Why does Lennon still inspire a huge fan following??

After a long time i was a part of a meaningful discussion with some of my friends. The discussion was about why Paul McCartney does not enjoy the level of adulation that John Lennon does. WE all reached a conclusion that Lennon became famous because of anti-Vietnam campaign and his altercation with Nixon. It seemed to me a very fair conclusion to reach. Basically the only difference between Lennon and McCartney was that Lennon voiced his opinion about what he thought was bad while McCartney simply lived his life. So making this conclusion might seem a very good one based on these two.

Paul Newman, a very successful actor till the late 70's , was another major Anti-Vietnam activist. He also had earned the ire of Nixon and he was also listed in the infamous enemy list that Nixon had compiled. He does not seem to enjoy the celestial status that Lennon seems to enjoy. Most people wont have heard about Newman in the first place. Now comparing Newman and Lennon I simply cant make sense as to why one of them is being venerated by a generation of people , who were born after he died, while the other we have no idea about. I thought that Lennon's fame is still undiminished because he died at the peak of his career while Newman died at a very old age. This simply reminds me of the Dark Knight dialog "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" a small modification to it "You either die while famous and be remembered or live long enough to fade into oblivion" .

What makes great men great...

Edison said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. As a kid I used to read this just for the sake of reading it and not really understanding the truly profound truth behind those words. Now when Iam standing at the threshold of my adult life I am able to get a small idea of why this statement is so important for all of us. The perspiration that Edison was referring to need not be the actual physical labor but also the mental grit that it takes to achieve something.As I see it there are 2 types of people in life, those who know what is right and those who "PRACTICE " what they believe to be right. Almost 99 percent of the people in this planet will come under the first category. They are the lot who know that they should not be watching the movie before an exam and still watch it, they are the ones who know they should not be distracted but still get distracted , they are the ones who know they should not be eating those extra calories but still eat it . In short these are the people who have the "inspiration" but are not willing to do the perspiration. The inspiration I am talking about is knowledge of what is right and what is wrong and the perspiration is the mental determination to set yourself in the path of your dreams. All men (at least most) dream of making it big. They want to leave their imprints in the world but how many actually manage to achieve that ?? Does it mean that those who did not achieve are not skillful enough to do it? I definitely dont think so. I think they dont achieve because they lack the will to do what is necessary to achieve. They are not prepared to leave their leave their little titillation in order to achieve what they believe in. While on the other hand the ones who actually achieve it are the ones who do what needs to be done to achieve it. They are the guys who evaluate their exact position and do what is necessary to set themselves in the right track. Easy as it might sound its one of the toughest mental challenges faced by humans. If it had been easy then we would have had more remarkable men in this world. In order to explain my point I wont talk about the clichéd examples of Edison, Gandhi or Gates. I would rather talk about someone whom i know quite well, some one who falls in to the 99 percent category ie. ME (Arun Venugopal ) . I am a prototype of the 99% lot. I live with a lot of ambitions and ideas (ie. the inspirations) but I am totally lacking in the perspiration part. I come to the conclusions after retrospecting on all those great things in life i could have done. I knew that I need to work hard on physics and chemistry to crack JEE but still did not work on those. All those competitions and projects which I knew I should put more effort for but did not bother to (putting all the blame on my team and guide). Finally I knew that the only thing I need to watch out for cracking CAT would be my calculation mistakes and once again i never took an effort to correct them. Finally this paragraph is the epitome of my lack of perspiration, I know that the last few sentences are a quagmire of tenses which I am supposed to be mastering but I am not. You might wonder why I am holding this session of self slandering. The reason I write this is to give myself a kick ass effect so that every time I read this Ill know why I am what I am and not what I wanted to be. The final conclusion that I wish to draw is that we dont get anything by understanding what is right (or what has to be done) for by realizing that we have merely traveled 1% of the distance that we need to travel. To travel the 99% we need to actually take control of ourselves and break the inertia. For the easiest path that shows up before us is not always the best path. For we are not electrons or fluids to choose the path of least resistance. Its the rejection of this easiest path that makes great men great.

Degree is beauty to the eyes of the degree holder...

With everyone in the country busy running behind engineering or management degrees I often wonder whats the purpose behind doing all these. I feel that education is a tool and as with any other tool its effectiveness is decided by the person using it. Not many people really seem to realise this. People think that a degree is an end product. If someone passes out of an engineering college , people think they can perform miracles , which is never the case. Our Universities have become centers for churning out mediocre and uninspired engineers who end up almost contributing nothing to engineering or the society. Iam not blaming the system. The system has designed with the viewpoint of giving equal opportunities to all the people , which as citizens of a democratic nation we must ensure. The universities are a meant to be wonderful places where ideas from young people along with expertise from older people make use of the latest technologies and funding available in their facilities to contribute to the betterment of mankind or the better working of the industries. The Universities have the expertise, money and the technology(to some extent) what is missing here is the enthusiasm from the side of the people who are involved in the learning process. In our country engineering and management degrees have become a prestige symbol. In this mad rat race to obtain a degree people often forget that these must be done with the aim of achieving something (apart from earning lots of money obviously). It has turned out that most people try to solve an equation without actually defining the equation. Naturally most people are lost and they don't have any idea about what they are doing. The society must encourage people to do some introspection in order to find his/her true interests. Ultimately without passion there is no point in doing anything.Lets just forget the idea of contributing to the society and mankind. I wondered how these people will feel like about going to a job, which they are not interested in, for the rest of their lives. Will all the money in the world be able to compensate their frustration? I wonder why people don't sit down to think about this. Probably people do think about it and are scared to go against established norms. Ultimately when i keep wondering about this over and over again the only conclusion i get to is that such degrees are beauty to the eyes and purse of the degree holder and not to his heart.

The Trek to Sar Pass

It all started on the night of the IPL finals. My mother kicked me out of the living room as she felt that my watching the game was a unluck charm for the Chennai Super Kings. So i logged on to my Gtalk and started talking to Vivek . He brainwashed me in to going to this trip. In this entry ill try to make this a guidebook for those who wish to take this trip. This Blog entry will be broadly divided into 3 categories

1. Travelling Arrangements

2. Things Needed for the Trek.

3. About the trek

TRAVELLING ARRANGEMENTS

The first step is to enrolling for the trek. The trek is being organised by YHAI every summer. To participate in tis trek you have to become a member of YHAI. You can become a member for one year (rs 100). Using that membership you can book for the trek.

The first step in this process is booking tickets. In order to take up this trip u need to be at Kasol which is 40 km from Manali. You can catch buses to Manali from Delhi or Chandigarh. So get ur selves to either of these places. I booked the tickets for the buses using www.redbus.in and HPTDC sites. You need to be aware that the bus wallahs allow you to book seats of your choice online but they allocate seats rather randomly on the spot. So u need to talk to the bus man in order to get the seat of your choice.

Once you are on the bus to Manali you need to ensure that u get down at Bhuntar which is 40 kms ahead of Manali. The Bus driver will oblige to do that. If you proceed till Manali then you must backtrack on the same road back to Bhuntar to reach Kasol. Once you have got down at Bhuntar catch a bus to Kasol. There will be a lot of taxis to get you to Kasol but the taxis cost u a lot. Hence buses will be the cheapest alternative. The bus drive from Bhuntar to Kasol will be rough and absolutely thrilling. The YHAI base camp is 1km upstream of Kasol. In order to return you need to retrace the same path.

THINGS NEEDED FOR THE TREK

The YHAI site gives you a comprehensive list of items that you need for the trek. You will need every item in the list. the most important thing in the trek are the shoes. The Hunter shoes are absolutely wonderful. They provide ultimate grip during the trek. I saw some people do the trek with ordinary Reebok shoes. But I advice you to get Hunter Shoes. Many people will advice you to get Hunters at Kasol market(cost approx Rs 250). In Kasol you will get shoes only till size 10. So if your boot size is greater than size 10 better get ur shoes back home in Woodlands or Reebok (ask for trekking shoes. These shoes have excellent grip but are a little heavy).

Apart from this you will need either one winter jacket or sweater and thermal undergarments. A pair of gloves and a monkey cap will make life more easy in the cold climate that you will face at the higher altitudes. You dont need any blankets as they will be provided for by YHAI.

While trekking you only need a an extra pair of pants and t-shirts apart from the one you are wearing. Take as many pairs of socks as possible ( minimum 4-5). Try to take track pants instead of jeans as they are light and dont get wet that easily.

Take all your medicines from home as you wont get any medicines in Kasol. Take Glucon-D and orange candies as well. Take a tiffin box with you. Its an absolute essential. Also take a cup to drink water and tea.

Dont forget to take a pair of sandals as they will be easier to slid on and walk within camps.

THE Trip

My trip started at Chennai Central. This part of the trip was most painful and enjoyable. i was accompanied by Windy, Shashank (DCF) and Vasanth (Infy) When we were travelling across North India there was an intense heat wave. Average temperature across North India was something like 48 degs celsius. with Agra topping at 50 deg celsius. We were virtually fried in our seats in the train. Still we managed a coupla games of bluff and poker. The train was stalled at some arbit station in north India for over 3 hrs. We managed to play football in the station using plastic bottles. Through all this Infy managed to sleep blissfully much to the amazement (and to some extent envy) of everyone around. The train managed to take us Delhi 4 hours late (there was no notable reason for delay) and we made it to DCF's guest house to take a bath and some chow (our last earthly meal before the trek),here vivek joined us, and we reached the RK puram metro station to catch our Bus to Manali. Akash Gupta joined us here. All thanks to Aakash (whose mother tongue happened to be Hindi) we all managed to get some seats in the bus to Manali. The bus (i doubt if it was a Volvo) was a little rickety and shaky. It broke down in the middle of the night and it took considerable amount of time to get it in ship shape. Finally we managed to reach Bhuntar at around 11 in the morning and we took a local bus to Kasol. We checked in to the base camp. here we were joined by Abhiram and Satyajith. and we were loitering around the Kasol market. Kasol is in the only place in India (that i have seen) where there are notice boards in Hebrew Italian and French and not in English or Hindi. The place has an amazingly high density of foreign people. the people have completely lost their local flavour and have started adapting themselves to suit the taste of foreigners.

Day 2 in base camp: this day starts quite early at around 5:30 in the morning. We have to have tea and rush towards warm up exercises. These warm up helped me stretch out my muscles. We returned to the base camp and had breakfast. After cheering up the group which started the trek we went on our acclimatisation climb. This was real fun and if you are not fit it will be very testing on your physical abilities. Once we reached the top of the climb the guide allowed us to relax and introduce ourselves to the rest of the group. I was seriously very surprised to find people from such varied walks of life and from almost every part of India coming for the trek. After the acclimatisation walk you will return to base camp just in time for lunch. After that you will have most part of the day free except for a very educating (and for most part boring) lecture given by the camp director.

Day 3: There was heavy rain last night. Hence one of the previous batches were not able to cross the Sar pass as it was covered with some 4.5 feet of snow. This cast a shadow over our enthusiasm (which was still quite high). Inspite the downcast weather conditions we were taken for a session on rapelling only to find the rocks very slippery and dangerous to rapel on. Hence we went somewhere into the forest to a typical Himachal pradesh village. All the apples in that place seemed only for export. People seemed to have adapted western food items like maggi as staple diet (have to admit it was delicious) we returned back to base camp and we prepared for the camp fire where we were supposed to do something. We decided on giving a live performance of Nakka-Mukka. We decided to explain the "profound message to mankind" delivered by that song. The performance proved to be such a hit that people were asking for an encore (seriously )

Day 4: This was an absolutely memorable day. Our actual trek to Sar Pass was to begin today. The weather was very cloudy and news that another group was unable to cross Sar pass due to bad weather reached the base camp making us all nervous. We still managed to start the trip with high energy level. We were to take a bus from the base camp to a small village from where our trek was supposed to start. Akash, Shashank myself and coupla other brave hearts decided to board on top of the bus in spite of the rainfall. The ride was made more thrilling all thanks to the almost crazy driving of the driver. We travelled on top for some 5 kms till manikaran. here we came down and occupied normal seats. The ride lasted for another half an hour. We reached our starting point and waited for the other batch of people to catch up with us. Once everyone was assembeled we started the trek. This day the trek was not very tough. The weather got very pleasant and we had a very enjoyable trek till Guna pani.

Rest of the Trek: I will not give a day to day account of the trek as it will make this account very boring. Ill just mention ponts worth noting. The next camp of Fual pani is by and large the worst camp in the entire trek. It is on a slope and you will find the tents very uncomfortable here in this camp. the next camp of Zirmi was quite comfortable. We played Wolves here at 11000 ft from sea level. The next days walk to Tila lotli was not very tough but the reduction in the oxygen level made the climb difficult.

Tila Lotli through Sar Pass to Biskeri Thatch -This was the defining part of the trek. At Tila we had to wake up at 2 in the morning and packed of at around 430 in the morning. We ascended for 1000 feet till wereached a height of 13800 ft. And then we reached The Sar pass. it was a beautiful extent of fresh snow which stretched on till we could see. We spent some time playing in the snow and we moved on. walking on ice was very difficult as it slipped very easily. We reached a certain point from which we had to slide down the snow. The slide Was THE MOST ENJOYABLE MOMENT OF THE TREK. It was a slide which lasted a solid 10-15 minutes. After the slide we had to walk for another 90 minutes before reaching Biskeri.

Biskeri to Bhandak which usually is an uneventful trek was made exciting by the rain. the rain made the path very slippery making the climb down a bit difficult and enjoyable. We had to rappel (read rope assisted rock descent) to reach for a rest point. The rest point was almost in the middle of a cloud when we reached there. It miraculously cleared up by the time we left. The rest of the road to Bhandak was extremely pleasant and enjoyable to trek upon. We reached Bhandak which was situated in a beautiful meadow. We had an amazingly good time there. We played cricket there and had a camp fire (sans a fire in accordance to the rules of YHAI) where we performed "Cows with Guns" once again to a thunderous applause. The next morning we had and uneventful ride to manikaran. There wr had a bath at a local lodge and went to the Langar at the local gurudwara. The langar was very crowded and we had a tough time getting something to eat. We reached base camp after lunch.

The next day (my Birthday) was a very very enjoyable day. We went white water rafting in the Beas river. It was not a very ferocious rafting experience nevertheless it was very exciting experience. We were allowed to dive into the river at one oint which promptly did. It was an amazing experience. The guys gave me birthday bums in the water itself. I absolutely enjoyed my birthday . Thanks a lot SP26.

We caught the bus back to Delhi. It was an uneventful ride. In Delhi we went to the Akshardham Temple. It is an awesome place but not a temple in the true sense. its more like an amusement park. Still its an architectural beauty. I started off early so that i could catch my flight back to Chennai.

During the course of this trek i would have wondered why i came on this trek at least a dozen times. Still in retrospection i think this "those were the best days of my life " . The trip was truly worth the physical hardships.....

Blandings explained

I would like to start this blog by explaining why I named my blog The Castle of Blandings. I wanted to name my blog either Malgudi or the Castle of Blandings. After an evening of serious thinking i decided to settle the matter by tossing the coin and Blandings won. First let me tell you what the Castle of Blandings is.For those of you who are not familiar with Pelgham Grenville Wodehouse's works the Castle OF Blandings is the stately mansion of the 9th Earl of Blandings Lord Clarence Therepwood. It is situated near the fictional town of Market Blandings. The Castle of Blandings , in my opinion is the most idyllic place. What makes this place so interesting?? Well the place is a menagerie of human beings.A completely amnesiac, pig loving head of the family , his control freak sisters, the frivolous Galahad, the dutiful butler Beach and the ever and all eating pig Empress of Blandings makes me feel why this piece of fiction is not true.

So why choose this as the name for my blog? The laid back and carefree rural atmosphere of Blandings along with this interesting bunch of characters makes this place the most enjoyable fictional place to read about. It is the sort of place i would like to be in. Unfortunately such a place can never exist. So i decided to create my own Blandings. My Blandings will be a repository of the happy and funny moments of life which i would like to share with others. So I decided to create a Virtual Blandings, which i hope will be a happy and a wonderful place.