Ananth's Blog

So I just reached back to Bengaluru and I keep thinking perhaps this is a good moment to write something. Some kind of mental snapshot is warranted. I am hoping to join a new company - Salesforce after working in Visa for just 1.5 years. I just completed another trek - some 80 kms walk in the park. During the trek, I wrote down a bunch of mental sticking points and the advantage of having such a list is to see which one of them are perhaps temporary and which ones might stick around for sometime and haunt one. During the trek, I kept reminding myself that I should not fixate on the destination - that lofty peak or that supposedly pretty valley. The trek itself was the prize that I have earned. And the one that I wanted to celebrate. And celebrate is the right word for it. There is nothing that comes close to describing what it was. Just stretching the body and mind and asserting its capabilities. During those walks, I got reminded of Illayaraja's song "Pitchai Pathiram"

Last weekend, I drove 800 Kms for nothing. This is hard to explain to myself. It is harder still to write about it. It's been a week since September 23rd. That time of the year in the Isha Calendar when a kind of gathering happens around the Master. It is called Lap of the Master. I wanted to participate in it. At least I thought as much. So somewhat mechanically I made plans to reach in time and participate. However on the morning of the event, I found myself waking up in my ashram cottage and unable to find a reason to go to the event. I really don't know what was behind this sudden onset of Tamas . Almost as if to justify my unwillingness to get up, my mind is trying say that it is because of the crowd etc. But for whatever reason, I felt like not going to the event. I rather be curled up in my bed and read what I was reading. Over the next few hours, I felt a gnawing sense of disconnect and disconcert. This lead me to search for a word of what I was going through. I think t

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law And endlessly chant complicated sutras. Before doing that, though, they should learn How to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon. ~  Ikkyu  (Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology, trans. by Sonya Arutzen) I remember an incident. Once I was chatting randomly with a bunch of volunteers and Isha bramacharies. This was a time when i was living in Isha yoga center. All the swamis were mentioning about their pet peeves (or their own weird limitations). One of the Maas mentioned that her biggest issue was using public toilets so much so that she was mortified to travel to North India mainly because she will be forced to use public toilets in the Indian trains. I remember it because at that time I felt it was endearing that Maa was being so honest about herself. But I also felt that it was quite silly. She was a notorious Maa known to be very strict and punctilious about many things. And grown men used to be scared of this

So I am in Bangalore airport - the new Terminal 2. (I wanted to write 'swanky new teminal 2' - but i hate that the word is so overused). There are a few things which state that I am an inseparable part of the mainstream than going on a work trip and experiencing a bit of all-expenses-paid-biz-travel. I just checked in the 080 lounge in Terminal 2. It is comforting and soothing - the feeling of just being a part of a crowd -  the upwardly mobile crowd currently enjoying the bounty of the breakfast spread in the airport lounge.  This mocks all my pretensions of being an outsider - about living a life of a modern yogi. I guess if there is ever a time to take stock and check-in, this would be it. In spite of this feeling of being a part of a crowd, strangely/surprisingly I feel mildly triumphant. I have been getting the few glimpses of results with my diet/weigh loss goals. I feel quite conscious of my body - including how I eat. I leant swimming!!! I have been running regularly an

One of the reasons why I buy physical copies of certain books especially of Osho and Sadhguru is that I want the reading to be a multi-sensory experience. The words take my being to soaring heights but yet it is untouchable and ungraspable. So in an attempt to touch the untouchable, I thumb through those glorious words on the pages to feel that same experience that the Master talks about. I occasionally bury my head in the open book to smell that fleeting fragrance and the embrace of the Master. My current predicament is that I want to distance myself from the flesh-and-bones and the brick-and-mortar aspect of Isha and still experience the magic of Isha. And still be open to Grace. It is like just wanting to have a nice meal at a restaurant without wanting to go to the kitchen and seeing the chaos backstage. The reason for choosing to live outside IYC is the fact that I had irreconcilable differences within me. I thought one uses the word 'irreconcilable differences' to explain

Certain books are like writing prompts. Like this one. So here we go. Finally I am writing a book review. It is a book on an unlikely love between two nerds Sadie and Sam. Am pretty sure the Sam character is modelled after the writer Gabrielle Zevin. What I liked about the book: Gamer/Programmer persona: I like how Zevin got into the mindspace of the gamer protagonists. I felt while reading the book that I was listening to real conversation between engineers. Specifically the retro tech space. I am pretty sure she did a ton of research on it. Character arc of Sam Mazer: I love the psychology of Sam. I loved how Sam grew during the course of the novel. In very small yet telling ways. I liked and empathised with Sam's early wounds and how those early wounds became a defining characteristic and a fundamental character flaw. I love how during the course of the novel (during the course of his life), he slowly moved towards healing those wounds. (I wonder who is the Marx in my life - tha