Jungle of the other kind - Survival of Sane

Never mind what was originally meant by "Survival of fittest"...Today we all know, it means one has to be stronger, bigger, faster, better at everything to survive our respective jungles..I mean lives,work or whatever else one can apply this theory to.

I want to talk about different kind of Jungle today...Jungle of social networking - where survival of the fittest is no longer the game, we play games of mind and I strongly believe this jungle is all about "Survival of sane mind".

It all started few years back , when some virtual jungles called social networking sites came into being, primary among them is Facebook, the more dominant among all other jungles worldwide.In the short span of 8 years, it changed the way people live their lives and as the rule of survival is, had to evolve and create their virtual beings to survive in this new form of jungle.

So I am not sure how much I am a part of this evolution and Survival of sane mind game ( and whether i am loosing it or there is hope ?!!). But, All of us are in this game at some level, No-one can say I am in it but just sitting on the fence observing,not playing, not affected at all ! just enjoying the good things that this jungle offers... Well slowly you may discover that it might be a lie!

What I find incredible is though its a fairly new phenomena, it has largely taken over the lives of most of us. So what makes it successful , its positive aspects of "keeping in touch","networking","finding old friends","making new friends etc"....I would like to say yes but no! its the not so brighter side of this world that attracts us more.

Its the ability to stalk people without any risk and judgement, bieng voyeuristic, narcissism with overwhelming acceptance of other narcissistic s of virtual jungle, exhibitionism, ability to project a desirable or alternate personality or image, instant gratification, ability to shield real emotions.....and other such traits...and few more may come into being as this jungle evolves further.

And this is where the game of "Survival of sane mind" begins. Somewhat like cigarette addiction, the Facebook or other such virtual jungle addiction may damage you internally at so many levels that you may be blissfully unaware of...unlike smoking which one starts mostly out of curiosity, peer pressure etc...Facebook is started on more positive note but once you get addicted to it , just like smoking you do not know what all damages it is doing inside you ( and its area of effect-ion is of-course not lungs) !

Per neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, " We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist." " My fear is that technologies are infantilising the brain into state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment."

Though her observation was mostly for teens and children who have grown up or growing up in this jungle , and probably in future may have totally different brain structure than most of us who adopted this virtual lifestyle later in our lives broadly put say 25-50 age group.


I, however have a theory, totally unscientific and probably illogical. Well its my theory and I stand by it. This is to test how badly affected/damaged you are with...hold on ,no, actually it is to test how you are faring in the game of  " Survival of sane mind" !

You do it yourself...this more of a self-evaluation categorized broadly in two parts.

One - Test of Comparison.

(Since we showcase and make public our entire lives/personality in one page with timeline effectively capturing our life events, there is bound to be comparison with others much like real life but more minute, detailed and hard to ignore)

-Say you are single and apparently not happy and regularly find your news feed filled with couples and newly marrieds flaunting their love and their respective spouses,girl/boyfriends through pics & posts...after months of this onslaught , you do not even slightly feel empty,jealous,unfair,irritated or any other not so nice emotions...then hurrah you are doing great in this game

- Say you are unemployed or not so desirably employed and unsatisfied , and you find your peers, old friends, school friends in positions you cant even dream of currently....then find more such people proudly flaunting and updating their new designations,successes etc...and you do not even find it least bothering, unfair, jealous, inadequate and any other not so nice emotions...then good news, you have a mind of a Zen !

- You can do this test for any of your life scenario where one may have the tendency to compare with others...like you are stuck in a rut and others are posting their exotic vacation pics,  you have no kids others are making sure you don't loose track of their baby pics/posts,  you are struggling to make ends meet others are flaunting their newly acquired properties/cars etc, you are struggling with weight others are flaunting their sexy bods...list can go on.

So if you come out with flying colors in test of comparison, then as I said , mind of a Zen...you have great hope in this game.

Two - Test of abstinence

(Since one spends several hours of the day in this jungle, apart from liking posts/pics, posting status/pics, browsing news-feed which may take few minutes and occasional chats , what does one do for remaining of hours one spends here. We all know individually what takes most of our time, and excess of anything is not good hence, test of abstinence )

- Say you are addicted to stalking your friends, reading their posts, looking at their pics... and though it is all there for public consumption...you do know this is sick and unlike real world where stalker may end up in jail , you are perfectly within your legal limits here but may be crossing the sane limit of your mind.  Try the test of abstinence by not checking out your one or two or few friend's profiles you regularly stalk ( specify the time frame yourself depending on the severity of your case !)

- Say you cant help posting every mundane detail  or significant development of your life and wait for people to like and comment for some kind of approval, acceptance, cheering etc...you do know this only helps you get instant gratification, appreciation or approval probably lacking in your real life and also effects you with not so nice emotions if you don't grab desirable attention in your virtual jungle. Try to abstain and If you come out unfazed...then you may be playing an ace game.

- You can do this test for whatever secret addiction you may have on Facebook or your favorite virtual jungle and know or think it may not be treading the path of Sane-ville but taking you towards the road of screw-ed-up town, then try the test.

 And mind you it can be tricky cause unlike smoking addiction you are going to practice selective abstinence, only those bits which are creating piles of nicotine trash equivalent in your mind.

Again let me reiterate and warn you this is my very unscientific and  unproven(yet) self-evaluation of " Survival of Sane mind" in this Jungle of a other kind where the stronger may not kill you but your own mind may defeat you.

Superman Aspirations

"In the middle of the night, train stops at a small deserted station, I get down to get some air , there is a cool autumn breeze  and then I turn around as I hear the train whistle...I walk towards my bogey to board it again...but as I take my right foot forward, instead of climbing up, I fall onto the tracks with my face against the wheels of the train , I see them starting to move slowly and I get up immediately to get back on platform...but as I hold onto the edge of the platform , it crumbles down and brings down the the roof of the station with it. Then I throw a bucket of water on the rubble and clear out everything and get back in my bogey through its window."

"Really !" exclaimed Riya, "Sam,that is not only stupid but one of the most boring dreams I have heard of."

Sam disagrees, "Why? I almost died in my dream, but get back and sort of destroy the station and resume my journey!"

"Yes, but it is still a stupid train journey. You don't fly out of a burning building or walk on water to save the drowning people of a capsized boat in a middle of pacific ocean." Riya explains emphatically." Now lets get back to reality, our class starts in 10 minutes."

"So I am not a superman in my dream,but its still pretty cool."

"My point is that, its a dream. You can be a superman."

"hmm..."

Riya and Sam have been friends since primary school and have joined the same Undergrad School. Riya knew very early on what she will make of herself,she had planned and chosen her school and  subjects accordingly.She also knew which company she will join to kick-start her career in investment banking.
Sam on the other hand, always went with flow instead of planning ahead, he is still not sure what he wants to do once he completes his under-graduation.

Sam was thinking about what Riya said the entire day. So the moment he spots her on her way out to home after school, he leaps towards her and spurts out,  "Why do I need to be a superman?"

Riya knew him too well and instead of being astounded, she quickly recalls the conversation they had at the beginning of the day and responds, "Because if you are not a superman, you are an ordinary man and nobody's interested in that."

"Ordinary people are not interested in an ordinary man!"

"Yes,because everybody is ordinary and hence you need to be extraordinary. And everybody will be interested." smiles Riya, "Come on, I don't have to talk to you like a 1st grader, you know this. Get over your dream now, they are meaningless anyways."

"In my dream, I get over disasters and resume my journey, Isn't that extraordinary ?" 

"No,everybody has hurdles and problems in their life and they continue to live it or according to you resume their journeys" laughs Riya , using Sam's metaphor. "So nothing extraordinary."

"So, How do I become a superman ?",

"hmm, tricky question." ponders Riya," Let me see, in real world we don't fly or stop the train with one hand. So you would need to excel at everything you do , outdo everyone around you, in your school, your job or do something first, that nobody has done before you and then you continue doing outstanding work and then people would be interested, you will get tons of money, possibly fame or power etc....This would be a real world superman I think because almost everyone wants to be this. What do you think ?"

"Are you trying to be one ?", questions Sam, deep in thought.

"Yes, everyday of my life."

"What if I become a superman but I am not happy ?" 

Not interested to continue this conversation anymore, Riya shrugs her shoulder and answers impatiently, "Well, you become one, then we'll see."

"Will you be happy Riya, once you become a superwoman ?" Sam questions again, ignoring her visible lack of interest in this conversation.

"Yes." retorts Riya, impatient and in a hurry to end this conversation which she thought has been stretched long enough

Sam gets the message and nods thoughtfully.Then they both start walking together towards the bus stop. Riya was not sure if Sam was still thinking about his stupid dream, but couldnt help smiling at his ability to make such a big deal about a dream which most people would have forgotten quickly , much less analyze it philosophically and draw an analogy to life.

Then she couldn't help pondering over Sam's question while they waited for bus.And by the time she reached home she had thought over her entire life from the day she realized that Santa was not real , and from then on-wards her race to be extraordinary in her School, her ballet class, her tennis lessons. She couldn't remember anything she had not aced. She was sure at this rate she will surely get a great career start in her choice of company, and continue her streak.
And then she asked herself the question again, "Will I be happy, once I become a superwoman ?" and realized she doesn't really know yet.

Red Shoes

"Aey Raghu...!"

Raghu turned back and started walking towards his little sister Roli, feeling proud of himself after having successfully bargained for 2 samosas for Rupees 2 instead of 5 from the vendor near his shoe-shine corner by the sidewalk.
Roli, 5 years old sitting by her brother's worn out wooden shoe shine box waiting eagerly for him to be back by her side. Raghu, 9 years old knew very well that her little sister who had started accompanying him for work since last 6 months, was not yelling for the hot samosa but her ever curious mind had another question for him.
He with Roli in tow starts his day about 5 in the morning at the dump-yard rag picking, he was told by experienced rag pickers, early bird gets the worm. Then early afternoon,he sets up his little shoe shine kit on the sidewalk near the big buildings , which has some offices and shops. Later half of the day he makes the round of automobile repair shops or goes to railway stations to try his hand as a porter, most often unsuccessfully, as stations nowadays have designated coolies and no one is interested to give this short , thin , tiny framed 9 year old to haul any weight. On a lucky day the mechanic in the repair shop employs him as helper.

"Raghu, these madams going inside the building everyday, How many footwear do they have ?"


"five...sometimes six"

Roli likes being along with her brother, apart from rag picking, she hasn't learned any other work. She looks up to Raghu, she likes how he knows everything and never answers with "I dont know" for any question she has.

"Do you think they can have so many?" she asks raising her tiny hands showing all her ten fingers.

"that's ten, No that is too many. Nobody has ten pair of shoes"


"Why?"

Though Raghu is very fond of his little sister and never gets tired of answering her questions, but at times it does get a little difficult figuring out the answers. However, he knows he has learned a lot with his close to 4 years of experience working and living independently on the streets, and knows with conviction that he has answer to all her questions.

Raghu explains, "Because girls like colors, and there are not more than five or six, and they have one of each color."

"What about boys ?"

"They have about two, brown and black. See that's why I have black and brown polish to shine them"

Satisfied with the logic, Roli smiles at her brother and shifts her attention to samosa he brought for
her. Both are looking at the barrage of people and cars on the road while enjoying their hard earned samosas.

A group of nearby school students pass by them, Roli notices a boy and urgently pats Raghu's shoulder with one hand and points her finger with other, towards this boy in skinny jeans and bright red shoes with white laces.She then looks at Raghu, not questioningly but confused.

Raghu looks at the shoes observantly and then at the boy wearing them. He turns to Roli and tells her matter of factly, "Those are not real shoes."
He continues, " The boys who work and earn money wear real shoes , black or brown, the ones I shine.This boy does not work so he is not wearing real shoes."

Roli didn't quite grasp the concept, but nodded her head signalling she understood. She believed him because she knew Raghu was always right.

Time and Alone

We all have had a time when we are alone , time when there is no one with you physically. It could be for few hours , a day or an alone weekend at home. Some of us may enjoy this "just me" time, probably due to the hectic life and work, some may still hate it besides the hectic life and work.

All of us have different take and plans on how to deal or what to do when alone. So do I. There are hundreds of things people do and many that I do when I am alone irrespective of whether I like being alone or not. My instinct like of many others is to occupy myself with some activity when I am alone... of-course one cannot stare at walls for hours when sitting alone at home ( you all know why that's not a good sign).
So a good and healthy thing would be to occupy yourself with an activity when alone.And then I thought of all those times when I was alone and what I did, ( I know I have so much time that I think about what I do when I am alone, get over it ) what I realized is that I may call it occupying myself but I am actually distracting myself...from what ? my own thoughts !
All of us have so many things going on in our heads... whether you are a big shot - very busy guy or unemployed - not much to do guy ... your head not unlike mine would be constantly filled with so many different shades of thoughts- beautiful , not so nice, confusing, positive, fearful ,embarrassing , cheerful, troubling and sometimes few of those together.

So when alone with just your own thoughts - what do you do ?
I hope to not sound preachy, merely reflecting on this realization which some others may have thought about or some probably may think it isn't necessary enough to think so much about ( either ways we are thinking a whole lot of stuff in our minds all the time ) 
So when alone I end up watching TV , talking/chatting or playing games on phone, playing music , read, do some house chores ( nothing unusual per normal person's standards.. ) then there are those awkward short phases of time when there is nothing to do ..usually after one activity is finished and before you find another to do. Have you thought how you feel ? I know how I do....restless, very bored and more than that anxious to find something to fill my time quickly. Almost as if I am scared to face myself...this could be as short as 5 minutes.
We have so many emotions, situations at work, our relations and events of our day to day life buried in the back of our mind..they all come spiraling forth in this short few minutes when we face ourselves alone, so we distract ourselves, whenever we are in this situation...until we are nearly incapable to face our thoughts.

I am not a guru , I do not have answers to life's complications. And I have no breakthrough. And definitely have not reached the level of those with higher consciousness whose mind space has no thoughts just bliss.

As our minds continue to be a clutter,I chose to write about this for two reasons - One, For many others who are equally or more restless and are a wreck when alone and nothing to do. And have possibly never reflected about this.
Two, I feel its a good start to reflect on this and try not to be afraid with our often troubling minds, and face those few minutes of "nothing to do" with much calm.

Anatomy of Facebook Users

Facebook has about 900 million users today, I am one of them and have some hundreds out of these millions in my "friend list".

I am sure lot has been discussed and analyzed about the phenomena of Facebook, an entity not even 10 years old as well as about the kind of people or users on Facebook...I am more interested in people. I believe we the 900+ million FB users are now an altogether a different race of people in the alternate world of internet and much like the real world, we can be categorized into groups based on our traits.
Must say its an amusing world out there...on Facebook of-course....almost as if, the real world wasn't enough...that we have created an alternate one to carry on our charades!

None of us are complaining though. FB makes it so much easier to show off an alternate personality or life of oneself, keep a tab on people you like and most importantly the ones you hate, be voyeuristic without guilt , boosts your ego with likes and mutual appraisals apart from other good things.

I couldn't help listing down what I think is the anatomy of some of the different types of users on FB.

- Self Improvement missionaries (SIM) - These are the ones who float around those beautiful inspirational quotes on FB with the intention of ....(I am not really sure!)
*I am yet to figure out, if the SIMs have achieved enlightenment and now are preaching other lesser mortals through FB or its their personal enlightenment process that we are witnessing ! How successful have they been in whatever they seek to achieve is not clear...but if we see less bombings in the world, we can safely give them all the credit.

- Perfect World Heroes (PWH) - These work closely with SIMs , but their project is alleviating the World's suffering and they do it with circulating gory pictures of distorted animals and humans. I would like to think their heart is at the right place, but no they are not helping anyone or anything.
* How and from where they find these pictures and who decides to put out pictures of suffering malnourished babies or ones with birth defects or mutilated dead animals and other such heart breaking photos.It is simply offensive to those very people/animals and to glorify their suffering when one doesn't know who and where they are and what anyone can do for them.

-Religion on my sleeve (ROMS) - As evident with the name, these are the people belting out religious quotes and sermons on regular basis including pictures and videos.
*I have yet to respond to "Jesus is calling" messages I keep getting from beyond...oh wait they are actually from FB. Anyways, Jesus is a good guy and I am sure he means no harm.

- Journal Keepers (JK) - These are the ones who have lost their good old diaries and fumbled on FB. Their statuses are regularly updated with events of their life, feelings, experiences sometimes with the aid of pictures.
*What catharsis JKs achieve by swapping their diaries with FB ? hmm I don't know, its their life...but wait its on my news feed !

- Besotted wives and husbands (BH/BW) - These are the ones newly married or have new girlfriend/ boyfriend in their lives. There will be regular proclamation of love through status updates, conversation with each other praising their value in each other's lives and of-course hundreds of pictures with each other or of one another.
* So what could be the problem with so much love ? ...... its on my face !

- Besotted Moms (BM) - Close on the heels of BW/BH are the new moms. Of-course no other feeling can be remotely compared to being a mom of a cute little bundle of joy.
So you will not mind the regular baby updates...all cute details of their teething,talking,what toys they play,which new item song they like,what they eat and poop everything is worth knowing. And of-course moms regularly updating the status letting us know how much they love their bundle of joys lest we forget...
*How were the babies growing and What were the moms doing before FB .. really ?

-My life in pictures (MLP) - If these people form a new religion, their god will be the inventor of digital camera. These are the ones who upload thousands of picture of each and every event in their lives or of themselves, probably they have foreseen that world will run out of silicon soon.
*So if you are one of them, unless you are extremely good looking or I plan to stalk you or they are my own pics...I will not be looking at your 9024 pictures you have uploaded.

-Senior Users (SU) - These are the people who lived and worked their entire lives without touching a computer, but now have left some of their peers behind and joined the bandwagon  presumably dominated by younger population.
So you will find them sometimes butting into their kids conversation or viewing some non-kid friendly videos not knowing it finds the way in news feed.
*They just need help.

- Young guns- misfired (YGM) - Most of our younger generation would like to believe that they are the beacon of hope for the future of this world ( real and virtual). They have been living their lives on FB since the time they were able to write grammatically correct sentences in English ( or still not! ).
They will typically have not less than 800 friends and will use all the special characters in the keyboard when communicating, they call their BFFs - biatch,slut ,m*&f*kr etc, will always post their wild and cool party pics with equally cool looking friends from their school .
You will regularly see words like izz, howzz,okiezz etc.It is cool to use at-least 8 expletives in a sentence with 10 words, it is not cool to write grammatically correct sentences with actual spellings.They have strong opinions and know their choices very early like iphones or samsung? pub or lounge? tommy hilfiger or not? girlfriend or boyfriend? sex now or later?
*Beacons of hope for the future. Oh yes they are beacons for sure...but of what again ?!!

- Greta Garbo Syndrome (GGS) - These are the ones who have created FB accounts, but still do not want to be a part of it. These people do not post anything,do not share anything, do not upload pictures,never have any conversation on wall not because they do not have time to log in but, they just want to be private and elusive.
*So why are you on FB ? Greta Garbo couldn't help much as publicity came with the choice of her profession....for you however, FB provides an option - Delete.


-Drama Queens (DQ) - Pretty easy to identify, whenever you see a particularly wild pictures of oneself posted frequently or posts about their bad or good mood today or how they are so mad at someone/something or what they are eating,watching, wearing etc and if nothing else works frequent threats to leave FB forever...they feel better and calm down with responses like "oh r u OK?", "wat happened :( ", "can i help", "wow u r great","Oo i feel jealous" etc
*Well you are the sole reason FB was not even slightly threatened by google+.

I have to say I haven't heard of people spending hours on say LinkedIn. All these people and others that are not in this list, are the ones that enable FB to rake in $2 billion and more.
Carry on the charades people, it makes the world (er internet) an interesting place !

To Cricket or Not to Cricket

Some of you may raise an eyebrow, while others may give me a virtual whack for saying "I observe that Indian cricket is one phenomena which unites the entire country. We all easily forget our 1000+ differences and rally behind the set of 11 men identified as Team India."So what am I saying new here? I know, everybody is aware, we are called cricket crazy nation for nothing...Cricket is a religion, not sport..and cricketers Demigods !

Frankly I do not care about the game and probably don't understand it much ( Yes, i am the minority, and may require constitutional laws against Cricket-loving people looking down at us and treating us like an outcast.)
However, I do have to give its due to this game for bringing this diverse country together every-time this game is on. So I am interested to know how they achieve this unlike other major influence-rs of our country & society like cinema, religion or our leaders. In-fact some of the other influence-rs have bought in more division than unity.

Sports usually have the tendency to evoke passions (positive) as well as obsessions (negative) among the fans and followers around the world.
Cricket is our passion, but why do we identify so much with this one particular game that other sportspeople are almost living a ghetto life...I think it started during the British rule in India, probably we as Indians wanted to beat Britishers at their own game and excel at it ( a la movie Lagaan) or probably like other things just wanted to ape them and consequently a false pride in playing the game of so called superior race instead of our native sports .

British legacy or not , It is our game now. And it brings us together like no other. I believe it is because we play against the world with one Team, and the whole country identifies and rallies behind this one team,we all become part of this team, which has one language and one religion - Cricket.
We know that this team has players from diverse background, different religions, states etc. but instead of looking at differences, we look at  their merit. And this is no mean achievement.
Of course since this game evokes such strong passions, there are also some negative backlashes in case the team disappoints fans.

One may ask, why rant so much when I proclaim to not care about cricket. Yes, I don't. It's the game's ability to bring people together that I am always in awe of.
Looks like this is all changing now, this last bastion of indivisibility seems to be not so strong anymore,now with the onslaught of new shiny shimmery format of 20-20 game with the extra dose of all things beautiful and promise to make us play against each other...time to put the notion of one Team India in the back-burner for now.

"Oh! Apple I-pad ...Please make it better"

A thought crossed my mind...If life is such an important thing..how come we end up not giving any time or thought to it ! You might say, "eh! what is she talking about ? everything I do is for my life, or my family's or some close friends...but most of all everything I do in this life is for me..my life". You know, I want to agree.

Then I hear those nice often repeated jewels of wisdom like "Stop and smell the roses" ..."when was the last time you did something for the first time"..." Do something that makes YOU happy"... Aren't they so confusing and misleading ?

Well, the fact is if you stop to smell the roses (before that you might need to find them !) ...chances are your boss might not appreciate it and you don't really want to carry the thorns of bad appraisals. And if you are your own boss and unless roses are your business, you would not care... why would you ? how does it make life any better? ....you know there are important things that make difference like career,job, business, money...ah,yes money.

"Money,oh Almighty moolah,greenback,riches !...You,the real tangible one that makes the world go around. Why are these armchair, very rich and comfortable philosophers and thinkers propagating such misleading thoughts in our minds and hampering our pursuit of you and ultimately a comfortable life"

Guess my prayer to Almighty Money has cleared my confusion and provided me an answer I was looking for..Life is important , hence we give it money and enhance it with riches...time and thought is not going to buy that dream house in that posh area of my dream city, or that dream car, all those gadgets , clothes , jewels, travels to expensive and exotic locales ...my dream and life will only be fulfilled with money, and that's what makes me happy, this is what I want to do first time,last time and every time.

But then again these distracting thoughts creep up in my mind,"Give more thought to what you want to make of your life, your pursuits, your goals and your purpose in life".
Oh my tireless mind ! I want to make my life rich and comfortable and my current goal is to buy that new Apple Ipad 3 just launched in the market,and no-where the price is mentioned in thoughts...."thought that counts" is a phrase, ultimately we need to count that money to fulfill any thought !

Looks like I need more nice,luxurious materialistic riches around me to suppress any more disturbing thoughts about life's purpose blah blah...till then my struggle continues.

Rotis, Rice and blessed souls

When was the last time I had a perfect meal ... the one that made me so happy , that I had nothing but blessings and gratitude for the person who made it, or the person who paid for the meal or me if i happen to  have made it.  Well, this definitely is not one of those life's profound questions, but I still had to think hard and search my entire lifetime to pinpoint one perfect meal of my lifetime so far. Some may think its too simple a question to spend so much time over, while others may opine that its simple and stupid.
Well, I am entitled to my simple thoughts,stupid is just an opinion. So while my mind wandered through the events of my lifetime, I realized  two things...One, that its not just one meal and Two, the definition of perfect meal for me changed over the time as mind grew from innocent to complex-ed !

So as i grew in age, and my mind grew in complexity, and fortunately my personal finances grew from zero to some , I got opportunities to eat food in various restaurants in cities, bigger cities,metros,some international cities...expensive meals, international, gourmet, local and whatnot. But like many others, my favorite and always comforting meals were found at my home... courtesy mom's cooking, if your mom is able to cook up fairly decent... of course there are mothers who cant cook to save their lives, Its not a mandatory skill in mom's resume..!

So that elusive perfect meal or meals were those simple ones that cost me nothing , had no fancy names, weren't laid out to me in a stylish manner....they were like every meal in my life that satisfied my hunger but with one difference,they made me so happy that i would remember them always.

I was about 10 years old, went to an old woman's hut in my mom's village with my cousins.she gave us one of my life's perfect meals. We sat crouching in her small mud kitchen near the chulha (mud oven),also ducking the dense smoke  from the burning wood enveloping the low ceiling.She gave us simple dal, rice and potatoes right out of the chulha in a big thali. Perfect meal !
I was about 16 years old, went to an adventure camp in Uttarakhand hills with friends, while coming back me and my friend had to stop by at an Army transit camp to wait for our train.The camp was virtually deserted and both of us starving. Found one soldier, so we asked him where we can find food , he offered to cook for us as there was nothing available around. So in his small room where he was lodged temporarily,our saviour cooked us tomato tinda(round gourd) curry over a small heater and roti rolled by using an empty beer bottle. Voila, another perfect meal !

And yes those countless times , when we moved to new house on account of my father's job postings, and we weren't unpacked or fully unpacked, and ma would still make that wonderful meal with whatever was available and served in whichever utensils we could pull out of the box.

I remember all of these meals , all of them made me very happy.    All of them were made with love !

So all those times when i dressed up my best and went to those fancy upscale restaurants and burned a hole in my pocket to satisfy my base desires with those really tempting looking dishes, i couldn't even recall them ...forget about them making it to my list.

Makes me think, All the perfect meals in my life were simple , basic, without any pretense , no frills ... just like the blessed souls who fed me and feed me.