A quicky in Turkey

No, it is not about what is going on in your dirty mind. This post is about my short visit to Istanbul. Unfortunately, I was there not for leisure but for work. So, never got a chance to explore the city like I usually try to do. Therefore, I would definitely try to visit it again sometime. But for now, let me share some highlights from the time I got to see a little bit of the city.

Now, Turkey has always been considered as a bridge to connect the east and the west. Even today, the local people there talk about the European and the Asian side of Turkey/Istanbul. So, it has always been a place of great importance in history books. I have observed a particular fascination for Istanbul both among Europeans and Asians. There is a lot of history of Turkey related to India as well but let us not get there.

After spending the first four days, just hopping between meetings and returning late every evening back to the hotel, I was getting restless. After all, I was in the land of the Ottomans. After having read so much about their history, I wanted to see the place. So, on the last day, fortunately, work ended before lunch and I rushed to the main city to see whatever I could in that short time. I had my flight back to Germany late in the evening.  

Typically, the first place to visit in Istanbul is always Hagia Sofia. It is the biggest attraction of Istanbul. Maybe because of its history which dates back to the 5th Century. It was initially an Orthodox church basilica later it became a Catholic church cathedral, then it became a mosque and now serves as a museum for tourists. It is a typical example of Byzantine architecture with its huge dome and was used as a model of others mosques later build in the area. Unfortunately, due to the time restrictions, I was not able to visit it since there was a long queue outside the museum.

So, I decided to visit the place which was top on my list, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque or the Blue Mosque (because of the blue tiles used). It had always fascinated me specially after seeing it in pictures and many movies. The view of the mosque from the Bosphorus is heavenly. If there is a movie shot in Istanbul, then I think there would be at least one shot of the mosque from the water. Another special feature for me was to see a mosque with six minarets instead of the usual four. Here is a picture while approaching the mosque

The monument is huge. And when I say huge, I really mean it. You feel it more once you enter the main door on the perimeter of the mosque.

And when you enter it through that main door, you just stand there in awe of the masterpiece. It is one of the most humongous monuments I have ever seen in my life. You can get an idea from the picture below.

I arrived there at the wrong time. It was time for the prayers so I could not enter the building. But, I was quite adamant to see it from the inside so I decided to come back again. In the meantime, I tried to check out the surroundings and the beautiful park build around the mosque. Below is a picture from the backside of the mosque.

I had always heard and read about people of faith performing the ozoo or Wudhu (in English) before performing the prayers. But, this was the first time to see that place in person. It was quite interesting for me to see so many taps and seats in a row in the picture below.

While waiting for the prayers to get over, I ended up at the Topkapi Palace Museum, the royal place of residence for the Ottomans. Here is a picture from its entrance facing the Blue Mosque. It has always fascinated me to see how in olden times they used to make buildings with such precision etc where the view from one door is to another fancy building.

Finally, I was back to the Blue Mosque after the prayers to witness its interiors. I can only say that I was blown over after seeing the place from the inside. It was really huge and beautiful. It is so big that it is almost impossible to get the complete thing in one picture. Here is a picture I took which I liked the most. People of faith praying inside one of the most beautiful holy places I have seen.

After the tourist attractions, I decided to see the real Istanbul i.e. the local area and the markets. I always believe that to get a real feel of a place, you have to visit its city center. So, I headed to the local markets. I used to think of Turkey very similar to India, culture wise, economic level wise, mentality wise etc. But after seeing a flashy tram running on its roads, I felt we need to catch up a bit technology wise.

A section of the main market had mostly small restaurants. Each restaurant had a guy standing on the walkway near the main street and screaming at the top of their lungs trying to lure tourists for a meal into their restaurants. Instantly, the view reminded me of Pahar Ganj side of New Delhi Railway Station :)

Below is a picture from the famous Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. It is one of the oldest and the largest covered markets in the world. I found it very similar to the Paalika Bazaar (near Connaught Place) in Delhi. The difference was that this was many times larger and spacious than Paalika Bazaar. But, it was similarly packed with shops selling everything from textiles to electronics, many of which were not original. And it was pretty crowded, lively and had a big hustle-bustle going on during the day.
 

I also could not miss to see the Bosphorus Bridge (often called the Golden Gate of Turkey) on the Bosphorus Strait which connects Europe with Asia. So, I went to see it as well. I always considered it as a big landmark. Unfortunately, I don't have a nice picture from there :(

I definitely have to visit it again to do proper justice to the city  !

Movie Confessions contd....

Reading back my last post leaves me disappointed. What a mess ! There were so many things going on in my head that it did not came out as they were supposed to in the post. It was like firing randomly in air or trying to join dots but making a mess of it. Maybe I was high on ice cream. Anyways, I hope the two or three people who read this blog occasionally will ignore it.

Moving on to the current post. Finally, after a long wait, I got the chance this week to see the movie I had been eager to see. I had read about it at many places and even saw the trailer and was dying to see it, maybe because I could relate to it. So, here is a review of the movie. Some of my previous reviews are here, here, here and here.

The Intouchables (Intouchables - France)

The movie is based on a real life story and portrays the relationship between a super rich aristocratic white french man who is completely paralyzed from neck to toe and a poor uneducated unemployed black immigrant from Senegal brought up in France (In real life, the latter was an Algerian). The character of the rich guy, Phillipe is played by Francois Cluzet and that of the black guy, Driss is played by Omar Sy. I must confess that I have seen Francois Cluzet in a couple of other French movies like Little White Lies etc and found him really funny.

The movie starts with Phillipe interviewing for a helper/assistant for his daily activities and Driss is sitting as one of the interviewees sent by the state job department, not particularly looking for a job but just for a signature and a rejection so that he can get state unemployment money. Phillipe hires him for his careless, funny, non pity and don't-give-a-shit kind of attitude. The two characters are completely in contrast to each other but still the way they build a relationship between them is shown magnificently by the directors. Phillipe on one hand is a rich educated businessman with fine taste for art and music and Driss on the other hand is a marijuana smoking, fun loving, easy going and chilled out man who even likes getting massages from Chinese prostitutes. It is beautiful to see how the two characters grow on each other and gain from each others characteristics. It is a very simple and feel good movie with just the perfect dose of comedy which is sometimes slapstick and sometimes ironic. I don't remember when was the last time I laughed so much watching a movie which ended with filling so much warmth in my heart that I was speechless. I would definitely recommend it to everyone.

A similar comedy I remember I saw last time was this Turkish-German movie called Almanya - Willkommen in Deutschland which is based on an immigrant Turkish family settled in Germany after the war and the dynamics between the three or four generations within the same family.

I must confess that I have always had good experiences with people from African descent, something which my US settled aunt find tough to believe. I find them particularly witty, full of life and energy, very carefree attitude, quite religious, with a positive zeal for life. I remember a few years back when I as searching an apartment to share in Stuttgart for my internship, I could not find any. With the limited budget, no one was willing to share an apartment with a strange looking guy from India. I searched and searched and searched but without success. Finally, just one day before the joining date, I met a guy from Cameroon offering to share his apartment. I took it without thinking. His name was Valentine. How can you not like a person with that name :) Each evening when he was not working, we used to have dinner together. It was always a laugh riot listening to his stories and way he used to express them. I had a good 6 months stay in Stuttgart at his place. Maybe this was another reason why I could relate more with this film. 

Greed is good

Growing up in a middle class family, my initial interaction with banks was very limited, specially as a schoolboy. I had a very simplistic idea and definition of a bank in my head back then. A bank is a place where people keep their money safe so that bad people don't steal it from you. You have a unique account number through which you are recognized by the bank. When you have some extra money you don't need, you go there and use that number to put in your money safely. When you need a more lump-some amount for example to buy furniture or a TV, you go there again and using your number, you get your own money back. Since you trust your bank and put your money with them, the bank uses it for various purposes and in return give you a part of the profit they make which you call interest rate. Each bank had its own rate depending on the status of a bank. In my last days in school, I also learned from my parents that one can get higher interest rate with banking products like IVP (Indira Vikas Patra) and FD (Fixed Deposit) and in return you have to keep money with them for a fixed and longer period of time. There was another thing I used to hear often was a cheque but I never really understood it or cared for it. Actually, I was never really interested in money. I knew we need it to survive and it is important but trust me, till today I am still not very fond of money which makes my parents nervous sometimes.  

After school, while getting into college, I heard about other bank products/terms like loan, credit card, stocks, shares etc. My parents had never been big risk takers with money so they never used these things. Till today, my parents don't have a credit card and they never invested a single dime paisa in stocks. Life was simple, no debts, no fancy bank products, all good and we lived within our means. That was time of late nineties. 

Cut to 2012, in the last 10-12 years I think I learned a lot about the world. I did my graduation, post graduation, started working, saved some money for myself, traveled a bit. This past decade made not only me but everyone witness, a hell lot of things which might not have been normal 50 years back, specially relating to the Dot-com bubble and its burst (2000), 9/11 and its economic aftermath (2001), US housing crash (2008) and recently the euro crisis (2010). Incidentally, all related to money.    

During my graduation and post graduation, I learned a term and a form of banking called Investment banking. It was quite different to the simplistic idea I had of banks. It seemed quite complicated to me to figure it out myself. I did not had any contacts who could explain me about it nor did I had money or knowledge or experience to try it out myself. But, I had always heard and read jokes about how women fall for investment bankers and even blindly marry one if they get a chance. Then, one day I happened to watch the movie named Wall Street (1987). It definitely was an adrenaline pumper but I hardly understood the complex banking jargon used in it. But there was a dialogue by Michael Douglas playing Gordon Gekko in the movie which always stuck on to me, "Greed is good". Another line which I never forget from the movie is when Martin Sheen tells his son to start 'producing' something with his life. He said, "Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others". It was only some years later that I saw it again and could make more sense out of it.

After working for a couple of years and making some savings, I was advised by many to buy a house/apartment by investing my savings and taking a loan. I was never really interested in it. Incidentally, a friend of mine started working as a analyst and then a trader at an energy trading company. For me it was all Latin, trading energy. I mean how trade something like energy, sitting at a computer ? I was quite fascinated by it and asked my friend to explain me everything about it. I got more curious and learned the basics of trading and its fancy terminology like shorting, stop loss, call and put options, naked selling, derivatives etc. The next step was to actually try my hand at it. So, I started slowly with putting some money in the market. I did good initially and it motivated me to learn further. So, I started digging more and more into it. Reading books, keeping constant watch on the news, reading analyst reviews, know how of trading algorithms etc. I further did well in the markets. It was never the attraction of money for me. It was always about beating the market. The kick you get after getting your bet right in the market is priceless. So, it was always about doing better than the markets. All that adrenaline rush and excitement when watching graphs going up and down is not describable in words. One had to experience it himself.

All this lasted for about 12-15 months. But slowly, I started feeling that my actual work was being neglected. I was investing too much time in this. I am not a finance guy or a banker or a trader by profession. I am a Computer Science guy. So, even though I was doing well, I decided to quit it. Also, I was started question the moral and ethics behind all of it. How is it different from gambling? My religion strictly prohibits gambling and here I was placing a bet that things 'might' turn in my favor if I am lucky. There is no solid foolproof way of winning all the bets in the markets. I had read an article where the author prefers going to a casino and playing there better than placing bets in the market. He said casinos are far more fair than the dynamics of stock markets. I could not agree more. There was another reason behind it. Gradually, over time, you start seeing the bigger picture. You realize that you are just a small fish in the pond or even sea. Sometimes, you are even the bait. The big sharks sit in those investment banking firms who are professionally groomed and trained for this game. They know this game inside out and they are the masters in it. There are hell lot of things going behind the curtains which an average person has no chance of knowing. You keep fooling yourself that you made some money from it but it is actually them who get the real deal !

Let me explain with an example taking an IPL match. The investment bankers and traders are like the players on the field actually playing the game. It does not matter if they win or loose. At the end of the day, they will take home fat pay checks. You my friend, as an independent day trader on the other hand is like that cola boy serving cola to the audience. You invest your own money to buy those cola filled cups from a vendor and take them to the audience. You feel great and beat your chest that you did great by selling a 10 rupees cola cup for 50 rupees. But at the same time, if somebody, in moment of ecstasy and cheering for the players unknowingly by mistake touches the tray of cola you are carrying and all of it falls down, all the loss of buying the cups at 10 rupees from the vendor is your own !   

Last week, an open letter published in the New York Times created quite a buzz in the markets. It was by a guy named Greg Smith who resigned after working in high ranks at one of the top investment banking firms, Goldman Sachs. A lot of people criticized that it is all a gimmick and why did the guy realized after all these years and taking fat pay checks every year, that he was working at a bad place. Why, just at the turn of his retirement he blew it all. How will he manage to handle the court cases that Goldman Sachs will charge him with. Why don't he work with the government and work legally to help them to charge the company with fraud.

All these are valid questions but personally speaking, I don't care if it is a sham or a PR stunt. All I care is that at least someone challenged his moral and stood up to speak the truth. It happen sometimes that it takes time to build up the strength to say enough is enough. It was a classic Michael Clayton moment for me. The film starts with a brilliant monologue that I can relate to this open letter and consider worth listening once. In the film, they show how a 'fixer' played by George Clooney finally stands up for the right thing to do. There was even a testimony by the teacher of Greg Smith published which supported his actions. So, it is tough to believe that everything going on at his former workplace is all nice and clean. There was another interesting article I read after this open letter was published. The open letter had quite an impact in Europe. It is quite clear that there is a big distrust in banks building up and their PR teams are working round the clock for damage control.

I have visited 3 of the Char Dhams I consider of the banking world, New York, London, Frankfurt. Japan is next on the list to visit. There is another interesting thing I have observed while traveling to places in the western world. Is it just by coincidence that the biggest, the most fancy building in downtown of most cities is a bank? Does it ring a bell?

Sometimes, I wonder how we are making our lives complex day by day. I wish things would be much simpler and we would have stuck to my school-time understanding and liking of banks!

Latest on the Playlist

Somebody posted this song on Facebook and I am hooked on to it, once again !

Sometime, some songs stick in my head and refuse to let go. This is one of them maybe because I liked this rendition. I had big hopes from Coke Studio India but it failed to deliver. I was pretty disappointed. Maybe they could have learned something from this foreign composer !

The Campaign

It is not that I have anything personal against US or the people there. I like many things there, like their humor, their movies. I think their wittiness is beyond any comparison. And their film industry offer the best variety I think for any movie lover. They have gems in every genre of movie making. Anyone can pick one for his taste. But something which I cant stand is their arrogance and politicians. I personally feel the only difference between the politicians there and in India is that the ones there wear nice expensive designer suits with a tie and all accompanied by a decent physique. I don't think I need to explain their Indian counterparts. Another thing which sometimes get on my nerves is how they usually blow up things out of proportion, sometimes reaching ridiculous levels. No doubt that they have this blown up mentality of big cars, big houses, big supermarkets etc. But they even tend to take social issues with the same blown up attitude. The latest in line is this KONY 2012 campaign.

I came across this video 2 days back when someone posted it on his wall on Facebook. It was about this guy in Africa who has done atrocities on kids to the levels which can shake anyone's senses. There is no iota of doubt that this Kony is a bad guy and he should be tried in a court of law. There is no discussion about it, that's the bottom line. But what made me write this post was the video. As a first impression, it send out all the right signals. It made me feel angry about what Kony was doing, that he should be stopped at any cost for the sake of innocent children and we, the privileged should do something for this cause even if it is just about spreading the word. And boy, the word is spread. In the last 2 days, I have seen and read about it almost everywhere and it has truly gone viral. There is at least one article on all major mainstream news websites. It is everywhere on Facebook, Youtube is exploding with videos about it, Twitter is going berserk over the issue. But what made me think again was the message in the end asking the people to tell the politicians to send armed forces in Africa to stop this. And here I felt, I need to think about this, again.

You can call me a cynic but just I just do not like to take things taken for granted and like to use a little bit of thinking before going gaga about something. I don't think it hurts anyone to analyze things before just blindly following  the herd.

1. The first thing which struck me when I first saw the video was that it looked too polished, organized and expensive. Such a video coming from a little known charity group seemed a little odd to me. It seemed like it is more of a video from an election campaign which is thoroughly funded.

2. The technologies used and shown in the video made me think twice. Where did they got so much money to implement and use those technologies? Even if they got it from charity, I feel that there are many other more urgent causes to work and spend money on rather than on catching a guy who has shown no sign of life in the last 5 years or so.

3. The level of sophistication with which such technologies are merged with social media websites does not seem ordinary to me. Each time it makes me think, who is paying for all this specially to a charity whose name was hardly heard of before this video.

So, all I meant was that the cause to fight for is good. But the intentions behind it is still not 100% clear to me. Even the local people seem to have some hesitation about this whole thing. Sending troops now to Africa for someone who has not been heard of since many years does not make much sense to me. Specially when the country is in a state where it has enough problems on its own land. This thing being one of the major ones. After what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, sending troops to Africa seems like getting a little bit overboard to me.

Or maybe it is just me, panicking !

P.S: I wanted to write about Greg Smith today (something more for my taste) but I also felt like getting off this Kony thing from my head.

Heck of a Weekend !

I live a very moderate kind of life. Nothing like live-life-king-size and I like it that way. My friend circle also consist of such like minded people. So, usually there is nothing dramatic happening around me. Of course, my level of understanding people is constantly declining which lead to surprises every now and then but still it is not close to what happened last weekend.

A friend of mine living in the same town as me called on Saturday morning (last week) and asked if I could drive him immediately to the town of Regensburg which is around 500 kms from our city. He didn't had a driving license and taking a train or flight would take more time. A friend of his had taken about 100 paracetamol tablets in batches of 50 in a span of 10 minutes, the night before (reasons not known). He was now in the hospital struggling for his life. As soon as I heard that, frankly speaking I was at loss of words and also emotions. I felt like laughing at this since I believed such things only happened in Bollywood. So, I asked my friend if he was kidding. Hearing the seriousness in his tone, I quickly realized that things were pretty nasty. The guy was seriously struggling for life since his liver was failing and needed a transplant. Kidney was next in line.

Without loosing any time, I packed some clothes, picked up my friend from his place and off we were to Regensburg. I had met this guy previously on one or two occasions before at some get-together parties. So, I vaguely knew who he was. The mood on the way was tensed. There was hardly any talking except preparing ourselves for the worst. At times, we were trying to narrow down the reasons which could have made him take such drastic steps. He came from a well off family, is the only son, had a decent education and job. So, we could not make out any logical reasons behind his actions. In the end, we gave up and concentrated our energies on what was about to come next.

The scene when we arrived at the hospital was pretty crazy. The guy was in ICU and really struggling to survive. He was in so much pain that he even told us it would have been easier to die than to end up like this. We tried our best to console him and stayed by his side all the time before the doctors asked us to leave. We kept in constant touch with his parents who did not even had a passport back in India. Usually, I am a person strictly against the idea of 'jugaad' but this was one of the few times when I did not cared what means I was using to get his parents here. The only target was to get them here asap. No useful contacts were left unexploited. They arrived on Wednesday but the two days on Sunday and Monday were really crucial.

There is some sort of a liver value which under normal conditions is around 70. It was running at 14 for this guy on Saturday evening and still dropping. By early Sunday morning it dropped to 7. He was already on the list of donated liver recipients but by Sunday he was moved at the top of the list under the most critical situation. His kidneys were also failing to process the liquid intake and was close to be put on a dialysis machine. There were several other patients also in the same ICU. Two were on ventilators, one was lying with his chest still half open for the surgeries to be carried next, one was completely yellow in color and was in dialysis. There was one time when I myself was about to throw up seeing all this. I don't think I have ever seen such disturbing images with my own eyes except on TV and I always thought I had a strong stomach to see everything. That situation was proving me wrong.

Saturday and Sunday went hard, real hard. I think it was one of the longest weekends I ever had in my life. The doctors tried to gave him blood plasma but somehow his body rejected it. He got all red and developed allergies. Doctors had to counter their actions by giving some other medicines. There was always that machine used to give shock to the chest ready by his bedside. Due to the partially working kidneys, the water in his body kept pushing up to the lungs and he had trouble breathing. He was constantly having hiccups. But miraculously on Monday afternoon, things started to change. His values started to stabilize. Suddenly, there was a chance of recovery. There was time when we thought we almost lost the guy. But he was lucky. Destiny had planned something else for him. He was still in a critical situation but was recovering steadily.

Finally, his parents arrived on Wednesday and it was a tough sight for them as well. It was good that they did not saw him two days back. We took a sigh of relief and handed over the son to his parents. We were happy that we handing him over in relatively better shape. I am not sure how we would have faced the parents in case something bad happened. Anyways, we made sure the parents knew their way around and how to commute between the hospital and their apartment since me and my friend had planned to return to our city the next day.

Before returning on Thursday, we went to say him goodbyes. I could not hold myself back when he took our hands and said please don't go. Stay ! We consoled him, cracked a couple of jokes to lift his spirits and then left. We were dead tired on our way back but still the feeling of relief that all ended well was constantly providing us the energy. Finally, it was all over. A heck of a weekend !     

The UP tussle

Being very close to UP, I could not help myself commenting on a post from a fellow blogger on the results of UP elections. The comment ended up looking like a post in itself so thought of posting it here as well. So, here are my two cents ....

If the results truly represent people’s mandate (assuming the polls were conducted fairly), then this result was not at all surprising for me. Reasons (as a summary):
1. BJP is like a misfire. A bullet which has no direction. People dont really care about religion and community anymore. Its a time of Reality shows and not Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan.
2. Congress cant fake it anymore. Wearing khadi and spending nights in huts wont impress anyone. People might still be illiterate but not innocent and dumb anymore.
3. BSP cant flash its parks and elephants anymore. People are not blind and Dalit pride is all good but as long as the people dont have food to eat 3 times a day, it wont work. Its the time of Roadies and not ethics of BR Ambedkar. Dalits have given up on the change they were expecting from Bhenji.
4. SP with the usual fake promises but this time in English. Crime scene hasn’t changed drastically and people dont care for gang wars. Who cares if 2 gangsters die trying to kill each other. Moreover, people are with the attitude that Chalo, lets try imli ki chatney this time instead of pudine ki chutney.

Some fascinating stuff I found lately at http://myneta.info/

More than 50% of candidates in UP did not even had a graduate degree. Many of them were just 8th Class pass. And the icing to the cake was one Dr. Subodh Kumar contesting from Noida with a Doctorate degree but also with a criminal case for attempted murder ... http://myneta.info/up2012/candidate.php?candidate_id=3977 

So much for Mr Dr ! :)

Sitting by the window

It was a sunny winter Sunday morning. He was sitting on the top deck of the train, right next to the window. With plugs of his I-Pod tucked into his ears, he was enjoying the music and the soothing rays of the winter sun through the glassed window. Usually, with a book in his hands on such journeys, he decided not to read that day but to enjoy the nature through the window for a change. Everything seemed so lively under the bright sun.

Suddenly, he noticed a 20-something girl sitting diagonally opposite and facing him on the other side of the aisle, sitting up-straight next to the window. Her blond hair, neatly pleated into a pony tail, her doe colored eyes constantly fixed at the window without batting an eyelid, her white skin shining in the warm sunshine falling on her face as and when the train took a turn, a colorful scarf wrapped around her neck, wearing a red t-shirt and a rainbow printed on it with a pair of jeans to complete the look. If there was ever a cast made to make women, they should model it on her, or so as he thought.

He continued to stare at her for a while till he felt it was not right. He tried to divert his mind by opening a book but it didn't worked. He tried to concentrate on the music but somehow he couldn't. He tried to look out of the window to see the passing fields but nothing was working. With each effort of taking his mind off her, he desired one more look. It was not lust up his head but actually the appreciation of beauty. But still he was fighting with his own self made morals. On one side his morals were trying to stop him but on the other he was feeling helpless from within.

Totally oblivious of the storm she created within him, was she sitting so calmly still continuing to look out the window. He got a little curious as to what was she watching out but didn't care much after a while. He kept thinking in his mind that maybe he go up to her to give a compliment on her beauty but the introvert as he was, never dared to step up. He kept sitting at his place with his eyes oscillating between her and his window. He thanked God for cheering up his day.

All he was hoping was that she stays there till he reaches his destination. But, like all good things come to an end, she had to get off at the next stop, long before his wish. The loudspeakers announced the next stop. She took her jacket lying next to her and tried to get ready. Preparing to leave, she pulled her bag from beneath her seat and opened its zipper. He was watching her all this time. His eyes fixed on her. Still looking out the window, she was searching for something in her bag. She then pulled out a white fold-able stick and opened it along its length. With her eyes looking straight, she cautiously stepped down the stairs from the top deck to the train door and left.  

His brain felt numb for a moment. His heart felt like a crack forming in it, like the one made by a small insignificant pebble on a highway which flies up and hit the front glass of a car. How is that possible? How can God be so heartless? Why to give someone such eyes but with no life in them? He was not able to come to terms with what just happened in a few seconds. All he was left with, was this song by Batalvi playing on his I-Pod link