RIFLE RANGE BOY

The last few days have been relatively peaceful. The rudimentary contraption that I now hold, called mobile phone serves its purpose quite well. It is mobile, it is always on the go. Life is peaceful as the urge to gaze at the screen if there was anything new in the cyberspace or social media did not arise as it is not a very smartphone. It is from the pre-3G dinosaur era. My life is more serene without the frequent buzzing or vibrations as if a rattlesnake was curling around the inside of my pants. My friends, however, were under the impression that I had somehow recoiled into my own cocoon becoming an antisocial as all the Whatsapp messages directed to me had gone unanswered. I, however, miss indulging in my own magical world filled with podcasts from NPR and the like. Is it a boon or bane? Just like many things (and people) in our lives, we have to learn with it or around it. Priorities in life should be of paramount importance! My usually smart mobile phone is now in critica...

I was made to think that I was missing the world, that I was outdated, that I needed something to commensurate the amount of time I spent on blogging and that I should learn how to spend for myself too, to pamper myself. I was made to think that I was important and was missing the sheer pleasure and ease of the greatest invention by man. I went on thinking that I was stupid for not joining the bandwagon. The masters were at work with time-proven business psychological methods of Edward Bernays. Eventually, I started thinking that my mundane life would suddenly morph forever into a psychedelic colour filled Strawberry Fields. I decided that I had to have it at all cost. And I took the plunge... Now that I have got it, I have come to realise that life is still the same. There are no flying confetti and rainbow paved pathway. I still have to think and compose with my brain and type intelligently. It is just like art and craft. I have to create the art but craft of performing is differ...

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 2011 (Biography) The world takes a leap forward not with soldier ants like us but by those who think outside the box. They have not no qualms about upsetting the status quo and upsetting peoples' feelings. They have a clear vision of what they want to do in life and they pursue their dream at all cost. After Jobs knew that he was not going to live long enough, he invited a writer, Walter Isaacson, to write his story, giving a one-to-one bare-it-all kind of  exposé. The end product also had input from the receiving end. It is a thick book, 700 odd pages, graphically narrating all the adventures, misadventures, confrontations, the highs, the lows and the poignant moments in the life of the man who found another use for our fingers, to swipe something off if we do not like it or had enough off. We all know about Steve Job being adopted and how his mother, an unmarried college student arranged to give Steve away for adoption to a college educated coup...

Of late, I have been contributing to the coffers of a multinational company whose brand is so famous its name need not be mentioned (like Lord Voldemort). Its logo itself suffice, whose interior decoration experts believe in minimalist outlook, the emblem of a partially eaten fruit (the first fruit that we learnt in alphabet class in pre-school) - or is the logo a constant reminder of our exodus from the paradise of Garden of Eden for our original sin? In the modern world, nobody gives a damn about inner beauty and endurance, but of external package and presentation, this telecommunications and computer whiz of a company has managed to make that precisely its selling point. It all started one day when good old el-cheapo cell phone, due to melancholia, decided to take the plunge inadvertently (or on purpose?) into the monsoon drain as I was coming down the car carrying more than I should. Good old faithful must have been feeling pretty withdrawn and small after seeing all the ...