Daily Reading List

Some time back in a workshop the instructor asked me how did I know so much in depth about a topic. I replied with the truth-“I read”. Of course everyone had a laugh and I also smiled but I was stating the truth. I am not super bright or super intelligent. I just read a bit more than the average Joe.

Anyways sometimes I share the best of what I read, through status’s on facebook but I don’t want to cloud my updates with a stream of articles each and everyday.
So I am going to chronicle my best daily reads in a post everyday. Anyone who is interested can look it up but more importantly I can reference it at my ease too. Bookmarking is just not efficient enough I browse hundreds of pages everyday. I will only list what is worth sharing. I hope you enjoy it too.

(a) Anyways the must read article of the day is this eulogy of Steve Jobs delivered by his sister. It’s a wonderfully wriiten artcile and I just find this line so tragically true. “
‎"We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories."
” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB.

(b) As the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq nears , I have to think a lot. Afterall 10 years ago I was a teenager and in a way I have been a child of the great war years. I felt the pain of 9-11. I cheered the Afghanistan invasion, pretty happy to see the Taliban whom I anyway hated go and in a way thought there was need for dismantling the terrorist infrastructure. And one and a half years later  I opposed the Iraq war tooth and nail being convinced there was no cause for war. Wrote essays  And when no WMDs came and people expressed surprise , I could not help but say told you say. Infact I still remember watching Rumsfields testimony in the UN live on BBC as he scared everyone with a vial in his hand.’This amount he stated is enough to kill anyone’. I had to judge if the evidence was convincing and I thought it was all one side of the story.
However my biggest concern today is the women in Afghanistan. One of the reasons I supported the US war in Afghanistan because the Taliban with their repression of women simply angered me no end. That is not Islam or even basic human decency. What will happen to those gains as the US leaves? Will Afghanistan face another decade of degradation. And the guilty party is the cold war.
Have over the years followed RWA(Revolutionary Women of Afghanistan) organization whose volunteers have risked everything to educate girls.

(Must read about how cynically the women of Afghanistan have been exploited) http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/10/06/pawns-of-war-and-peace-what-does-the-future-hold-for-afghan-women/

(Good read- USAID and women in Afghanistan) http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/03/22/dear-usaid-afghan-women-arent-pet-rocks/

(Good read- interview with an Afghani woman heading NGO) http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/10/25/peace-unveiled-an-interview-with-afghan-womens-rights-activist-hasina-safi/

(c) Poetry and politics a nice perspective http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2011fall/2011fall_browning.php

(d) Quotes of Arundhati Roy ( admire her courage, not necessarily share her viewpoints)
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/6134.Arundhati_Roy
A good one of the bunch“D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

(e) Another urdu poetry site. Very regularly updated. http://faysalspoetry.blogspot.com/

(f) The story of a reformed neo-nazi or a skinhead. Its very intense and personal. Recommended read. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/31/reformed-skinhead-removes_n_1067431.html?ref=impact&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Time to Reinvent Myself

My blog has always been a lot about self introspection and while I have not blogged enough recently for various factors, I feel the time is coming soon. As an update some stuff happened recently that has made me think deep and hard.

Firstly the first semester of MBA is nearly over, and MBA right now seems the most overrated thing I have ever done. The trouble is I feel I haven't learnt enough that I could and this hurts as the importance of MBA for me lies in its learning opportunities. Its like being stuck in a marsh while solid ground seems just across the water. So I have been indulging in all sorts of trivial things without heading in the right direction.

Indeed I laughed the other day wondering loudly to this statement ,'And I used to think engineering was the biggest mistake of my life'. Of course I plan to change this next sem but still.

Secondly I went through the summer placement process where some of the companies I wanted to be at did not even shortlist my resume. Funnily enough in the end I got to a company which is part of a media group that I was really curious about . Its a finance profile and I get to explore how deep my interests lie in the media world. I find it funny how I ended up in a place my heart wanted but would not have waited for and part of me now believes in fate. 

Thirdly , an event happened in my life that makes my heart skip a beat and I walk with a jump in each step. The event was inspiring enough to demolish the writers block I was suffering from and  I now write prose and poetry again. But its all very fluid and I have to wonder if I am hallucianting for I go low when the day seems blue. And its just a gaze that can make or mar my day. While i believe in fate and 'The Secret' now( more later), the question is am I ready for things not working out? I wont even consider the possibility at times. And in the end I dont think I can ever be prepared  but I must think about this.

Summing it up, I need to think of my MBA, the summer placement, the analysis of failure and what goes in my life. In short now is a wonderful opportunity to reinvent myself. And that is what I am going to do. Below is a picture of me nearly four years ago. Its a different  me I realize and I want to again reinvent myself over the next 3-4 months. So that I again look in the mirror and see a stranger.

Also let me acknowledge publicly and also confess that I used to think of myself as  a genius and very smart and intelligent. However I have come to realize, I am an idiot of the first order and very naive. I have mishandled enough situations over the last 4 months to be given an Ignoble award or a Darwin prize. 

Just the way you are

So this song is my latest muse. Simply love the  lyrics  where the song goes like I love everything about coz she is perfect

"Her eyes, her eyes
make the stars look like they're not shining
Her hair, her hair
falls perfectly without her trying
She's so beautiful
And I tell her everyday (yeahh)

I know, I know
When I compliment her she won't believe me
And it's so, it's so
Sad to think that she don't see what I see
But everytime she asks me "Do I look okay?"
I say

When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change
'Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile
The whole world stops and stares for a while
'Cause girl you're amazing
Just the way you are

Her lips, her lips
I could kiss them all day if she'd let me
Her laugh, her laugh
she hates but I think it's so sexy
She's so beautiful
And I tell her everyday
Oh you know, you know, you know
I'd never ask you to change
If perfect's what you're searching for
Then just stay the same
So don't even bother asking if you look okay
'Cause you know I'll say
When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change
'Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile
The whole world stops and stares for a while
'Cause girl you're amazing
Just the way you are
The way you are
The way you are
Girl you're amazing
Just the way you are

When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change
Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile
The whole world stops and stares for awhile
Cause girl you're amazing
Just the way you are "

http://youtu.be/LjhCEhWiKXk

What crosses my mind

For the last 1.5 years or so I have blogged very litte but rather preferred to note down my thoughts on a file. I earlier had that file on myhard disc but it has now moved to google docs. The file is named 'The time is running out.doc'. Behind this strange sounding name is a very simple reason. I created a new file during my second year of engineering and after I wrote some sentences ,on saving it Microsoft word automatically save the file with the first sentence. Hence, 'the time is running out.doc'.

I am talking about this file for a reason. Its linked to my need to express and by extension to my ebbing and rising desires to tell a story to the world. When I want to express I use the blog but the story is being written in bits and pieces on the file. So as I wanted to formalize my blog to a custom domain, I wrote more on the file and planned to buy a custom domain. Infact down the line I bought a domain but I suddenly wanted to write a bit more. And so the domain remains untouched while I muse on.

However there has been great progress on the file front. After having been very inactive for a long long time, I gathered great speed and have finished ten thousand words. Now if you were to take into  consideration that these are basically disjointed points and paragraphs to be used as the mould for larger enterprises, you end up with 50k words . And that is half a novel or so.

Of course there is a reason why I write again, why poetry flows from my pen err keyboard so regularly and why my heart at times a bit faster at times. That however is another story

The Edge

I shall walk to the edge of the cliff,
Muse and stare deep into the chasm,
And maybe for the first time I will shout out loud,
In the darkness that rises from the abyss,
Your name and the songs of your beauty.

The pilgrim cannot walk forever through the desert,
The wanderer will sometimes come back to a familiar place,
Sounds of glee ripple in deserted buildings too,
And as the same story repeats through all of history,
The ill in love sometimes shout the beloveds name.

As I travel through a city of strangers,
Of closed doors and windows with dark shades,
In the silence and desolation of the abyss,
I will shout out your name in the wilderness,
Again and again like a madman incarnate,
And maybe the sounds will drag away with them,
All my emotions and the intoxication of your name.

For all of humanity it’s the curse of Adam and Eve,
For as they were banished from the gardens of heaven,
It seemed God also sent along his wrath till the end of time,
A hundred emotions of joy but a thousand flavours of misery,
And even today when a man wakes up drowning in the blues,
Its the curse of Adam and Eve coursing through his every breath

As I stare into the abyss of dark emotions,
And as the abyss stares back at me,
Maybe for once I could see eye to eye ,
With twisted fate and the paradox of desire’s,
And the poet in me could just laugh and laugh,
At the vagaries of time.

By Ace
PS- I wrote this poetry sometime back inspired by the darkness of a dark dark day. I experimented with an alternating style where stanza's alternate between a macro and micro picture. Example the first stanza is about me but the next one talks in general of philosophy