The Spirit of Desperation - II

Hello Everyone!

It's been ages since I scribbled anything here. Actually, I am someone who is entirely driven by 'desperation' and that is why I need to wait for the  'kick'.

I recently finished reading Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and loved it. The book talks of the existence (rather, predominance) and significance of 'unpredictability' and 'randomness' in the vacuum surrounding us. We, generically, have a propensity towards sketching a pattern around occurrence of certain events, more so if we find repetitiveness of some order. For instance, an Option Trader may have taken a certain position out of sheer desperation (fearing a "blow-up") which might have yielded a grand Return and there it is... he tries to establish some sort of probabilistic pattern around the event thanks to, unfortunately, the Math lessons he attended at an elite B-School and secondly owing to his being human. This is a trap that we ,almost all the time, fail to gauge and fall prey to.

Last evening, we all witnessed the grandest spectacle in India's sports history- the opening ceremony of the XIX Commonwealth Games (CWG). I couldn't ignore the innumerable tweets praising the Indian Army on  'successful' (it has become a 'subjective' term now, hope Mr. Kalmadi is listening)completion of the building of 'the' foot-over bridge in flat 5(or 4?) days. And, it gives me pleasure to see 'desperation' playing a huge role there! Now that the opening ceremony has been a huge success in itself, it's time for the athletes to let 'desperation' get the better of them and win medals for the country, for themselves.

I met a person named Mr. Javed Iqbal (a photojournalist with The New Indian Express)during the screening of a couple of documentaries at Vikalp (Prithvi House). He has covered naxalism, illegal land-grab issues, illegal mining issues,etc. in the areas of Chhatisgarh and Orissa primarily, in great depth (you can read his articles on moonchasing.wordpress.com). And all of this has inspired me to write a script (finally!)entailing issues like naxalism, illegal land-grab, illegal mining, and recent killings of RTI activists and weaving a correlation, a link between these. The good thing is I have already started the research (secondary research, unfortunately! Ah! the cruel corporate world and the eternal loan-trap).

I watched an interview of Sir Ian Mckellen with BBC and the aura of the great Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)engulfed me instantly. Here's quoting him from the interview -  "...and for a man who doesn't have children to have bountiful grandchildren all over the world is...lovely."And then immediately, I thought of Sir Anthony Hopkins and Mr. Robin Jackman (the most modest and the most polite cricket commentator who my eyes were searching for during the entire IPL semi-final match between Deccan Chargers and Chennai Super Kings). I often wonder I have been desperate for a lot of things all my life (until now); for a lot many more, I still am.

Peace.