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Attention is all you need

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A title famous for all the right reasons, but something I feel being increasingly influential in my personal life as well.  I was waiting at the signal today and saw someone cross one end of the road, waiting for the other end to turn red. The first thing they did while waiting was pull out their phone to doomscroll. Can we not go a few seconds without tuning into the digital world to focus on crossing a busy road? There are a thousand different distractions to capture our limited attention, making it harder by the day to focus on a single task for a prolonged period of time. Funnily, as we focus on increasing the length horizon of tasks being carried out by LLMs, there is an inverse decrease in the amount of time we can focus on a singular task ourselves. Claude ruminates more than humans do now, and while it ruminates on the task the human gave it to do, the human themself switch between three different windows to glean more random information. With AI slop flooding everywhere, I...

I need more time with you ...

Growing older (oops already a quarter century?), I have started to realize that out of all the resources we get to play with in this game of life, time seems to be the most finite quantity we have. Spending this resource on people seems to be getting harder by the day! Are times spent with people only meant to be remembered and not meant to be relived?  There is an apparent growth of connectedness that is bringing in the feeling and expectation of being in touch constantly. As a result, are we pretending to be connected with everyone through these means but actually getting more distanced? What if we could spend less time texting our thoughts, and put in more effort to meet them in person to spend quality time? In this world, the word "BUSY" has become too busily used. Humans nowadays are accustomed to being so engrossed in living out their time that they forget to live in it. We have somehow reached a stage in a virtual world where virtual happiness is given more priority. I...

Don't grow up - too much!

Staring at a baby, it seems that it represents the infinite value of life. Their lives are not bound and valued by external factors like wealth, appearance, or power. This value innate from the first breath in each of us does not diminish, but somewhere down the line, we forget about it?  We are still as alive and human as the first day, yet we have lost that childhood within us!  This childhood loved and cherished playing in the rain. It smiled at everything and had the power of erasing any gloom. It was filled with energy to question everything and never bogged down by the pressure of it being a stupid question. Who decides what's stupid? This childhood we possessed never cared what anyone thought about its actions. Nowadays, we all are in a rush to fill our empty pockets with happiness yet we want to do it based on the rules set by society. If you do 'X' you will be happy, if you do 'Y' you will be happy. Where is that child within us who found happiness in the s...

The End

The walls of room B418 called out to me, "Didn't you just arrive to leave so soon?" The question seemed to resonate with me, but unfortunately, we both knew the answer to it. I took one last look at the room and wing, which had become a second home for months, and walked away!  As I walked past Nandini, the jeera majege in the fridge conversed with me, "Will you remember to have me after lunch now?" This question brought forth more emotions in my stomach than in my mind, saying, "I will miss your soothing effect." Glancing over Nescafe in my stride, I heard someone shout, "Sudhir anna one double Maggi." Hearing this line brought a smile to my face. It asked me, "Haven't I been the best escape to mess food?" I replied saying, "Anna one Maggi and hot chocolate." Sprinkling the masala on the Maggi just felt blissful for some reason! The next stop on the way was the Sports Complex! It called out, "Did I not teach you ...

Luck - Does it exist?

 You are not going to get a definitive answer here instead more questions I am still trying to find answers for! I believe that a word called "luck" to describe the events around us is justifiable.  Ask yourself: " How have I reached where I am currently? ". More often than not your mind will tell you that you reached here solely because of your hard work and persistent efforts put in.  Ask yourself: " Has luck helped you reach your current position? ". Your mind will smirk and dismiss that such a thing exists as it has not encountered proof of its existence. Well, the brain can draw the causality of an event only to its perceived reasonings but does that mean that the other factors do not exist? I am not conveying that your hard work and decision-making skills have not played a part instead asking you to consider the seasoning of luck it had for the enhanced flavor.  Ask yourself: " Did you take birth in a certain family due to your merit? ". Yo...

The Red Garden

This is a tribute to the people who gave up their lives at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on the 101st anniversary. I visited the Jallianwala Bagh once in my dreams. I saw the walls ridden with bullet marks. On passing one of the marks, I heard a voice call out to me from the wall in the silence. It rattled me. It was an old mother who asked me, "How is my son?" "Is he living a happy life out there?". She continued, "He would be married now and would have kids as big as you. If you have any information about him, please tell me". Her franticness and unconditional love felt as if it was my mother asking, and I replied, "Yes, he is doing well." On walking further, I saw another bullet-ridden wall and heard another voice whispering to me. He inquired, " Does mother still asks people how I am? Don't tell her that I am also here. " He further questioned, "I hope she still asks the question with the same fervor? I don't ...

Value the Valuable

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What is the most valuable thing on this planet? Is it the most expensive jewelry set or the most expensive property currently owned by Mukesh Ambani? Well, the answer is none of these, in my view, xP! Let's begin with a story: Once there was a relatively poor poet who was invited to the wedding of the daughter of the richest man in town. He wore rather simple clothes compared to the gaudy ones worn by the other dignitaries. Due to his simple attire, he was shunned and not welcomed by anybody, so he went out and bought a pair of expensive clothes and adorned them. Upon entering the hotel now, he was greeted by the host with great enthusiasm and praised in front of everyone for his poetry. When he seated for dinner, he started feeding the food to his clothes which took everyone by surprise. The host perplexed questioned his antics to which the poet replied that his clothes deserved to eat the food as it was only due to them he had been welcomed. On hearing this, the host re...