DHAR DHAR

My student life here in London has entered the final phase of its journey. In a couple of days, I will cease to be a student for ever. How do I feel about it? It is hard to describe. Because I am working currently, I have not faced the abrupt end to the student life. It has been a gradual farewell and one with many super sweet, bitter sweet and not-so sweet memories.

I will remember this phase of my life for the varied and interesting learning processes that I have gone through. I once saw an advertisement with the tagline, “ It is not everyday that you do something for the first time in your life.” I will beg to differ because for the last one year, I have been doing just that. I am very sure, all this has changed me- for good or for worse – completely from the inside out. I am sure I am not the person who came to London one sunny September morning with just a suitcase and dreams in his eyes. I am sure, I have changed…

I have made friends and perhaps foes. I have inspired somebody and perhaps disgusted others. I have loved someone and for sure hated others. There are things I want to say – a Thank You here, a Sorry there – to people, to friends, to dear ones, to strangers. I don’t know what I am waiting for, perhaps for the barriers to come down, perhaps for a signal, perhaps for the blue space ship to come… I don’t know… what I know is that I am running out of time.

My student life is almost over…

General provisions:

Article 1 – All lovers, of any sex, are alerted that love, besides being a blessing, is also something extremely dangerous, unpredictable and capable of causing serious damage. Consequently, anyone planning to love should be aware that they are exposing their body and soul to various types of wounds, and that they shall not be able to blame their partner at any moment, since the risk is the same for both.

From Paulo Coelho’s Blog

Everyday I get up and start running. I run and run and run and then run some more. Relentless running. Running to keep up with the World around me. London is great, not an iota of doubt about that, but it is hectic. Coming from a laid back city like Kolkata, where things happen at their own babu-moshai pace, it seems like a whole new World to me – a World where the existence of being has taken a whole new form, a form know as weekend-to-weekend life. You get up one fine dandy Monday morning and get on the bandwagon of life – and when the wheels start spinning, you are thrown into this whirlwind  - your existence hanging by a thread. You never know when you will just loose it.

I spend the first half of the week moaning about the last weekend – how beautiful it was and how sadly I wasted it. The next half of the week is spent in anticipation of the coming weekend – conjuring up grand plans of finishing up that long forsaken task that needed to be done (btw, by this time even the task itself has lost all its hope of ever being finished). Then suddenly the long awaited Friday comes and swear to God, I can’t wait to get out of the grind. The anticipation builds to such an extent that by the time I realise, I have had six pints of Guinness and multiple shots of vodka and I am stumbling back home from the Tube. The hangover lasts for the entire Saturday and when I am proper and fit again to at least begin to start that task, it is almost Sunday.

I don’t know about most of you guys out there, but for me, Sunday is the cleaning cum dish washing cum laundry cum Ironing day. Though on a per hour worked basis, it is up there with Wednesday and Thursday as one of the most productive days of the week, but from a psychological point of view, it is the worst. Consider this, you work your butt off on Wednesday and Thursday, but there on the horizon is the bright light of the coming weekend. Like the rabbit following the carrot on the stick, you get thrashed around, but you don’t mind. The weekend is coming… On Sunday however, it is a completely different ball game. Your task is still in the “about to start phase”, tomorrow is Monday and there is this huge pile of clothes staring at you in the hope of getting Ironed.

Congratulations, in this city of dreams, you have wasted one more weekend like so many others before. There is a new week to start… new promises to keep and new things and plans to conjure. This is my relentless weekly existence. I run and run and run and then run some more. Relentless running. Running to keep up with the World around me.

I should be in bed, but I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about someone. I powered up the computer and crawled out from under my duvet after an hour of lying in the dark not knowing precisely what I feel. There’s a girl, or was a girl. There is a girl, somewhere, bothering me.  She has the most perfect smile. It fills me with warmth. She makes me angry and she makes me sad and she makes me numb and she makes me happy. All at the same time. I’m so glad that I met her. I’m so glad that I’ve known her. I’m not so glad that we don’t talk anymore, or that she feels so bad around me that we probably won’t ever meet again..

I felt it anyway. I don’t know if she really did, or does, or ever could. Something that made me want to be so close to her. Something that made me want to hold her and squeeze her tight. Something that made me want to kiss her. Passionately. Fiercely. God, did I want to kiss her. I have this knowing, so much more than a feeling, an absolute assurance that if her and I were ever together it would be amazing. Mindblowing. I have so much inside that I want to give to her. I’ve never wanted to give that much to anyone. It’s scary. I want her to be happy and I want to be the person that makes her happy but it seems that I can’t. That day, I almost thought that she wanted to kiss me too. I tried to kiss her. She backed away. I tried to get on with things and act as though it was fine and I was stupid and I understood and everything was alright and I was temporarily insane and an idiot for attempting it. In truth a huge part of me immediately fell away like some sort of antarctic chasm caving in.

To get to that point, to push my brain, to pump myself up, to send enough signals through my body to get myself to even attempt something like that with her, with the love that I feel for her, and then to have it thrown-off was perhaps the worst few seconds that my insides have ever had to deal with. Everything was twisted in a knot and it still kind of is. She hasn’t talked to me for two months. I haven’t talked to her. I would never have dreamed of attempting this with anyone else. I feel so strongly towards her. Still. If I look at a picture of her I don’t go to sleep at night. I bang my head on the wall and will myself to get her out of my mind so that I can relax. I think of her at stupid moments. I recognise her facial expressions in other people. I miss her. I have attempted to contact her but all in vain. I’ve decided, I’ll stop now… I don’t want to mess things up for her.

I was browsing through Paulo Coelho’s blog and I came across this short story from his book ‘Fathers, Sons and Grandsons’ called “Seeing Yourself”…

More such stories can be found here...

‘When you look at your companions, try to see yourself,’ said the Japanese teacher Okakura Kakuso.

‘If only we did always see the good things in others,’ replied Kakuso. ‘But the truth is that when we look at another person, we are only looking for defects. We try to discover his wicked side because we want him to be worse than us. We never forgive him when he hurts us because we do not believe that we would ever be forgiven. We manage to wound him with harsh words, declaring that we are telling the truth, when all we are doing is trying to hide it from ourselves. We pretend that we are important so that no one else will see how fragile we are. That is why whenever you judge your brother, be aware that you are the one who is on trial.’

Well… as the title says, I don’t think I am crazy… I might come out as one with all my animated talk, facial contortions and absurd comments but deep down, I believe I am as normal as you are.

I am not very bright or brilliant, and I certainly don’t get many jokes and I say a lot of inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times, but even within all these mess, I try my best not to hurt people. Sometimes, I even go to the extreme of making a big fool of myself just to make people feel comfortable. But, in return, I think I often don’t get the best deals. As they say, my return on investments is always negative. Why is that?

Am I really crazy?

There is something called “Bounded Rationality” which states that perfect decision making by individuals in complex situations is an impossibility. Herbert Simon who coined the term said that man is “intendedly rational, but limited to do so.”

I am one of the victims of bounded rationality and a very badly stuck-one at that. I took some stupid decisions and acted in a more stupid manner to eventually hurt someone who is very dear to me. The emotional turmoil that has started within since then, is almost ripping me apart into pieces. My biggest fear in life is hurting others and this time, a very severe damage has been done.

So, where does bounded rationality come into picture in all of this?

The answer to this question can only be provided in hindsight. When I took my decision, the entire scenario seemed to be an open ended game, with the possibility of the outcome going in many directions provided the assumptions made were correct. But, unfortunately, they were wrong and the outcome was totally different from what I had anticipated. So, in this case, rationality had a role in setting the correct assumptions and due to its boundedness, it failed miserably.

Bounded rationality also led me to act in a very stupid manner afterwards that dimmed any last rays of hope in improving the relationship. How? Though it was all unconscious, after the unwanted outcome came into light, my brain – the weirdest thing that it is – went into ‘overdrive’ damage control mode. But as Simon said, we are bounded in making perfect judgements in complex situations,  and I screwed it all up – bigtime.

That was it… the end of everything… I wish I could foresee all the contingent situations and act accordingly, but to second Simon, when you are in such a situation, the first thing that goes out of the window is “rationality”. Thanks to my new job and other commitments, I’ve very less time to think about it all. This is really helping me in coping up with the situation, but in lazy weekends such as today, when I don’t have much else to do, I sometimes wonder, “what if…”.

Though I have tried to extend this concept to friendship and relationships, bounded rationality is of utmost importance in organisations. It acts like a two edged sword and gives rise to many heuristics and associated biases in managerial decision making that have the power to make an organisation great as well as to topple it.

Bounded Rationality… 

This second portrait is of a Naga Sadhu. In Hinduism, a sadhu is an ascetic who has devoted his life to attain the ultimate goal in life, moksha or liberation. Hindus believe in multiple paths leading to God and the life that these sadhus follow converge towards that ultimate aim.

Naga Sadhus or the Digambars (sky-clad) are a sub-group of these sadhus who prefer to remain naked and smear themselves with ash and mud.

The portrait here is of one such ascetic.

I have not posted any of my drawings for quite some time now. I would like to present to you a series of fast pen and pencil portraits I did over the last couple of weeks.

As the first of the series, here is the dancer.