One of the common things most of the Cancer patients do is plan for their life. It is ironic how humans, when threatened with death, plan for life. You would not see an average person planning for life (OK.. perhaps a long term home loan.. or Marriage.. or Children.. all right in general activities that require long term involvement but NOT lifetime!). But threaten them, a la movie style, that they have only few months/years left, suddenly they do a deep dive in financial planning, retirement living and all sorts of things that they may never actually use.
I recently went through personal 'Vision 2010' planning exercise (hey if President of India can do Vision 2020, I can certainly see the first half!). Among other things I planned what car I would be having then, or more importantly what car my wife would be driving by then, what kind of property I would have by then and what kind of bank balance I would look forward to.
There was also a plan of proposing to Aishwarya Rai, hoping privately that she does not get married by then. My wife does not necessarily agree with all the planned items but long years of marriage have trained me well. I told her only half the story. She doesn't need to know about my late night visits to Aishwarya Rai's website.
So in my Vision 2010, I have a big house (or real house!), a big car, a big flat screen TV (most important for human life on this planet!), and a wife with small non-polluting car, and who squanders her own money. Man, this is life. Just 4 more years and I am there. This also fits in my health issues, by that time I would be under or over my cancer.
It felt real good while planning, but then my wife(!) pointed out that I was being tad selfish in the plan and I do not care much for the rest of the family. Ok, so I planned for some additional furniture in my big house so 'family' can sit and watch my big TV, also some additional beds for 'family' to sleep on. But she was not happy, well.. there is no pleasing some people, no matter what you do.
This being selfish tune is getting kind of repetetive. When I talk of my limited life, and how I want to enjoy it, out comes the 'selfish' part. It is demonstrated with examples, about how I do not care for the rest of the loved one's and how they would miss me. In my opinion this 'miss you' theme is absolutely rot. Once somebody is dead, burnt to ashes, it is done deal. You don't miss them, they are simply not there. It is just illusion of the brain. But then these illusions are the trouble in human life. We get consultants making living out of 'how to plan your financial future' or 'how to plan your home'. Just bunch of people helping you solve the troubles of life.
In a perspective my life is full of trouble. I have to plan for future without having one. I could never get a date with Aishwarya Rai and would not make to the top 10 young golf players in Pune circuit (..just few more years and Tiger Woods had tough competition; saved in nick of time, lucky guy!). But I would argue that the fun part is in troubles. Life is trouble, if there is no trouble there is no life.
Like Zorba the Greek said, 'Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble'. I am sure, if he would have been real, he would have never planned for early retirement.
PS: Recently many (OK..er 3) of my friends told me that they read my Blog regularly and complained that I do not post that frequently. I have enabled 'Site Feed' feature so you can use your favourite RSS Feed reader to check if the blog has been updated. I use Sage in Firefox. It uses default stylesheets which provide better readability and one click updates..
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Once upon a time there was a Queen...
Once upon a time there was a Queen, she had huge palaces and lot of jewellery. Unfortunately all of it was owned by the subjects she ruled. Her palaces were tourist attractions and her guards were loyal to the prime minister. She lived in stately palaces secured by police and could rarely move around due to ill health. She was the great queen and luxury cruise yatches were named after her.
Same old London, same old gray skies and snapshot clicking tourists. Several years ago (OK.. I exaggerate, it was merely couple of years ago; Wishful thinking...) when I last visited London I made a vow of never coming back. But here I am. The situation could not be more pathetic, I am in London for 4 days and I miss the Sun already. I hate this city, those bally tourists, dingy apartments, crowded trains, dodgy bars, all of it (during lunch an American gentleman wanted to about the lamb and I told him it was bit 'dodgy'. He could not understand it. It took me long time to explain him what 'dodgy' meant.)
London always appears as an old prostitute, overused and cynical. It has the relics of empire and signs of civilization and over the period is loosing its identity. There are more McDees than Burger Kings, deparmental stores sell more American brands, HMV or Virgin stock more American comedy DVDs than British (Homer Simpson beats Tony Blair head-on in popularity), hotel menu has Balti, Tikka and Jalfraizee, the shop assistant on Oxford street has distinct (and familiar) breath of 'Pan Parag'. The bloody city is becoming a hybrid of Mumbai and New York. There are way too many distinct ethnic people in this city. But instead of giving the city a colourful hue like New York, London looks like badly created collage. Patches of ethnicities stuck at random. In the tube, two burkha clad women are distinctly recognizable. The young man with deleberate middle eastern dress appears to create an identity for himself. It is just a place of confused identities.
The food is equally bad. Lamb was of course 'dodgy'. beef was worse, but desserts were good. Southbank was very crowded with millions of tourists and queues that started from hotel lasted till public toilets. I tried to hide in the office and hotel for most of the time (familiar places, even the crapy Holiday Inn was better than being on Victoria). It took lot of courage to go to Oxoford street again and a strong pursuation by friends. Same old shops with nothing new to offer. I wondered aloud why would anybody come here and buy t-shirts with broad logos like, 'My Husband went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt'. There was one about bad girls going to London (apparently good one's go to heaven !), I looked for them. I did end up buying some touristy stuff, always helps...
Once upon a time London was financial center for the world. When my brother visited London it was a family achievement. The London t-shirts increased your rank in college circles. Having London address was a thing of pride. No more. Like the old Queen, London is aging. There are no new skyscrapers, no new industries, unemployment is up and prime minister is loosing the rating. In nutshell, London is loosing the glory (even the 'we are londoners' logos do not rhyme well.. not sure if Britain as whole is loosing its famous sense of humour). But then what do you expect in a country where Harry Potter is national hero and a fictional writer makes more money than the Queen?
Same old London, same old gray skies and snapshot clicking tourists. Several years ago (OK.. I exaggerate, it was merely couple of years ago; Wishful thinking...) when I last visited London I made a vow of never coming back. But here I am. The situation could not be more pathetic, I am in London for 4 days and I miss the Sun already. I hate this city, those bally tourists, dingy apartments, crowded trains, dodgy bars, all of it (during lunch an American gentleman wanted to about the lamb and I told him it was bit 'dodgy'. He could not understand it. It took me long time to explain him what 'dodgy' meant.)
London always appears as an old prostitute, overused and cynical. It has the relics of empire and signs of civilization and over the period is loosing its identity. There are more McDees than Burger Kings, deparmental stores sell more American brands, HMV or Virgin stock more American comedy DVDs than British (Homer Simpson beats Tony Blair head-on in popularity), hotel menu has Balti, Tikka and Jalfraizee, the shop assistant on Oxford street has distinct (and familiar) breath of 'Pan Parag'. The bloody city is becoming a hybrid of Mumbai and New York. There are way too many distinct ethnic people in this city. But instead of giving the city a colourful hue like New York, London looks like badly created collage. Patches of ethnicities stuck at random. In the tube, two burkha clad women are distinctly recognizable. The young man with deleberate middle eastern dress appears to create an identity for himself. It is just a place of confused identities.
The food is equally bad. Lamb was of course 'dodgy'. beef was worse, but desserts were good. Southbank was very crowded with millions of tourists and queues that started from hotel lasted till public toilets. I tried to hide in the office and hotel for most of the time (familiar places, even the crapy Holiday Inn was better than being on Victoria). It took lot of courage to go to Oxoford street again and a strong pursuation by friends. Same old shops with nothing new to offer. I wondered aloud why would anybody come here and buy t-shirts with broad logos like, 'My Husband went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt'. There was one about bad girls going to London (apparently good one's go to heaven !), I looked for them. I did end up buying some touristy stuff, always helps...
Once upon a time London was financial center for the world. When my brother visited London it was a family achievement. The London t-shirts increased your rank in college circles. Having London address was a thing of pride. No more. Like the old Queen, London is aging. There are no new skyscrapers, no new industries, unemployment is up and prime minister is loosing the rating. In nutshell, London is loosing the glory (even the 'we are londoners' logos do not rhyme well.. not sure if Britain as whole is loosing its famous sense of humour). But then what do you expect in a country where Harry Potter is national hero and a fictional writer makes more money than the Queen?
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