Questions for which I have no answer

Since I have nothing better to do and not getting sleep either, I will write this. So I face this question often, particularly when I travel to Helsinki for office parties. Everytime I go to Helsinki, I find new faces and few old people having gone back to India. Since I work alone in a different (and much smaller) city, I usually have to introduce myself. The first question typically would be, “Who else is there with you?” I would say, "No one else, I am alone". Next question, “Any Indian in the city”; I say ‘No’. Then questions will come as any Indian restaurant, Indian grocery store, yadda, yadda. All these questions, I reply as “No” with straight face and will get a mixture of shock, pity, surprise, etc from the questioner. I really don’t understand this!! What and where is anything wrong? I know they don’t mean any offence just sympathy may be.

Can’t one live alone in a totally alien place? Why do people always have to eat the same food as they are eating in their own country?(Even now, I mostly eat more or less Indian kind of food.) I don’t know how long I am going to be in Finland, may be couple more months, but this would remain as the unforgetful part of my life. Finland happened to me just when I just wanted to get away from India, from everything and everyone I knew. In two years, I have changed so much that I never think about it or I would be overwhelmed. Sure, one day I have to go back to India and I would find it difficult for some time. Last year when I went to my parent’s place, my own home was feeling crowded to me and I could not sleep for two days due to noise of everything around me. This could happen to me again, but I would take only that much to adjust. All these things are transitory, I would get used to life of India again.

The greatest benefit has been the permanent changes in me. I have spent days without speaking a single word and this has made me fiercely independent. I have not had many things in life, which I had taken for granted and this has made me not to miss anything. I had come to Finland initially for 6 months and it is now going to be 2 years and these two years has made me totally different person. I remember last year, I wanted to go Italy, so I took my backpack and boarded the flight. Many people then had asked me, how I could go on such a trip alone. I have no answers other than I never thought people don’t go alone on trips. Yeah, not everyone would understand this and it does not bother me wee bit.


May be I will delete this post when I realize what all I have written.

Second World War

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What is this with WWII? These days almost any movie I see or any book I read has reference of Second World War.

Sample this:-
1. I saw ten episodes of “ Band of Brothers” all related to second world war
2. Just other day I saw the movie The Notebook and it had reference to second world war
3. This week I read “Animal Farm” and it has reference to it
4. I am currently reading the novel by famous Finnish Novelist “ Kalle Paatalo “, it is English translation version of ‘Myrsky Koillismaassa’. It’s name is “ Storm over the Land “ and it is about the second world war
5. One more book that I read last week was “The Last Mission” written by Jim Smith (radio operator of B-29B bomber) and Malcolm Mcconnell, this too was about American bombing of Japanese oil refineries in Second World War.

It is not co-incidence; I think Second World War was one such event which left deep impact not only on political & economical but cultural history as well.

Honesty & Integrity

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What is the difference between Honesty and Integrity? I have been pondering on this for weeks but haven’t found a suitable answer; almost all the dictionary lists them as synonym. I will try to develop upon this based on my experience of life till now.

Honesty to me is the concept of being truthful, adhering to ethics, refusal to lie, steal or deceive. Integrity to me is conduct in terms as demanded by honesty while having holistic approach to the both requirement and result of the conduct. Is there any difference ? Can you be honest without having integrity, can you have integrity without honesty? The answer to the former is yes, you can be honest without having integrity. This can happen when you are not able or willing to act in a manner as demanded by the standards of honesty. Honesty is the concept and integrity is the realization of the concept. The answer to latter question is ‘no’, you can’t have integrity if you are not honest; it is simply out of question. You can’t realize a concept without having the concept.

I have seen people who were always honest, having right and ideal views but when time came to carry it out they were not able to do so. Some were not able to withstand the pressure of doing the things in right way, or some were not able to bear the result of honesty. Every one would agree that result of honesty is not always fruitful in materialistic terms. Frankly speaking I find no use of such honesty; at best it can be used to deceive oneself, something is better than nothing does not fits here. But larger proportion of people are those who are neither honest nor have integrity. I know they feel good about it or don’t have time to think about it, they are happy, enjoying the fruits of their dishonesty and hoarding up the materialistic benefits. Dishonesty is quite enticing if you see the results so that may be the reason for more proportion of these types.

I want to ask them, do they ever think on their act of dishonesty?

The Notebook

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I read the review of this movie by 'Sami ' and decided to watch it, the movie was released last year around this time. It is based on the novel “The Notebook” by Nicholas Spark. The plot of the movie is teenage summer love in pre WWII era.

In my view, the director stopped short of what could be achieved out of this movie considering the wonderful plot. Anyway there are only few movies which could actually translate the efficacy of the novel it is based upon, may be writing is easier than performing. I think the director was torn between the two themes one of 1940s and other of 2000s and in order to do more justice to sequence of 2000s he under-achieved the potential of 1940s. This reminds me of Clint Eastwoood’s four Academy awards winner “ Million Dollar Baby “, though this movie is one of my favorite but still I felt the director did more justice to the latter plot and under-achieved the former part(may be I am not eligible to put this comment; it got Oscar for Best achievement in Directing)

Coming back to ‘The Notebook’, this movie has been reduced to love story where everything goes fine though with the hiccups, much like run of mill romantic movie. It tweaked the emotion but was unable to harness the resulting effect. May be people always like sweet ending to love stories no matter it happens in reality or not. Most of the time, we see movies to see what we would like to happen in this world rather than what actually happens.

Just came to my mind that I know of a real summer love story of 1950s developed on the beach of Black sea, I shall write story if I get the permission.