NED – Pertinent Observations

Trump, Tamasikate, NED and ADHD

My friend Ravikiran Rao has written a blogpost about how “Trump is Tamasik“. In this, he has used the Tamasik-Rajasik-Satvik framework from ancient India, modelled how most leaders are Rajasik, and how Trump is not, and is actually a Tamasik.

One of the hypotheses in the post is that a lot of commentators make the mistake of analysing Trump through a Rajasik lens (which they are used to since most other leaders are Rajasik), and so get him wrong.

The blogpost, like a lot of Ravi’s blogposts, triggered off a lot of thoughts in my head. My first reaction after starting to read was that “hey, can we compare Tamasikate to NED (noenthuda)”? The idea of Tamasik that I have is that it is about “doing nothing”. And “no enthu da” of course vocalises that philosophy – you don’t have enthu to do anything. And so Tamasikate is like NED.

That was the first thing where I found myself describing myself as a possible Tamasik.

And then Ravi goes on.

Trump, as I was saying, is Tamasik. He is driven by his impulses, and in his case, the impulses are all negative ones. Now, to be fair, all of us struggle with our impulses and emotional drives, but becoming a functional adult involves learning to rein them in, and converting them into higher order goals. We all have sexual desires, for example. The Rajasik nature involves sublimating them into a higher order emotion called love, and pursuit of love involves choosing one person and forgoing others; not giving into the impulse of going after every woman you find sexy. Trump has not made that transition at all. A Clinton may give into his impulse; Trump is his impulse.

I was thinking about the common theories about ADHD, which I’ve been diagnosed with. One theory is that ADHD leads to a “lack of executive functioning”. If we were to describe this using the Tamasik-Rajasic-Satvik framework, we can say that all of us have a “Tamasik base”, which is about our emotions, about our impulses and all that.

And then on top of the Tamasik base is a Rajasik “executive function”. It is this function that allows us to plan, think long-term, suppress our impulses when they are suboptimal, and do all the rest of things that society expects of functioning adults. However, the thing with ADHD is that this Rajasik executive function is impaired. So you are unable to plan well. You give in to your impulses. You frequently change plans. You are impulsive.

Sometimes I think that a lot of my theories are my attempts to rationalise myself and my own decisions. For example, after I first got diagnosed with ADHD in 2012, I realised that my seminal studs and fighters framework was an attempt to rationalise that.

Now Ravi’s post about Trump’s Tamasikate makes me think – I instinctively associate Tamasikate with NED. And your Tamasikate comes out in fuller light if your Rajasik executive function is impaired, which is what they say happens to someone who has ADHD.

So through this, is NED also a symptom of ADHD?

NED Talks – First Edition

Back in 2009, the TED conference was held in Mysore. If there can exist TED Talks, I reasoned, there is no reason why we cannot have NED talks. And as is my wont, I had shot off a blog post in April 2009, announcing that the first NED Talks would happen in October 2009. Some of the points I had made in that blog post are interesting – I had said that it would be a day long (or even weekend long event), speakers would be “mango people”, and that talks would be uploaded on Youtube. I had no clue what would happen at the NED Talks.

Much happened though between April 2009, when I wrote that blog post, and October 2009, when the first edition of the talks were to happened. I moved jobs. I moved cities. My mother died. Life changed way too much for me to be bothered about NED Talks any more. And so I did what came naturally to me – put NED!

On several occasions in the last five years I’ve thought of “finally organising” the NED Talks, but they never came to fruition for a multitude of reasons, the most important of them being NED itself! I would think I would organise it, start thinking about how I would organise it, and then get confused, and then get into doubt, and thus, postpone! I went through several cycles of this until last month.

It was a day before the wife was to return to Bangalore for her winter holidays, and she suggested that we do the talks while she is in town. She was in luck that I was prepared to listen to her that day. And the idea took root. A guest list was quickly prepared. One guest was quickly signed up and with his help we froze what seemed like a convenient date. And by the end of the day, the first set of invites had been sent out!

The inaugural edition of the NED Talks took place last night, at our residence in Bangalore. There were a total of thirteen speakers, each of whom spoke for five minutes each. Both from our pertinent observations, and from the feedback we received from attendees, I think the event was a grand success. Like they say in Page 3 party reports, “everybody had a good time”.

The format was designed so as to be conducive to NED. One of the big barriers to hosting an event is to arrange for a venue. So we decided to do it in our own home. We didn’t want audience to put NED during the talks, so each speaker was allotted five minutes (though by my accounts most exceeded that limit). Getting professional video was NED-inducing, so we set up a DSLR on a tripod. Food came from the nearby Upahara Darshini and Gayathri Stores. Wine from Venus Wine Stores, also very nearby. The whole thing was set up such that there was no way for us to put NED.

And no one put NED. The talks were all excellent, and thought-provoking. Though none of them were “ideas that can change the world” as TED promises, they were all interesting. So we had a demonstration on different kind of knives, and an exposition on the enduring appeal of late 80s-early 90s Bollywood music – whose musical qualities leave much to be desired. Someone spoke about the importance of being shallow, and someone else on what makes someone interesting. There was a demonstration on the engineering behind consumption of certain herbal products! Thirteen speeches. All very well received.

This being the first edition there were the usual glitches. I had taken upon myself the quadruple role of emcee, DJ, photographer and videographer, which meant that the latter three didn’t receive much attention. So soft background music which was supposed to be played during talks were never played. Some talks were not captured on video at all, while others were only partially recorded (so we will only be putting up a montage of the talks on youtube rather than individual videos). The same camera was being used for taking both photos and videos, which meant not many photos were taken!

Post the event one NED-inducing activity is to make a montage of the videos. We’ve put enthu and done the first part which is cutting up interesting sections from different videos. Now we have the job of stitching them together. Hopefully we’ll upload pretty soon!

Nevertheless the wife and I are extremely kicked that we managed to pull this off. That the much-awaited NED talks finally happened. And now that they’ve happened, we hope to have them on a regular basis. Given that they’ll continue to happen in our drawing room, they’ll remain invite-only events, though.

Jai to NED!

Good and bad NED

Since I woke up this morning I’ve been “suffering” from a rather heavy bout of NED. But I shouldn’t be saying “suffering”, since I haven’t been suffering at all. I’ve been quite happy all day today, just that I don’t feel like doing anything.

Normally, NED is associated with something negative – when you have no enthu to do something, it implies a feeling of negativity – that you don’t want to do something. Sample this extract from one of my first ever conversations with the person who is now the wife, back from 2007. This was after she had seen me at the Bangalore Landmark Quiz 2007, where we went to the finals and lost. She is not to be confused, of course, with this girl I had seen at the Bangalore Landmark Quiz in 2005 (and whom I’ve never seen subsequently).

Priyanka: Hmmm …

Tell me about your work!

me: not now

NED

Priyanka: okay!

What about NED?

me: no enthu i meant

Priyanka: 😛

Don’t ever use your team name in our conversation again!

me: why not?

it’s a concept

not just a team name

Priyanka: That im not too fond of!

So your team symbolizes arrogance?

me: what has arrogance got to do with it?

Priyanka: Well thats just my take on it. But you tell me why you call yourselves NED?

QED is so positive!

But what I’ve been going through this morning is not negative at all. I had a wonderful dinner last night (at this place called La Tertulia in Les Corts). It was a very interesting menu, and we finished the dinner with a dessert which was “chocolate 4 ways”. One of the 4 ways was a dark chocolate mousse (it was so awesome I wonder why it’s not more popular – dark chocolate mousse that is). And then I slept wonderfully.

I slept so deeply that when I woke up this morning it took time to recollect who I am and where I am and what I’m doing here and all that. I then dragged myself to a nearby cafe for breakfast, where I had more chocolate – the chocolate croissant there had much more chocolate than a normal chocolate croissant does.

So I’ve been feeling so peaceful and contented and happy that I just don’t feel like doing anything. I have less than three more days in Barcelona on this trip, and I want to go out and explore parts of the city I haven’t seen so far. But then NED is taking over. I’ve been feeling so blissful since this morning that I just don’t feel like going and doing anything! So I’m vegetating, sitting with my laptop and looking at websites on tourist attractions in Barcelona!

I remember being in this state of mind for most of the latter half of 2005. I was on a perennial high, and so high that I would just vegetate and not do anything! Not that it’s a bad thing but the long-term consequences aren’t great!

PS: Going through my blog archives, I find that even in the Bangalore Landmark Quiz in 2007, I had found “a cute chick” sitting in the audience. I didn’t make such a big deal about it, though, and I now don’t remember what she looked like. Going by this and other information I’ve presented in this post I wonder if I’m married to her now.

Arranged Scissors 8: Culture fit with parents

That you are in the arranged marriage process means that your parents now have full veto power over whom you marry. Given that you don’t generally want them to veto someone whom you have liked, the most common protocol as I understand is for parents to evaluate the counterparty first, and the “candidate” to get only the people who have passed the parental filter. Then the “candidates” proceed, and maybe meet, and maybe talk, and maybe flirt and maybe decide to get married.

Hypothesis: The chance of your success in the arranged marriage market is directly proportional to the the culture fit that you have wtih your parents.

Explanation: Given that parents have veto power in the process, and given the general protocol that most people follow (which I have described in the first para above; however, it can be shown that this result is independent of the protocol), there are two levels of “culture fit” that an interested counterparty has to pass. First, she has to pass the candidate’s parents’ culture fit test. Only after she has passed the test does she come in contact with the candidate (in most cases, not literally).

Then, she will have to pass the candidate’s culture fit test. By the symmetry argument, there are two more such tests (girl’s parents’ filter for boy and girl’s filter for boy). And then in the arranged marriage setting, people tend to evaluate their “beegaru” (don’t think english has a nice phrase for this – basically kids’ parents-in-law). So you have the boy’s parents evaluating the girl’s parents for culture fit, and vice versa.

So right at the beginning, the arranged marriage process has six layers of culture fit. And even if all these tests are passed, one gets only to the level of the CMP. (given that very few filter down to this level, i suppose a lot of people put NED at this stage and settle for the CMP).

Without loss of generality, let us now ignore the process of boy’s parents evaluating girl’s parents and vice versa (the problem is complex enough without this). So there are basically four evaluations, made by two pairs of evaluators (let us consider parents as one entity – they might have difference in opinion between each other occasionally but to the world they display a united front). Now for each side it comes down to the correlation of expectations between the side’s pair of evaluators.

The higher the “culture fit” you possess with your parents, the higher the chance that you will agree with them with regard to a particular counterparty’s culture fit. And this chance of agreement about culture fit of counterparty is directly proportional to the chance of getting married through the arranged marriage process (basically this culture fit thing can be assumed to be independent of all other processes that go into the arranged marriage decision; so take out all of those and the relationship is linear). Hence proved.

Now what if you are very different from your parents? It is very unlikely that you will approve of anyone that they will approve of, and vice versa. In such a situation it is going to be very hard for you to find someone through the arranged marriage process, and you are well advised to look outside (of course the problem of convincing parents doesn’t go away, but their veto power does).

So the moral of the story is that you should enter the arranged marriage market only if you possess a reasonable degree of culture fit with your parents.

(i have this other theory that in every family, there is a knee-jerk generation – one whose “culture” is markedly different compared to that of its previous generation. and after each knee-jerk, cultural differences between this generation and the following few generations will be low. maybe i’ll elaborate on it some other time)

Arranged Scissors 1 – The Common Minimum Programme

Arranged Scissors 2

Arranged Scissors 3 – Due Diligence

Arranged Scissors 4 – Dear Cesare

Arranged Scissors 5 – Finding the Right Exchange

Arranged Scissors 6: Due Diligence Networks

Arranged Scissors 7: Foreign boys

Bangalore trip update

The recent inactivity on this blog was mainly due to my inability to log on to wordpress from my phone and write a post. I had gone home to Bangalore for an extended weekend (taking Friday and Monday off) and the only source of net access there was my phone, and for some reason I wasn’t able to log on to NED from that. During the trip I had several brilliant insights and brilliant ideas and wanted to blog them and finally such NED happened that I didn’t even twitter them. Deathmax.

The main reason I went to Bangalore was to attend Pradeep (Paddy)’s reception. I think this is an appropriate time to share the funda of his nickname with the world. Before he joined our school in 9th standard, there was this guy two years senior called Pradeep, and for some reason not known to me he was nicknamed Paddy. I vaguely knew him since I used to play basketball with him, and after he graduated there were no more Paddys in school. So when this new guy came from the Gelf, it presented a good opportunity to get back a Paddy into school. It turned out to be such a sticky nickname that not even IIT could change it.

Friday was Ugadi – yet another reason to be home in Bangalore – and was mostly spent visiting relatives. When they heard about my impending market entry, all of them brought up stories of not-so-successful marriages of people they knew well, and put fundaes to me about avoiding certain pitfalls. These fundaes were liberally peppered with stories. Mostly sad ones. Mostly of people who have chosen to continue in their marriages despite them clearly failing. It is amazing about the kind of stuff people I know have gone through, and yet they choose to not run away.

Saturday morning was rexerved for my first ever “market visit”. I was taken to this bureau in Malleswaram and asked to inspect profiles. “There are profiles of hundreds of girls there”, my uncle had told me “so let us go there before ten o’clock so that you have enough time”. The profiles were mostly homogeneous. The number of engineering seats available in Karnataka amazes me. Every single profile I checked out over there had studied a BE, and was working in some IT company. Things were so homogeneous that (I hate to admit this) the only differentiator was looks. Unfortunately I ended up shortlisting none of them.

One of the guys I met during my Bangalore trip is a sales guy who lives in a small temple town without any access to good cinema. So he forced me to accompany him to watch Slumdog (in PVR Gold Class – such an irony) and Dev D. I agree that Slumdog shows India in poor light, but filter that out and it’s a really nice movie. We need to keep in mind that it was a story and not a documentary, and even if it were the latter, I think documentaries are allowed to have narratives and need not be objective. Dev D was simply mindblowing, apart from the end which is a little bit messed up. Somehow I thought that Kashyap wanted to do a little dedic to his unreleased Paanch.

There is this meet-up at Benjarong which is likely to contribute enough material to last six arranged scissors posts. I’ll probably elaborate about the discussions in forthcoming posts but I must mention here that several arranged marriage frameworks were discussed during the dinner. The discussions and frameworks were enough to make both Monkee and I, who are in the market process, and Kodhi who will enter the market shortly to completely give up in life.

One takeaway from Paddy’s reception is that if you can help it, try not to have a “split wedding” (and try not to have a split webbing also) – where different events are held at diferent venues, on disjoint dates. In that case you won’t have people lingering around, and you will lose out on the opportunity to interact with people. Note that there is zero scope for interation during the ceremonies, and the only time you get to talk to people is before, and after, and during. And it is important that there is enough before or after or during time to allow these interactions. In split weddings guests are likely to arrive and leave in the middle of an event and so you’ll hardly get to talk to them.

One policy decision I took was to not have breakfast at home during the length of my stay. I broke this on my last day there since I wouldn’t be having any other meal at home that day, but before that visited Adigas (ashoka pillar), SN (JP nagar) and UD (3rd block). The middle one was fantastic, the first reasonably good except for bad chutney and the last not good at all. Going back from Gurgaon it was amazing that I could have a full breakfast (2 idlis-vada-masala dosa-coffee) for less than 50 bucks. Delhi sorely lacks those kind of “middle class” places – you either eat on the roadside or in fine dining here.

Regular service on this blog should resume soon. My mom has stayed back in Bangalore for the summer so I’m alone here and so have additoinal responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning. However, I think I should be having more time so might be writing more. I can’t promise anything since blog posts are generated by spur-of-the-moment thoughts and I never know when they occur. Speaking of which I should mention that I put elaborate fundaes on studs and fighters theory in my self-appraisal review form last week.

Weddings

I’m trying to understand the significance of attending another person’s wedding. It is very unlikely that you are going to add any significant value to the process, since the person who invited you is likely to be extremely busy with the process. Unless you know one of the main people involved in the wedding really well, there is a finite probability that your attendance might not be noted also (just in case the photographer is not diligent enough).

Of course, weddings give you the opportunity to network. Especially if it is a noisy south indian setting (I’ve attended one north indian wedding so far, and what put me off was the requirement to stay silent during the proceedings) or a reception. It is a good excuse for you to catch up with all those people who belonged to the same affiliation group as you and the person who invited you. It is a good opportunity to expand your social circle.

Back in the 1980s, when I was a kid, one of the great attractions of weddings was the food. Bisibelebath was a special item back then, as were the various “wedding special” sweets. Some of the more affluent folk would also offer ice cream for dessert (that has become a common thing now, especially for receptions). The food on its own was enough to make me look forward to weddings. Over time, the general quality of wedding food has dropped. And the general quality of food in restaurants has increased well at a faster rate. So you don’t need to go to a wedding for the food anymore.

Historically, I’ve been fairly social. I’ve usually attended all functions that I’ve been invited to, especially if it’s in the same city. I admit I haven’t really travelled too many times to attend weddings but done short trips (such as Bangalore-Mysore) occasionally. I’ve always calculated that the cost (time, travel, etc.) of attending a wedding is not much in terms of potential benefits in terms of networking, catching up, expanding circle, etc. Of course, I need to admit that over the last couple of years, NED has been part of the equation, and there have been a few occasions when I’ve worn a nice shirt and then backed off from going.

It is all fine when travel is local, where NED is perhaps the only thing that can tilt the balance in favour of not attending the wedding. When you live away, the whole equation changes. The cost of travelling goes up dramatically (in terms of time, money and inconvenience). The climb is especially steep if you live a flight away, rather than just a train journey away. What used to be borderline cases when the distance was small now dussenly become absolute noes. The obvious ayes become borderline cases. And in some cases obvious ayes become obvious noes. It is only when a wedding happens in your new city that what were obvious noes become obvious ayes.

Four months ago, my cousin (father’s brother’s daughter) got married in Bangalore. If I were in Bangalore, it would have been an emphatic aye. In fact, it’s likely that I’d’ve volunteered to take up a significant number of duties at that wedding. However, the way things turned out (my being in Gurgaon), it wasn’t tough to declare that as a noe. The work that I would’ve otherwise volunteered for suddenly became “work”, became a “cost”. Combined with a couple of other factors, it turned out to be a fairly obvious noe. And I don’t think anyone really minded.

It seems to be the season for friends to get married, especially juniors from IIMB. Two of them who have just got married to each other are having their reception tonight 100m away from my Bangalore house. A case that would have been an overwhelming yes, now become borderline. Remember that NED to travel varies with the travel-cost in a super-linear fashion, and I think it is that which has turned today’s case into a no. There have already been a few other weddings in the season for which I’ve convinced myself with a similar reason. And there are more.

So I ask myself once again – why should I attend someone’s wedding? I have so far been putting the obvious variables into my calculation – netwroking opportunity, goodwill, opportunity to catch up with people, side effects (a wedding in Bangalore is a good excuse for me to visit Bangalore, etc.), travel costs, chance of occurrence of NED, how much ‘work’ it will be, etc. and have been trying to base my decision on these.

Is there something I’ve missed out? Is there something else that I need to consider which might change the costs and benefits of going? Coming back to the more fundamental question, why should I attend someone’s wedding?

NED can be a good thing

Ever since the concept of NED was invented/discovered two years back, it has been painted as a bad thing. I have occasionally described it as a frankenstein – which, after being invented/discovered by me, has come out to consume me. There is a friend who refers to it as “the unspeakable” as she thinks even uttering the word “NED” will send her into NED. NED has been seen as an undesirable state, which everyone wants to get out of as quickly as possible. It is seen as encouraging sloth, and inefficiency, and has only grudgingly been accepted by people as an inescapable fact.

I’ll keep this short and provide only one example, but my point is that NED can also be occasionally a good thing. It is that “balancing force”, which prevents you from being over-aggressive. It is that force that helps cool down your blood, and makes sure you don’t act hastily. It is paramount in making you think twice, and maybe thrice before doing certain things. It makes sure that you are never over-efficient at work, and that will help in keeping your boss’s expectations low enough for you to meet them.

I had thought about one or two examples to quote here, but NED means there has been a long time since I started writing this post, and now. And now that I think about it, I don’t particularly want to mention those two examples. Let me generalize. Certain stuff happened. Some people said some things, which I didn’t like. And I felt like hitting back. Hitting back at a high level. That hit-back would’ve led to an escalation of the situation. And might have been harmful to me. But in the heat of the moment, my cost-benefit analysis would’ve shown this action to be producing positive results.

NED happened. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I didn’t do what I had planned to do, rather. Implementation was a bit of a pain so I put it off. And by the time I thought again about it, my analysis of the situation had changed, and it seemed like I would be better off not doing what I had planned to do. Things are all good now. All thanks to NED. If not for NED, I don’t know what I might have done, and I would’ve been in an inferior position right now compared to where I am now.

Two days back, I got a mail saying “sorry if this sounds silly, but what the hell is NED.” I suppose this is a good time to do a check-back. To revise our concepts. So I would encourage you to visit the about page of this blog, and read what NED is all about. And assimilate. And internalize. And recognize the fact that it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Year Ending Post

Last december 31, I wrote a this day that year post. Two years back, I had published a short story. The year before, I had written about the events of the day, and one year prior I was mugging for what was going to be a disastrous marketing exam. As I am writing this, I’m playing scrabble on facebook, and bridge with my computer. I’m listening to music, and am planning to hit the sack soon.

This afternoon I received a mail from my boss, which he said is a standard format mail he sends to friends and colleagues. It was full of pictures of him and his wife and his kids, and stories about what they did this year. About the changes and special events in each of their lives. About how the year has been from different perspectives. And so forth. I think I have received a couple of other similar mails (from US based people – this might be some american funda; my boss also lived in America till early this year) from other acquaintances (though, without pics) which I haven’t bothered to read. Since I’m clueless about what to write, I think I’ll just do a standard year-end roundup.

The most significant thing for me was my move to Gurgaon, and to this new job. That had been preceded by four months of joblessness, and more than two years of acute NED (in fact, I think it was during this period of extended NED that I actually invented the term NED).

The concept of NED also seemed to advance by leaps and bounds this year. I have heard of people who are at least three degrees away from me use it. The message of this concept seems to be spreading. I am sure that one day it will be famous, but then I’m not sure if I, as its inventor/discoverer, will get due credit.

Another significant event of the year has been the movement of this blog from livejournal to its present location. I must mention that this website has been like “glad bangles” for me. A week after I inaugurated this, I had a nice job offer, ending over a year of NED. There were a few other changes also in my life around that time, which I don’t remember now. What I do remember was classifying this website as “glad bangles”. and I like this better than Mad Angles.

On the louvvu front, it was a very quiet year, apart from one quick episode. Maybe one of the least productive years – comparable, maybe, to my years back in IIT.

Ok I think NED is happening. i just resigned my scrabble game. I had resigned my bridge game ages back, and I’d closed the program. I’m feeling sleepy now. So I’ll close it here. Happy new year. And I think this is the worst year-ending post that I’ve written in a long time. This website maybe deserved a much better new year post in the year end but it’s ok.

Bangalore Trip

So I went to Bangalore on Thursday. And returned yesterday afternoon. It was a fairly eventful trip – just that most of the events that took place during the trip were planned. There weren’t too many surprises – either positive or negative, and this lack of volatility meant that it was a good trip overall.

I had ended my last post hoping that my bike would start. And start it did, dutifully. Unfortunately, it was to tell Jai later during the day, when it abruptly stopped somewhere in Gandhibazaar market. It was quite hot and I had to push it around a fair distance to find a garage that was open in order to get it repaired.

The thing with automobile repair shops is that most of them are owned by Muslims, and thus have their weekly holiday on Friday. While it might be convenient in normal times since you can leave your bike for service on a Sunday, it can be death when your bike breaks down on Friday afternoon. I had to go past two or three closed auto repair shops that day before I found a “Sowmya bike point” where my spark plug got replaced.

Two of my three breakfasts were consumed at Darshinis. Actually, on Friday, I had my breakfast in three installments. Saturday was the usual Masala Dosa at the Adigas in Jayanagar 4th block. Dinner on Saturday was at Shiok, the first time I was visiting it at the new location. The food, as usual, was excellent. One extremely under-rated starter at Shiok is Choo Chee Potatoes. I strongly recommend you to try it out the next time. I left the choice of my drink to Madhu Menon, and he recommended some pink stuff for me.

I met Baada, Harithekid and PGK at Shiok. I was meeting PGK for the first time. I was already a bit disoriented when I had arrived at Shiok (my head had gone blank a couple of times earlier that day, leading me to take an auto to Shiok rather than putting bike), and combine that with the pink drink and I think I’ve forgotten what PGK looks like. All I remember is that he too had a pink drink – which was different from mine.

I managed to submit address change requests at most of the places I had intended to. I went to SBI and Karnataka Bank, and extended my fixed deposits – taking advantage of the insanely high prevailing rates. I visited one aunt for dinner on Friday, and another for lunch on Saturday.

The only time during the entire trip that I was consumed by NED was when I went to inspect my house in Bangalore. It was after a gap of almost ten years that I was seeing the house empty. It was at that moment I think – three months after I moved to Gurgaon – that it hit me that I don’t live in Bangalore any more. And that I don’t intend to return for a while. It took a maddening auto drive to Shiok to cure me of this bout of NED.

Friday evening was spent in the cantonment area, though I regret to inform you that I visited neither of MG Road and Brigade road. I met Udupa and Woreshtmax Vishnu for tea at Koshy’s, and on either side of tea, raided the Premier Bookshop. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pics as I had planned. The only picture of Premier that I now have is the one taken with Neha Jain’s wrist that appeared in the ToI on 26th July 2004 (I don’t have a scanned copy; a few hard copies of the clipping are there somewhere in my house in Jayanagar in Bangalore).

I spent all my coupons, and Shamanth’s coupons also. I still have Lakshana’s coupon with me, and I intend to mail it to her. Here is what I bought:

The Human Zoo – Desmond Morris
The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins
An artist and a mathematician (a book about the fictional mathematician Nicholas Bourbaki; forgot the author)
India: A History – John Keay
Longitude
The Stuff of Thought – Steven Pinker

Once again, thanks to all those who recommended books to me. Unfortunately, a large number of those were not available at Premier. i’ll probably order them from Rediff Books once I’ve whittled down my have-and-unread list.

Random

It’s a strange feeling when you are feeling high but you know that a bout of NED is inevitable. You know the high won’t last long, but you can’t even enjoy it while it lasts since you are already worried about your ability to handle the impending NED.

The reverse though never happens. When I’m at NED, I never get forewarned about an impending high. This means that all the time in NED is spent completely in NED. There is no compensation for the time you wasted when you were high thinking about NED. The world is more one-sided than I thought.

A stranger feeling is when you are rapidly oscillating between two widely different states. High amplitude. High frequency. It’s like almost being in two places at once. It’s almost like being two people at the same time. Feels extremely strange while it lasts but then in hindsight you get a kick thinking about it.

I think I should write a book.