The theory of falling in love.

I've believed in it for quite a while.Thought I might as well share it. Here's how I think the process goes.

Phase 1: Attraction.
This is perhaps the most important step in the process. For guys it might be for every girl they meet(:P). For girls it may be more intricate and could be triggered due to good looks, intelligence, power, wealth, but there would be a cause nevertheless. I guess a very important factor is the X factor at this stage, the thing you think the other person has and want to find out moreabout. In most cases this phase lasts for a few hours of a good, long conversation. In this period either you realize that she is a babe with no brains or you move on to phase 2.
Phase 2: Exploration and Pretense.
This is a pretty phase in the relationship. In this period you see the person not for what he/she is but for what you want to think he/she is. Also, in this phase you try to be a more perfect person depending about the things you know about yourself. This phase may last for months in a teenage/first affair to weeks in other cases. For a mature couple this phase may not exceed more than a few hours. And most likely there would be little pretense and lots of exploration. It may sound like a fake phase, but I think it is actually the prettiest form of love away from reality and truth. And if they were to design an hoarding for selling love I am sure they would use snaps of a couple in this phase. Depending upon your enthusiasm for changing for the other person , you may grow and mature a lot as an individual in this phase.
Phase 3: Reality, problems and alternatives.
This is the phase where most of the relationships perish. It is like an elimination round in the process. Here you meet the actual person you've been dating for a while and since, by now you've grown comfortable with his/her feelings for you, you are not scared of speaking your mind about things. I think there are two opposing influences in affect at this stage.

· One is the growing boredom that creeps in as you get to know your partner's fallacies and eccentricities. This factor grows at different rates, depending upon the people involved, their lifestyles, their commitment to the relationship and the commitment to make it work.

· The other influence is the growing habit for your partner. He/she starts becoming an important part of your life and becomes essential for you decisions and thoughts. This factor grows at various rates depending upon the fundamental compatibility of individuals, their respect for each other's individuality and the time they get/try to spend together.

The output of this phase depends on which of the above two influences grows faster in the particular case. I don't know the length of this phase but for some people, I think it lasts for the entire lifetime :)
If influence one is stronger then the person looks for other alternatives, sometimes a single life if he/she is tired or otherwise he/she returns back to phase 1. Some people actually enjoy the journey from 1 to 3 (i) and back again. I personally don't understand nor appreciate these people. For cases when the second influence is overpowering it results in an endearing relationship with mutual respect and growth and sometimes it moves ahead to phase 4.
Phase 4: True love
This is the elusive true love. I don't know much about it, because I couldn't reach this far. It is when your mental image of a partner ceases to exist. Instead it becomes the other way round - your partner instead defines the image. And there is perfect bliss. I don't know people from this phase but I do know that a lot of people are in fact phase 3 (ii) but believe that they are in phase 4. Either ways I would call them lucky :)

Speaking of old people...

Of all the lessons life teaches you, an important but often overlooked one is not to

take bath in old people's bathroom :) 

I happened to do that today, on my trip to mini didi's place. There was no particular reason for choosing that bathroom, but I guess it seemed like the logical thing to do, given that the other bathroom was occupied and I was running late. I realized my mistake as soon as I turned on the shower and nothing happened. Though I don't usually express my approval for people who dance naked under the shower inside the bathroom walls, but it is true that I do approve of such people. I believe that people who don't dance naked under the shower inside the bathroom walls are very less likely to do something more amusing in the rest of their day. So a shower that didn't work was already a bad sign. Well, being the perennial engineer, I picked up a comb and started working at the holes and was soon able to prove my mettle as an instrumentation engineer just as the water started pouring out. But it was just the beginning. 

Then came the shampoo. Remember seeing those big one liter bottles of hideously colored liquid with the word "herbal" stamped all over the cover. Well there it was and under the name it said "suits all hair types", probably a phrase too ambitious to be used on a Rs. 30 bottle. Or maybe it means it treats all hair types with the same respect that a detergent shows to different types of cloth. Anyways this was enough for me to skip the shampoo part and I chose not to torture my hair cells in their uneventful after life. 

Then it was soap. I picked up another piece of "herbal" cosmetics, this time a conspicuous looking brown colored bar, with no fragrance to give it away. Well I went about running it across my body and it was to be honest quite OK, except for the fact it didn't lather at all. It was only when I put it on my face that I could smell what it was. Remember " multani mitti" ? The utterly useless household remedy supposed to fight acne? Well that was what the soap was made of! And I don't know about you, but regardless of nationality or origin, I don't like mud. So even if the mud had traveled all the way from eastern Pakistan to finally find its calling in life, the idea of being covered in mud from head to toe, while in the process of cleaning oneself is not very appealing. Anyways that was my last attempt at completing the process. I just cleaned up and left. 

"You'll never understand old people till you are too old" 

I resigned from work this week.

On Monday this week I resigned from my post of software engineer at Aricent.

Natural as it was, I still can't say it was an easy decision. After I keyed in the mail and till the time i sent it, I felt uneasy about the way this change would affect my life. I could feel in those minutes what exactly they mean by fear of change. I could feel the human tendency to hold on to habits, even the bad ones.

Habit: The thing that makes an escaped convict miss prison.

Show me the MoNEy

"Show me the MONEY"

I've always liked this quote from the movie Jerry Macguire. What i can't reproduce here in text is the absolute matter of factness that comes along when Cuba Gooding uses it in the movie. Leave everything aside, just "show me the money!"

But that is what life has become. Life has essentially changed from being a pursuit of happiness into a demand for instant gratification. The days of life long pursuits of life's meaning and goals have been put aside. The hours spent into exploring oneself from within, are regarded as a waste of time. The only good answers are the ones that are quick. So a feeling like love is strongly felt only if it is known its likely to be reciprocated. A particular course is pursued only if it yields results and that too in a predetermined time interval. Our choices are controlled by the ease and availability of the resource rather than our need for it.

Simply said, patience is no longer a coveted virtue. Where voices of the inner self are unheard in the strident noises of possession. Our achievements have been quantified, the quality has been forgotten.

A lesson in rafting.

One good simile that rafting offers is the way you have to put in everything, put in all

your physical energy into pedalling so that you avoid falling into the rapid and getting caught by a funnel. Same applies to an engineer's life where the funnel is replaced by a secure job and marriage. The battle as always is between monotony of getting the known v/s the fascination of finding the unknown. Let me see how hard I can pedal. Pedal Fast Forward!!

Why its costlier to be careless in England

1. Density of money increases. One note = lots of rupees
2. Everything is expensive so you can't go out with less money.
3. Empty places make you move faster. So you get to places faster than your mind does.
4. Your assumptions about how things work are mostly wrong.
5. The warm and courteous Britishers are very unlike the crooks and robbers you are accustomed to!

So watch your back ;)