letters2bala

Had an interesting discussion last night, very much on the lines of some of the stuff we used to talk about. So here goes another letter to you. I’ve noticed that people get attracted to things they don’t understand. ‘curiosity kills the cat’, the very reason we are human and capable of discoveries and inventions. We always want to solve something we don’t understand, and even invented God in this process to explain things we once didn’t know science could solve. But this is part of the neocortex only. What the brain is constantly doing, is processing new information in the neocortex, and quickly sending it to the limbic for subconscious and long-term storage, so that it can move on to new things. Like cycling. You focus a lot to get it right initially, and thereafter it becomes part of the limbic where you can do it subconsciously. It’s what some people call ‘flow’. You do something so often, like guitars, that it simply just flows without having to concentrate on it. And the...

This would have been one time I would have gladly lost the Apple debate with you. We've always argued every time Apple comes out with their new products, and somehow I have always stuck to deify them, but this time even I have given up hope. It was so bad, that they literally just changed numbers. Apple Watch 4 moved to Watch 5 with literally no other feature apart from 'always on'. It was actually so cool that the watch turns on when you look at it, and Apple is doing exactly the opposite of removing what they are known to be cool for. And even they know they are so bad that they de-listed Watch 4 so as to make the Watch 5 relevant. Now you go directly from 3 to 5. Same for the iPhone. No more X. You directly have to get the 11. Trevor Noah joked about it best. Kids will totally mess up counting numbers given the way Apple is changing nomenclature and number hierarchy. Anyway, one of our colleagues summarized it best, and I'm sure you would have loved to read ...

Saw a dream last night. One of those vivid ones that I rarely get . We are on a trip to Goa, walking around places very similar to the ones we were in when we went with Amit. But this time the people with us are Hari, China and Tunu. Proper schoolboys trip. Guess what the occasion is? We are celebrating your successful recovery from liver transplant surgery. We all had a scare with you in the hospital, but thankfully the doctors got you in time and managed to fix you. You are now back with us, but obviously cannot drink. So this is a fully detox trip where we are doing things, including going to some of those really cool places we have visited in Goa before, but not drinking. However, in your case, it wasn’t just the teetotaling that was new to you, you were also being extremely religious. Both of these were alien to you before. At one point, you saw a small temple and you immediately picked the chalk from there and smeared it on your forehead and also on the foreh...

"Just watched Tarentino's latest movie. It's got 3 lead actors, and you go in wondering what the story between them would be And guess what? They don't meet until the very last scene! In fact, Brad Pitt doesn't ever meet Margot Robbie, its only DiCaprio who meets her in the very last scene.  Trust Tarentino to pull off something like that! And since this is a movie about Hollywood celebrities, and there needed to be a villain right? So, guess what Tarentino comes up with? Hippies! People who live like garbage vs people who live in fantasy land. Only Tarentino could have thought of that.  And worse part, he doesn't hold back his punches. He gets the hate to go all the way, complete Kill Bill style. It was just so funny. He shows all of them as normal people, and yet living lives where things happen that none of us can ever comprehend.  Such an absolutely amazing movie. Won't get to any award shows, and will only be discussed between people like us....

The final piece of him I saw before he was engulfed by fire were his socks sticking out from his swollen feet on the ramp he lay.  Those white Nike socks he's always worn, and never liked repeating.  Throughout our US trip, he would religiously leave behind his socks in every hotel we stayed as he didn't want to repeat it, or even carry it back with him and wash it.  Could never understand the logic, much like so much else he used to do.  I recounted this story in South Africa just before boarding our flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and exactly on the seat in which I sat, there was a sock lying there.  Someone else did the very same thing he always did, leaving a sock behind everywhere he went.  It's almost as if he's following me all the time. Even the way I was in Bangalore the day he passed was just serendipity.  It's as if he wanted me there. To see him one last time before he left this physical world, only to remain, and...

You are usually at the door opening it for me, or at the end of the stairs motioning me to come up in case your parents opened the door. But this time, you were on the floor. Lying wrapped in white head to toe with just your face visible. Your face was just like the last time I saw it, in Brigade road Bangalore last December. A receding hairline, but everything else still the good looking kid you always were. Even that little beard didn't have a trace of white. So young.  You didn't move an inch lying there on the floor. I remember you being such a light sleeper. Every time I would walk into the hall and find you sleeping on that blue sofa that literally took your shape over the 2 years of NM we stayed together, you would always flinch as I moved past. I kept staring at you, waiting for that flinch. But you weren't asleep this time. Your dad sat next to you, dripping wet from a shower he just took and was probably asked to start reciting Slokas without wiping ...