the courage to accept things we cannot control, the courage to fight the things we can control, and the wisdom to distinguish between the two!........ - welcome to the "rabbi" me!

this question has always been there in my mind, sumtimes not at the top of my mind, but hidden sumwhere deep down beneath its conscious workings.
Does the means to acheive an end matter at all? When something good is being done by adopting the wrong means , does it leave any doubts about the intentions? Do the ends always justify the means? The gandhian principles may not apply in today's contenxt, so to correct the twisted, we may have to distort ours ways to a certain extent. But what is this extent? This justifies our means in a highly self-centered and short-sighted society. But I am somehow not convinced by this line of reasoning. Where does the difference between the right and the wrong lie then, if both follow the same/similar means to acheive their ends? After all, the ends being good and bad is only relative, there is nothing right or wrong in this world in the absolute sense.
I have no answers to this intriguing question. For now, am just going to take off from this world while listening to "you don't see" by pussy cat dolls!

I hate having things unanswered, leaving things incomplete, especially in the lab and ofcourse in retrosynthetic analysis. Today I dissected a mechanism for annulation of a dicyanide penta ring, in the presence of a tertiary butoxide preceeding the addition of phosphoric acid. But there are still questions in my mind. I wonder why the reaction as deslongchamps points out, goes via an enamino-nitrile intermediate. Ofcourse I have managed to convince myself of the possibility of this happening. But I wonder if this happens every time, or just this once due to the presence of the tertiary butoxide....

Imagine two people- Ram and Shyam. Both are in their early twenties, living life like any ordinary person, one moment loving it, another, wondering why the grass is greener on the other side. Lets present them in two different situations. Ram pays a visit to the doctor one day with an unsuspecting stomach ailment that turns into a dreaded stomach cancer. He's left counting days. While lets spare shyam of this deadly curse, rather lets assume we know that shyam doesnt live any longer than Ram, even though he is not given any kind of hint about his impending death. So Ram and Shyam die at the same age, but do their lives remain the same anymore?. Shyam-yes, but what about Ram? Poor Ram is intrinsically dying each day. I donot remember where I read this, but when a man is just about to die, the scene of his entire life passes before his eyes. And this very well describes Ram's thoughts and feelings now.

But why this sudden difference in their perspectives? Just knowing when we are exactly about to stop breathing or how many days we have left, makes so much of a difference... this thought never struck me till now! But ironically speaking, it helps us to live every moment of our life (atleast those remaining days) to the fullest. Yes Ram is miserable, he thinks some kind of injustice has been done to him, he experiences immense pain, but amidst all this, he learns to live, appreciating even the smallest things in life. I donot want to sound like a rabbi, but if any of us were in his shoes, wouldnot we want to make the best of what we have left? Isn't that natural? While Shyam lives each passing day like any other day, not realising that this may be the only chance he gets to live life as "shyam"!
I donot intend to turn tonight's blog into a chapter on why life is precious ( in fact I myself dismiss this with a shrug, if someone tells me the same), but I was just wondering how it would be if we all of us came to know how many days we have left. Would it help? or would life turn into a living hell?

Freedom. It means different things to different people. some prefer not to move out of their circle of comfort, and some cannot, even if they are willing to explore. seldom do we realise the cost we pay for a dearth or an insufficient degree of freedom. And when we do, its either too late or too difficult to make a beginning. When we are suddenly thrust with the choice to do what we want to or the breathing space to commit mistakes with out questions being raised, we feel uncomforable, as if we have been punished, and our usually organised and predictable life has come to a stand still. Freedom comes with responsibilites. When people are not permitted to take responsibility for their actions over a period of time, they begin to slowly cringe from choosing to be responsible for anything small or big. Ofcourse there lines to be drawn for every choice we make, there is a upper limit for every decision we take. As and when we start being responsible for our actions, these limits inherently become a part of our actions. I feel that decision making is one of those few things in life that can never be taught to us. It is only learnt in two ways, one is to become a conscious part of the decision making process, another is by looking around us, learning from others. But there is no better teacher than experience.

As life moves on, we slowly begin to realise that one of our most treasured and handy attributes is the ability to make rational decisions, with out fearing whether they are right or wrong. Having the courage to face the music stems from our confidence as an individual.

A pity lots of people are yet to celebrate their indenpendence day!

sometimes i wonder how relationships work? I have a very cynical attitude towards the inter-personal relationship mumbo-jumbo which most of the relationship experts claim they have understood crystal clear. Sometimes I feel even the strongest will power can not make a relationship click. Ofocurse the fact that you have to try too hard, says a lot of things. On the other hand, nothing is perfect; there are miniature cracks even in the most magnificiently constructed artifacts. Just because they cannot be seen, doesnot mean they donot exist.
I have a fridge door magnet that says "dont try to understand me, just love me". I find that so contradictory. I donot believe in blind love. Yeah i know it does exist, and there is nothing to be judgemental about it. But I would prefer to understand the person whom i love if not completely, atleast a little bit, to ensure that my love is more conscious and driven by my will to love him/her, than just another emotion that i feel for them. sometimes attitudes are not compatible, sometimes outlooks/perspectives aren't and sometimes there is no rhyme or reason. But ultimately, when it becomes impossible to understand another, or the rationality behind their actions or behaviour, loving them becomes difficult. Or ironically, it is still possible to continue loving them, but liking them or sharing yourself with them is impossible. I know a lot of people who love each other, but when it comes to knowing each other, they are as peplexed as the famous hen/egg paradox! There is an ocean of difference between loving and or liking a person, very few are aware of this. Though ideally speaking, when u love each other, you share everything amongst one another, the gaps get bridged. But this seldom happens. Loving and closeness with a person are often mixed. When i love a person and when I am close with one, I mean different things. But ofcourse then the question that automaticaly stems from this is what the origin of love is, or rather what love is. The base line is i have no clue! But I know what it means at a comparitive scale when you love a person and when you like them or may be I don't.
These are things which ui have observed, but obviously everyone has a different story to tell dont they!

i am by nature skeptical about the existence of god as i feel that something that is not based on rational facts and reason can neither be proved nor disproved. But ofcourse there are sects that try to reason this out by using the existence of the clustral series of stones found underwater linking the lanka and kanyakumari, as a proof of Lord Ram's voyage to lanka.
But wasn't history written by man himself?!
But then sometimes i wonder what the whole purpose of religion is? I think its something beyond uniting people, upholding the existence of god or a means to endeavour for the "good" in each one of us. Sometimes i think, its just the underlying faith, that propels the whole notion - amidst the hullabaloo created by various religious sects, this fundamental thread of keeping faith alive in each one of us, gets lost. When there's nothing in life to look forward to , when nothing seems appealing enough to move on, when each step is taken with the utmost pain, its this faith that keeps us alive, because at times, thats the only thing left to cling on to. The faith that hard work always pays, that good always begets good, and finally, its definitely going to rain tomorrow and the exam's going to be postponed..!
The 8 yr old who sits outside her verandah every wednesday waiting for the ice cream vendor to come, the ardent cricket fan who doesnot miss a single over of sachin, afraid he may miss a magnificient four or six, the 25 yr old who believes that she wil definitely earn a phd in another 2 yrs (ok thats not me:P), the 40 yr old who waits every sunday for a bed tea, but finds herself, opening her eyes to a blissfully asleep husband....isnt all this faith?
The belief that there is a supernatural force called God who is the puppet master, is also one such faith. Till now in my life, I have not come across any such person who hasn't had faith in anything. Even those who live life for the moment, "believe" that each moment is countless and hence needs to be lived to the fullest .
And when you look at it this way, it seems ridiculous to fight over one's faith or belief! I donot necessarily like to think the way you think and vice versa, so why should I be hell bent on making you believe in what i believe? When it is so difficult for thoughts to match, is it reasonable to expect faiths or beliefs to be uniform all over?
appalling!!