Alone

It feels great. After a long time I'm alone again. Being alone is something that's really special to me. It's my way of unwinding and getting in touch with the deepest part of myself. It's almost like the fuel that drives me. It'd be fair to say that I'm at my best when I'm alone. That's when I'm listening to nothing else but that voice inside me. In the white noise of everyday interactions, this voice can easily get muffled. But the challenge that faces me is to never let myself forget the sound of that voice. To make myself long to hear it again. To understand what it's trying to say. To fathom the depths from which it draws its substance. And to allow it to reverberate within myself for just a little while before I'm not alone again.

Lessons in Survival Part 1: Keeping your mouth shut

As I've grown older I've realized that probably one of the most important things that you must do as someone who's looking to survive( I wouldn't use the word succeed because it's all relative if you know what I mean. One man's win is another man's loss and it wouldn't be totally incorrect to say that in the end when a tending to infinity amount of time or its philosophical equivalent has passed, there are no winners or losers, only survivors ) is to keep your mouth shut. Obviously the unwanted side-effect of that action is the typically maniacal cyber logorrhoea that you see on display here. But believe me, it's a small price to pay. The effects of not keeping your mouth shut have been made lucid rather painfully to those who have chosen to learn their lessons the harder way.

But wait a minute, you can't keep your mouth shut all the time can you? Of course not. That'd be too much to ask of a human who's over-accustomed to a hyper-vocal social stereotype. It's like they say: impossible. But what is "possible" is to keep selectively shut. What's that now? We've heard of selectively permeable, but what's this thing called keeping selectively shut? Well, it is as you might have guessed, keeping shut when you ought to and not keeping shut at other times if you so please. The natural follow-up query is most likely to be: How do I know when to do what? Well, the answer to that question, I'm afraid is not available tailor-made. It's something you've got to figure out yourself. Like most other things in life.

They say "Even a fish wouldn't get into trouble if he'd just keep his mouth shut." How wise do we think we are? Extrapolating these behavioral ideals in other creatures to human interactions? Aesop's Fables. Panchatantra. Wacky quotes like the one above... Well so what if it worked for some hapless moron of an animal? Why should it work for us humans? I really don't know. That's something you've got to figure out for yourself. Ah yes. Again.

There will be moments when you will be tempted. To speak. To let the words flow. It's the lure of the devil. Mephistopheles himself calls out to you: "Say it. Imagine how great it'll sound." It's up to you to decide against doing that. It's difficult to say no. But it's the only viable option. There's no telling how seriously fucked up your life can get if you say something you're not supposed to.

Speedbreaker for growth

Going forward, the biggest speed-breaker for growth globally is? Even kids would have a ready answer these days. Experts believe the unfortunate answer to that question is the price of oil. I believe there's more to our difficulty than just the price of oil. If it was only energy that needed to be replaced quickly, our problem would have been far simpler. But it's more complicated than that. The average human often fails to comprehend how dependent we have become on oil as a resource - and not just as an energy resource, but something that affects every aspect of our lives.

Let me throw some light here on just one of those many aspects: Food. The natural reaction to this might be: "Food?? How is food related to oil?" The unfortunate and stark truth is that something as fundamental to human existence as food is also seeped in oil. To understand how, just put this in perspective: The world's population has increased manifold over the last 50 odd years while the number of people who grow food for the world has kept on decreasing. As we have grown more complex as a civilization, our occupations have made a marked shift from those that are engaged in providing subsistence to those that are engaged in providing peripheral services, comforts and luxuries. Look around you. How many people you know are engaged in something that can be described as absolutely essential and fundamental to human existence? You'd be hard put to find even 2. That's the point. If less and less people are growing more and more food for more and more people, how are they doing it?

Surely it isn't a miracle. Modern science has done well to distinguish itself from metaphysics and so we have rational answers to almost every question that troubles us today. The way we answer those questions and the long-term effects that has on us as a people, is surely a matter that has attracted far less thought and deliberation than it ought to have. The answer to this particular problem of ours, though, has been rather cliched in scientific terms. Oil.

Oil has been an answer to almost every question that has faced the human race over the last five decades. How do we zip across the globe at supersonic velocities? Oil. How do we substitute metals for building faster and cheaper structures? Oil.( most plastics are derived from oil ) How do we provide energy for more and more people's daily activities? Burn more oil to generate more electricity. How do we feed more people with minimum effort? Oil.

When the second world war ended, man found himself equipped with a technology that promised to revolutionize agriculture and hence the world's food industry. Fertilizers. What rose out of the left-overs for the manufacture of chemical weapons in the second world war, was quickly utilized for making our crops grow faster. Nitrogen, which was earlier fixed by bacteria in the soil was now fixed with the help of fertilizers. Few people reflect on the rather obvious fact that all fertilizers are made from petroleum.

As more and more people burden the earth every day, we rely on fertilizers to grow the food that feeds them. There is no component of the industrial food chain today(almost all of us today depend on the industrial food chain; a minuscule fraction of the world's population grows its food naturally) that is untouched by petroleum. Our foods have come to include more and more artificial substitutes. These artificial components are invariably derived from petroleum.

If oil is a scarce resource today, it implies that we will now find it more and more difficult to grow our food. Something that we take for granted today, may become a disaster of epic proportions for us tomorrow. If we didn't come up with an alternative to the petroleum dependent industrial food chain today, it may just come to a grinding halt if we were to run out of oil tomorrow.

This shows us just how intricately petroleum has woven itself into our lives. We have become a species that subsists on oil. The level of human dependence on oil today is probably unfathomable. The sooner we invest in alternate technologies for every area that is petroleum-dependent, the better equipped for an uncertain future we shall be.

National Shame

The entire nation was put to shame today as a spineless Prime Minister informed the American establishment of his incompetence in getting the 1-2-3 Nuclear Agreement Ratified in this country. It was a rather odd moment in international diplomacy. The most powerful nation in the world makes unprecedented concessions for an emerging powerhouse of a country and months later the reply is : "Oops, we're not yet ready!"

The next natural question that the world would be asking India is: "If you weren't ready for this, why did you ask for it in the first place?" I mean how many times does a cowboy president take personal interest in international relations and oversees the ratification of a pact by congress personally? If there ever was a deal served on a platter in the international diplomatic arena, this was it. It was the ultimate case of indulgent spoon-feeding. Only this time the kid wasn't ready.

There would be a number of nations sniggering behind curtains at India's faux pas. China and Pakistan would be leading this gang. If there's anyone who stands to gain through India's blunder, it's them. China would have gauged the impact on the Indian economy for not being able to secure a cheap source of energy for the future. Pakistan- well, they're happy for the smallest of Indian failures; this one would have called for a party.

I have always been critical of the left. My cynicism has been proved correct. They are the real enemies of this nation- megalomaniacs living in the eighteenth century, who believe in defeatist policies and paleolithic ideals. The left in India has always aped the communists of other nations. It's only deliciously ironic though that the very communist nations that the Indian leftists are aping have discarded these policies as old-fashioned. Both China and Russia have moved on to embrace market economies, having relinquished significant state control over markets.

The left in India is a typical case of power without responsibility. The Left is cocky enough to hold the government to ransom over crucial issues, but they're not virile enough to participate in the government and be held accountable for their actions. They've been eating their cake and having it. And the government of India has been fatuous enough to grant them their tantrums.

The only face-saver though is the gesture on the part of the US, acknowledging the refusal of the deal as an act of political compulsion on behalf of India. They still hope that the deal will be pushed through next year. It's time to get back to work and put our own house in order before demanding nuclear supplies again.

GRE in retrospect: The do's and don'ts

Having received guidance from countless people in my run up to the GRE, I feel obliged to return the favor.

If I were to summarize my advice for GRE prep in one line, I would say: "Keep it simple."

To elaborate on that, here's a step by step approach(I'm assuming you've already registered for the test, otherwise that would be Step 1) Maybe it'll sound cliche'd, but then most things in life do...

1. Buy a copy of Barron's
2. Take the diagnostic test at the beginning of the book. Know where you stand. At this point, also target a particular score.
3. Begin working on the word list. There are umpteen ways to go about this. I started with 'Z' and worked backwards, but that was only a whim.. some people choose to go about it randomly, some start with A... whatever suits you..
4. As you work through the word list, mark the words you didn't know. On further revisions, these are the words you must go through. Doing this ensured that I never went through all 3500 words on my revisions, just the words I didn't know.
5. Revise your word list once.
6. Go about solving the practice exercises on Antonyms, RC's and Sentence Completion( not necessarily in that order)
7. In case you're weak in Quant, go through the Math Review and exercises. I didn't and got an 800, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't.
8. Take PowerPrep Test 1
9. If you've achieved the score you'd targeted in the beginning, nothing like it... else you've gotta get back to work.
10. Revise your word list and practice verbal exercises from other sources( I would suggest The Princeton Review)
11. Around 2-3 days before your GRE take PowerPrep Test 2.
12. Relax

The Don'ts:
1. Don't lay your hands on too many prep sources at the same time. Go about it systematically. In my view, Barron's and PowerPrep were more than enough. Once you're done with these, you may go on and practice from other sources

2. Don't not take your PowerPrep seriously. Simulate exam conditions when you're taking it.
3. Don't panic with your word lists. They take time but that's the way it is with everyone.
4. Don't try to double guess on any question. Mark the option that you think is right.

Where the hell was Abhishek Sahoo?

"I can explain this"- Very familiar excuse. And mine today. I can explain my absence! Was too busy to blog(if there exists such a thing i.e.) - first exams, then GRE and TOEFL( I know.. they're exams too)... But don't worry, I'll make it up.. to don't know who and with I don't know what, but I will all the same.

So much for excuses and alibis.. onwards to renewed blogging ..