor am I talking about patriotism or brain drain and other such bizzarely coined words our media loves to hype about... My motive for staying here is very very selfish. True, I will never make as much money as my US counterparts nor buy that swanky apartment in a posh area. But I am willing to pay that price for being amongst my equals...

I love being able to step outside on Diwali & watch the sky light up with a thousand colours, I love being able to haggle with street vendors to get what I want. I love being able to give gaali to the errant autowala blocking the traffic. I love the welcoming sounds of the auto horns & the hum drum of the traffic as soon as I step out of the airport. I love the colourful attire, the myriad number of languages & dialects spoken here.

A land as vast as our has more similarities than differences. I was in Jaipur recently, for the first time, I was there to attend a friend's wedding. The place is very different, the people look different, dress different, even their Hindi is different. But once, you get over the cosmetic or the physical appearance of it you can see more clearly. The people are the same as ones I would find in Trichy.

A city that is evolving to the new & has the old as well. People who share the same values & belief systems, people who welcome all, people who try to con you because you are new,  poor people with their begging bowls at the signal, rich people flaunting their new cars at the same signal.




Auto Bhayas & chat walas, small eat outs & large fast food joint, street bazaars & city malls, the hep college girl & the conservative aunty looking at her disapprovingly. When I travel in India, it keeps reaffirming my faith that I am truly at home anywhere I go and here, I am truly amongst my equals.

I love being an integral part of this vast, cultured, complicated, exquisite, diverse, saddening, enraging & sometimes just bizarre tapestry. Because you may hate it or love it but it is home. The only true place where you can be comfortable in your skin. The only language that flows on your tongue, the only place where you can claim your right to whatever you want without the fear of looking like an outsider, the only place where you will not be the last among equals.

Work or LIFE????

With most of us out of college and some in corporates, i hear alot of people using jargons , it goes way above my head!!!! One such jargon that i find very weird is "WORK-LIFE BALANCE", why do people use this particular phrase i don't get it.....????

Whoever decided that work should be given equal weightage as LIFE itself...??? Isn't work just a part of life ??? Wat is it that we work for??? If it is life then the whole point is lost........

Think about if you are in a high paying job you are probably thinkin you can live a more comfortable and luxurious life and that you don't have to suffer like a poor man. But does it REALLY make you any better off than a daily wage earner..... Can you say that ??? I guess not cause suffering is equally distributed in our race (probably the only equal thing), the amount a poor man torments himself for not being able to provide his family with the bare necessities , is exactly the amount a rich guy torments himself by being locked away in his office all day makin money, no doubt but not being able to fully enjoy the fruits of his labour..........

There is no such thing as work-life balance there's either work or life they have to be prioritised and no matter where i go i will always put life ahead of work!

GOD IS IN THE DETAILS

GOD IS IN THE DETAILS….

Who is GOD???? Theists believe that god is the omnipotent and supernatural being who creates and controls everything. Rational people like us find this hard to believe as the theory has no credibility, no proof and no logic to it….

My theory of god differs from the traditional one; it’s based on the COMPLEXITY THEORY... The complexity theory states that “Every object in existence living or non-living moves relentlessly in the direction that makes it better, superior and hence complex”.
We all know Darwin’s “anti-god” theory of evolution and natural selection, it says that the animal better adapted (read mutation) to the environment becomes dominant while the ones not competent enough become extinct. Man has become dominant due to a number of mutations in our most primitive DNA. Mutations occur when DNA components (known as base pairs) undergo some sort of change and are considered a random process.

I believe that natural selection is in itself an unbelievable theory…. Wanna know why? The probability of the right mutation (one that helps us adapt better to the environment) to occur is 1 in 3 billion. Yet these changes took place and they did so more than once and almost always in our favour… weird and unbelievable right???

If we analyze the nature of evolution, there’s a pattern to it. We have evolved from simple to complex. Life on earth started with a unicellular organism and a few elements, now earth is home to millions of species and hundreds of elements, earth itself seems to seek complexity and is continuously attaining it. This path of complexity is followed by living and non-living things. For example, the various components of earth (lithosphere, atmosphere etc.) have a highly complex, cross-linked and interdependent relationship than at the time of the planet’s creation some 4 billion years ago.

Taking the “complexity theory” to the next level, the universe also seems to obey this theory. According to the big bang theory, the universe was a cloud of dust at first, then stars, planets, asteroid etc. came into existence, then came galaxies. These galaxies are constantly moving away from each other (scientific fact) hence establishing amore risk-free, self-contained and regulated galaxy, again the universe itself is getting complex.

The next thing I would like to analyze is “WHERE IS THIS COMPLEXITY TAKING US??”. It makes us better and is always in the process right?? So hypothetically at some point in the future we would reach a point when we would have evolved to be PERFECT. By perfection, I mean we have CONTROL OVER EVERYTHING (in human context our lives are as we want it, in universal context the galaxy exists as a perfect system) DÉJÀ VU??? (Go back to line 2 of this entry) The above statement comes very close to the concept of god doesn’t it??

My theory of GOD is that everything is moving in one direction, in a direction to achieve complexity, the destination of this direction is GOD. God is a phenomenon everything moves towards and tries to attain and hence by this definition the destination (GOD) exercises control over everything, bringing it all towards itself.

So I think the devil is not in the details but god is in the details. God is an undiscovered phenomenon we are aware of like gravity before it was discovered. Before Newton we all knew that something held us down, something made everything fall down, we just didn’t know what till Newton got hit by an apple and gave it a name GRAVITY. I am sure that one day we will have scientific proof for GOD. So all you atheists out there brace yourselves for that day……