Answer!

Alright, I have some 1000 friends. And I have been heavily gunned by some bullet questions like what's your new year resolution bla bla.. Sail through folks.

I am actually getting fed up of this high voltage life in Bangalore. No, this isn't an indication that I will be stepping out abroad. Strange!...folks around are always asking me when are you flying abroad..Nonsense man! People have lost perspectives! Irrational souls, I must say.
At worst I might step out for a naughty honeymoon with my wife after marriage. And for nothing else. India will be my home. It gave me birth and rebirth. Anyway, happy to note that 11,000 of the 65,000 mandated H1-B visa slots are still available and went obviously a waste. Big reason to celebrate.

Well, coming to Bangalore...Everyone here is so busy running around that I often wonder when they actually get some work done because most real work demands a certain degree of stillness, contemplation and thought. No one has time for that any more. Everyone feels that if they don’t rush around, they will miss out on something they can’t afford to. This fear of missing out drives the new consumer obsession.It persuades us that the absence of that product or experience from our lives lessens us. Today we are yoked to compulsive ambitions forced upon us. Like Pavlov’s dog, we run on a treadmill that won’t stop. What’s worse, we pretend to enjoy it! Nodi swamy.

Bangalore’s energy is now boringly predictable. Perfectly decent roads are being messed up to build walkways in the sky that no one uses. Exquisite old villas are being torn down to be replaced by highrise apartments, where you pay monthly maintenance bills that could fetch you a fine 3 bedroom flat on rent. We pay fees for clubs we seldom use, gyms we never visit, doctors we have no faith in, time share resorts we will never go to. It’s all part of the same syndrome. Keeping up with those who you think are better off than you. It could be a friend, a neighbour or that guy in the office you hate the most. You want what he has without figuring whether you really need it. Or even want it.

We are idiots, blindly responding to the stimuli of commercial messaging.

Can we escape from this shit? Yes, Surely we can..and how?

The answer lies in breaking the sameness, deconstructing the routine of our lives, finding new things to do. None of this costs money. What costs money is staying on the treadmill, constantly running. Migrating from your Nokia to an iPhone may be expensive but leaving it at home and hanging out at the local bookshop is not. No, it doesn’t diminish you if you carry last season’s jeans or drive a Nano. You don’t have to afford that paint job in your house every Ugadi. Instead, frame those family pictures and hang them up. You may recall many lovely memories that a spotless wall can’t offer. Skip some episodes of Bigg Boss; learn to play the guitar instead.Go have a Pani Puri with your girl. Drop that Ceasar’s salad; try a vada pao with your loved one. It won’t wreck your diet plan. Even if it does, it won’t matter as long as you’re happy. Feed a street dog. Buy a flute from that young flautist outside the national market in Majestic. Go trekking. Skip the newspaper. Stroll in a park and give a flower to that special person. Put up a sparrow shelter outside your window.

Live easy folks. It's much more fun. Why are we always rushing around with strategies and plans and insatiable desires all the time? Can you carry it to your grave?! I cannot for sure. I don't know about you. The resolution is I walked/am walking/will walk my above talk.

Angry,
Jd/