Thursday, September 11, 2008

JARR

Wow, it's been exactly 3 months since my last post! Seriously, that long? Time has flown by indeed.

On the personal front, nothing's much changed. New project, new football season (wait, that's not personal!), same old job, pretty much the same pay scale too (even with the salary revisions we had last month). Oh yeah, we've got a new dog at home now - a labrador pup and he's a cutey! :) Also, my good friend Rajesh has started blogging, so please do visit his blog which is pretty interesting..I'd say it's a techie's view on the corporate-socio-political aspect of life. Seriously though, he speaks sense about a variety of sensible topics, much unlike me! :P

Anyways, I've been thinking about the saying, 'What goes around, comes around' today while listening to JT's song with the same title. Most people tend to perceive that line in a negative sense - It's almost like this - you do a bad deed and then karma comes around and kicks you in the arse. The row-seap analogy. Accurate enough, but not quite. It can also be used positively, you can actually help someone, and then you are rewarded for your good deed somewhere down the line.

However, what I wanted to say is that we never hear the line 'What comes around, goes around'. Why is that? At first, it seems to be exactly the same as the first one. Again, not quite. What is different about the two is this - Think of a circle with two points A and B. Imagine two people standing at these points. Now think of a bullet being fired along this circle (Yeah, I've watched 'Wanted', but it doesn't matter here! :P). In the first case, the person A fires the bullet, and then sometime in the future gets hit by it from behind. Here, the person A pulls the trigger - he is responsible for his actions. That is why we hear the first line often because it makes more sense, right? You are responsible for your own actions.

However, let's look at the second line - Here, you are the recipient of somebody else's action. In terms of our example, the person standing at A gets shot from behind. And then he reacts to it. Now what makes this line too very important is that we, as humans, will tend to behave in the future just as we've been dealt with in the past. So if someone does something extra-ordinarily nice to you, chances are that it's going to remain with you, and if your chance comes by one day, you'll try to behave in the exact same way to someone else too.

Let me provide a recent example from my own life. A few weeks ago, me and my friends were having a good time at Legends-of-Rock. The tracks being played that day were awesome and kept getting better as the night progressed. Then the distinctive techno tune of a new track started blaring from the speakers. I'd heard it before, and I only knew it cos I'd heard it being played as Team-Intro music for the Chicago Bulls and Manchester Shitty. I just couldn't get the name of the song though, so while I rapped my knuckles in desperation against my head, I kept telling Somu, "I know this song man, I know this!" You know what I mean right, it's like the at-the-tip-of-your-tongue-feeling (Or back-of-your-arse, as Sid would say), and it can drive you insane! Next thing I know, a huge, ripped, scalp-shaven guy (who'd been watching me from a nearby distance) comes by, puts his arm around me and says, "Let me put you out of your misery." Whoa, time-out, I almost freaked out cos it sounded like a one-liner from a Western flick just before you shoot a guy. Well, you know what, he did shoot a bullet, but of the kind I was talking about above :)

He said, "I've been watching you despair about not being able to guess the song. It's Alan Parson's Eye in the Sky." Phew! I was like, "Errr...Yes! Thankyou sir!" (Well now I know better, thanks to Wikipedia - the initial music is actually from the song 'Sirius' which then blends into 'Eye in the Sky', and Alan Parson should be known to all Floyd fans for working on the DSotM album). Just another random person, but it did stick in my mind. A week later, at Hard Rock, I was just on my way to the men's room when 'Layla' started rippling in through the speakers. After I was done, I got out and was making my way back to my seat when I noticed a firangi begging the bartender, "Dude, please tell me which song is this! I just can't get it!" The bartender surprsingly didn't know too and was like "Uhh..don't know, sir." I first thought I wouldn't bother but I then remembered the incident from the week before and I knew exactly what he was going through. So I went over to him and said, "Mate, it's Eric Clapton's Layla." You should have seen his face. He was overjoyed and flushed with emotion and said "Thanks man! Thanks! Damn!" Made me feel good no doubt but the firangi's thanks were not due to me, but to the guy who'd helped me at LOR.

Simple, 'What comes around, goes around'.

That's all, but I wanted to say something else too..oh yeah, JARR! It stands for Just Another Random Rant. But I hope it made some sense too :)