me, myself and my first blog

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance.

Life is like a box of chocoloates. You never know what you're gonna get.
-Forrest Gump

(If life were like a box of chocolates, I would have lots of calories and a huge dentist bill.)



Life is like a box of chocolates...which one are you?
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Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
-George Bernard Shaw

Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive.
-Bugs Bunny

Life is like a hot bath. It feels good while you're in it, but the longer you stay in, the more wrinkled you get.
-Robbert Oustin

Life is like a taxi. The meter just keeps a-ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still.
-Lou Erickso

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
-Samuel Butler

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.
-Robert Frost

Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.

Guess what! Am proud owner of a 4 wheeler driving license and I spent the whole of last Saturday getting it.

It all started when I enrolled for driving lessons. Have commuted only by autos all my life. So my traffic sense was practically zilch. Took me a while to get hold of the basics, and I wasnt bad...Finally I guess its all about head hand eye feet coordination and then practice on the streets. Once would need to get the feel of the vehicle, know which gear and blah blah. Wont get into all that machinery and their oily details.

For getting the license one has to take the test on the track in some far off place. You have the the first one shaped like an '8' the second one like a 'H' and the third on would be a 5 point turn. You are not supposed to hit any yellow/white painted granite block barriers or venture out into the grass failing which you would be fined at least Rs 200 for the damages. For the 'H' and the 5-point tracks you are supposed to use the reverse gears.

 

I am not so sure why my driving instructor kept me waiting for ages ... and in the end I got a shortened test. I just need to to do the 8 and got back for an additional amount? Was miffed coz I dont like bypassing stuff. I would like the license if and only if I got thru the test. But the arrangement was sealed and I was pretty upset. These kinda shady deals happen only in the later half of the working days and I had to spend the first half fidgeting on the chair, watching all the other folks taking their tests ...watching a dull test match, hoped I got along some reading material ...

The instructor tells me there were times when people who get license without even showing up ...It wasnt a solace really.  There is something so fundamentally wrong with the establishment and the rest and had me wondering how it can be removed from the roots? Is it too late? Will it ever happen? Will it actually happen?

Reminds me of a time when I was a 8-9 yr old and saw so much dissaray on the roads for the first time and asked my father:
Me: Dad why dont police put all people who do not obey the law(traffic) in jail?
Dad: Because there wouldnt be enough place in the jails.
Me: Why dont they fine all the people who break the law?
Dad: Because people do not have that much money.

Just dunno whats about the festivals this year. Its resulted in two pretty long weekends in a very short span of time. And I have not been able to figure out if thats a good thing or a bad thing. Leaves me a little dis-oriented and dislocated at times. Now I wont sit here and enumerate the good and bad points of long weekends, that shall be the topic for the next post. [A cute lil gurrrlie I know, who likes reading my stuff and has a lot of ':'s  and '-'s beside her name  neednt be disappointed :) ]

Festivals are all about our culture, our tradition, our values. There definitely is all this prayer and pooja and all that going on. I quite like some part of it actually, the sights and sounds and even smells. Sweets... agarbatties, the songs, coconuts, camphor burning, the rangolies, diyas, mango leaves, haldi kumkum, flowers, new clothes...even the crackers which I dont mind so much..what with the mile-long ladis and bombs and huge rockets. Keith (a foreigner BTW), was the guy in our area this year who had the record for best and most enthusiastic cracker display :)

Seems like there is an abundance of new-found joy(and money too) in peoples lives , doesnt it? Only, joy isnt as infectious as flakiness(Phoebe ...my FRIENDS)

What if you dont feel like lighting all those things and everyone around you does? They call you all sorts of things weird, spoil sport and those kinda names.... Naaaah I'm not scared of all those bombs and all! Gimme a break.

What I like to doing best during the festival of lights is choose a vantage point at an optimum distance from the city/town you live in, at a little height(a small hill or the terrace maybe) and you would have a good night long son et lumiere. Really is a pretty sight. (Would come a close second only to the Aurora, no competition actually, that being a natural phenomena) Also you have little more clean air to breathe.

That said, sometimes I'm glad festivals are over. Why??? Because you are not really sure if you are genuinely-happy or forced-to-be-happy or you dont really care if you should be-seen-as-happy or pretending you are really happy? That IS a whole lot of pressure, you know. And by the time you have this figured out, you have another festival coming right up ...

An image from Kodak Picture of the Day.

A footnote from the photographer:

Image of a series or rain drops caught on a single spider web that I took in my front yard. I like it because of its starkness and simplicity. Like many things in nature, I think that the very simplest things often go unnoticed and underappreciated for the beauty that such scenes contribute to our environment. Maybe that's why they are so temporary and quick to disappear.

You can view the daily Pic of the day athttp://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2549&pq-locale=en_US

Took a small stroll down memory lane(actually someone pushed me there). A time when I was younger. Younger and def'ly less wiser. But this post doesnt have anything to do with youth, wisdom or memory or even lane. Just talking about flowery language.

I know all of us go through this phase at one time or another. Those who have appeared for the highly competitive exams would def'ly know what I am talking about. Those dreaded vocab tests. Those tests that made the most difference when everything else was on par. Everything else being the Analytical tests. Those were times when Norman Lewis(es), Rosenblums were much more popular and more fervently bought and exchanged than Sheldons, Archers and Loodlums. Appearing for GMATs, CATs, and all other tests one needs to show a score to secure admissions in any of the prestigious institues or ivy-league. Friends only talk of the new word they picked and how they couldnt get the meaning during a test and how the meaning of the word was so improbable to guess in the example sentence that was provided. And oooh boy the folks got so 'pedantic' (see what i mean?). Any small error and there are roars of laughter, made you embarassed. And you def'ly make ita point to laugh even louder when the other person makes a teeny weeny mistake. They would get the choicest of words that probably made no sense whatsoever.

My point is using the right word at the right time, without overwhelming or confusing the reader, listener etc. How difficult can that be? A few exampes to explain my case.

GRE STUDENT : Individuals who make their abodes in vitreous edifices would be advised to refrain from catapulting perilous projectiles.
NORMAL PERSON : People who live in glass houses cannot throw stones.
 
GRE STUDENT: All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.
NORMAL PERSON : All that glitters is not gold.
 
GRE STUDENT : Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.
NORMAL PERSON : Beggars are not choosers

GRE STUDENT : Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.
NORMAL PERSON : Dead men tell no tales
 
GRE STUDENT : Neophyte's serendipity.
NORMAL PERSON : Beginner's luck
 
GRE STUDENT : A revolving lithic conglomerate accumulates no congeries of small, green, biophytic plant.
NORMAL PERSON : A rolling stone gathers no moss
 
GRE STUDENT: Members of an avian species of identical plumage tend to congregate.
NORMAL PERSON : Birds of a feather flock together
 
GRE STUDENT : Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
NORMAL PERSON : Beauty is only skin deep
 
GRE STUDENT : Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude.
NORMAL PERSON : Cleanliness is godliness
 
GRE STUDENT : It is fruitless to become lachrymose of precipitately departed lactile fluid.
NORMAL PERSON : There's no use crying over spilt milk
 
GRE STUDENT : It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers.
NORMAL PERSON : You can't try to teach an old dog new tricks
 
GRE STUDENT : Surveillance should precede saltation.
NORMAL PERSON : Look before you leap
 
GRE STUDENT : Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minim.
NORMAL PERSON : Twinkle, twinkle, little star
 
GRE STUDENT : The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation.
NORMAL PERSON : He who laughs last, laughs best
 
GRE STUDENT : Exclusive dedication to necessitous chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders Jack a betudinous
fellow.
NORMAL PERSON : All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
 
GRE STUDENT : Where there are visible vapors having their provenance in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration.
NORMAL PERSON : Where there's smoke, there's fire!

As for the title of the post ... was preparing for some exam (back in memory lane, remember?). There was some promo contest for some Cosmetic or Soap not sure I remember. They asked the best way to descibe 'Pink' and this was probably the best I could come up with. :) The love for roses goes back a long way.

Me, visiting blogville after a while. Things have got a tad bit predictable and un-happening too. After brusing off some dust and posting a link, am writing. Surely wasnt a writers block or the lack of time. Was a lack of ...... (am not able to find the right word just now) ... inclination lets say. Hoping that would change.

Thought this could help ...http://www.myfootprint.org/

---

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end.

If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters

Wont be around for a while not sure how long ....

Have fun! :)

As I spread my wings Merry tunes my heart sings Chirpy greetings said aloud To many a floating cloud I have just learnt to fly In the wonderful blue sky When tired,I rest on the branch of a tree What a joy it is to be so free. Alas! It wasnt meant to be! I now have this cage around me! How could this happen to me? How long, out here would I be? To make a home of a cage Threw me into a fit of rage Trying to break the bars Left on my wings many scars! My heart is still on song Trying to stay strong As the hope to travel a mile Seemed more and more futile Desires to fly I cannot kill, To me Time only seems to stand still, The yearning for Love I cannot quell In my very own nest, I long to dwell. Yet, here I stand alone, Worthlessness of my wings I mourn, I lead a life devoid of adventure, Friend, fun or pleasure. Greater heights my friends would scale, In comparison leaving me very pale Will there ever be an end to the pain? Will I ever fly again?

Just when it looked like forever
Seems like Life did me a favour.
The cage has now vanished.
All my sorrows have now been vanquished.

I rushed to the window sill,
Savoured the sight to my hearts fill.
I hoped to launch into a flying spree
But landed onto the branch of a tree.

The scarred wings have let me down,
But I guess I should come around
I shall be patient for
I know that Time is the greatest Healer.

I will try to erase the cage from my mind
And leave all the memories behind
Only then can I truly be free....
The Spirit shall set me free

---

PS: This took shape roundabout the time I was watching "The Count of Monte Cristo" Not really sure which lead to the other.

PPS: Just as I am wont to, I do often stuff my little head with more information than I need, And I also manage to eject some info that needs to stays. Well the blog certainly serves as a reminder, so I shall put this piece of info. Not totally relevant. Not totally redundant either.

I am not a literature student and have never heard of Neruda till someone mentioned it with glowing praise. Google helped me see why.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~agreene/Neruda.html
http://www.geocities.com/psbabusyed/neruda.html

This extract from article however had me ...amazed...to say the very least

Twelve days after the fall of the Allende Government, Pablo Neruda died. His body lay for two days in his house, which had been ransacked by the military, and his funeral became the occasion for a spontaneous popular demonstration against the military dictatorship. Neruda's biographer Adam Feinstein recounts how one morning soon after his death there was an uproar in a house where Neruda had used to live

Seems like too much of a coincidence to ignore :)

The Society to  Save the Rocks is organising a "Save the Rocks" walk the coming Sunday at 3 pm.

For further details, you could contact 2355 2923.

Another link could be of interest http://www.fullhyderabad.com/scripts/articles.php3?articlePath=visiting/hyd_rocks.htm

 

By Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted February 26, 2004

In India, the new incarnation of globalization is taking a heavy toll on its people, air, water, and land -- right down to the bedrock. A "weightless economy" can be a crushing burden.

---

When I first breathed the air of Hyderabad, a city in southern India, it was 1980. Both Hyderabad and India were regarded as "underdeveloped," in the language of that era. But hope was in the air.

The Green Revolution was staving off famine, and it would be more than a decade before thousands of farmers began committing suicide by drinking the pesticides that had bankrupted them. Smallpox was gone, and HIV had not yet arrived. Millions had reliable water supplies for the first time thanks to borewells, but underground water tables weren't yet being sucked dry. More and more of Hyderabad's rickshaw-wallahs were sitting at the controls of auto-rickshaws rather than pedaling themselves toward the grave, but the city's air had not yet turned deadly.

In 1982, I returned to the United States, leaving behind a Hyderabad that, like the rest of India, was looking for a way out of poverty without surrendering its economic independence. By 1996, when I once again came to live in Hyderabad (until 2000), Gandhian self-reliance appeared to be crumbling, and representatives of U.S., Canadian, and European companies were all over town, making joint-venture deals and trying to make them stick.

Not a part of that invasion force, I was in the city working for rupee wages -- cash, in a plain envelope -- while volunteering for a nonprofit institute and finding ways to overstay my visa. But as a fellow foreigner, I had plenty of chances to meet the business types. On arrival in the city, they were pumped up with high- and low-tech dreams, but most of them left, deflated, within months. At farewell parties that cluttered the social calendar, they would tell me, "You just can't work with these people. They are unbelievably difficult." I would suggest, to little effect, that maybe they just weren't ready to roll over, bow down, bend over backward, or perform whatever gymnastics are required of government and business people in more "business-friendly" countries.

And India's stubbornness has paid off. In recent years, the excesses of a few corporate giants like Coke have provoked ire from the Himalayas in the north to Kerala in the far south, but Western companies in the boming "information sector" are being compelled to share the spoils of exploitation with their Indian counterparts.

Hyderabad is one of the hubs of India's outsourcing revolution, with vast numbers of people now working in software development, call centers, medical transcription, and other mind-over-matter industries. If it's not your own job that was exported to Hyderabad, it may seem like a good deal all around: Western companies can improve their bottom line and charge their customers less; new Indian companies thrive; and Indian employees might see a boost in pay.

But the new incarnation of globalization that one sees today in Hyderabad, called the "weightless economy" -- economist Danny Quah's term for a country starting to traffic more in MP3s than in rice -- is taking a heavy toll on its people, air, water, and land -- right down to the bedrock.

That Was Then; This Is Then

I returned to Hyderabad yet again in the winter of 2002-03. Back in 1980, it had been a dust-brown and chlorophyll-green city, but these days, the business districts are almost completely smog-and-concrete grey in the daytime and lit up like Vegas at night. The internal-combustion engine holds Hyderabad in a grip tighter than that exerted by the long line of Nizams who ruled the city until the 1950s.

The cautious opening of India's economy has liberated enormous amounts of capital, both old and new. Today, despite the horrific traffic, you can easily reach any kind of clothing, jewelry, or appliance store, restaurant, coffee shop, pub, or, of course, car dealership without ever leaving a circular main route that traverses the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. This central loop of new, black asphalt and still-unblackened concrete is trimmed with green plants, sodium-vapor streetlights, and billboards for cell phones that are guaranteed to "change your life." But a quick turn down any side street shows that, for most people, living conditions haven't changed significantly since 1996 or 1980. A trip across the river to the Muslim Old City of Hyderabad is a 20-year trip back in time, except that the air is much worse.

If you leave the attractive central loop of asphalt and avoid Hi-Tec City, home of Hyderabad's "weightless economy," on the city's western fringe -- the same old problems persist. Lack of access to water is now an annual crisis. Last year, both major reservoirs that supply the city with water had completely dried up at least four months before the start of the monsoon in June. The April-to-June summer sees fierce competition for electricity between TVs and air conditioners in Hyderabad and irrigation pumps in rice paddies far to the south and east. Meanwhile, sanitation systems are groaning. Air quality, as quantified on scoreboards at major intersections, is frighteningly bad.

Technology, High and Low

Indians, even middle-class people, live in very close quarters with the ecological consequences of growth and consumption. But it's the super-rich in both India and America who make the economic and political decisions that set the courses of their societies, and they can afford to accumulate capital with singleminded vigor while shielding themselves from even the smallest environmental insults. Partly as a result, ecological thinking rarely figures in the economic policies of either nation. Once in a while, prospects of ecological crisis might furrow brows in Upper Manhattan or Jubilee Hills (a suburb situated high above the dense haze of the central city.) But such crises are already killing people in places like Patancheru.

About 20 km west of Hi-Tec City, too distant to be seen from the top floors of its high-rise, high-bandwidth office buildings, lies Patancheru -- a village as I knew it in 1980, now both a city and a hellish industrial park. There -- as in Hi-Tec City -- sophisticated, often expensive products are born, but in a much less appealing way. Many of the companies operating in and around Patancheru (most of them Indian-owned) are manufacturing bulk pharmaceuticals or intermediate compounds to be exported to the West for processing into finished drugs, including antibiotics and chemotherapy compounds.

When "meth labs" are busted in small-town USA, officials are faced with a dangerous cleanup of highly toxic intermediate chemicals. Many legal drugs are made from nasty intermediate compounds, too, requiring companies either to take expensive precautions during manufacture or let the dangerous steps in the process be done by companies in countries like India. And in Patancheru, despite fairly strict pollution laws, factories continue to pipe their waste directly into nearby ponds and lakes.

In addition to the poisonous intermediates, the lakes are polluted with arsenic, lead, mercury, chromium, and various pesticides. Area residents say that a boy named Namdoor, a good swimmer, dived into one of the lakes and died on the spot. Nevertheless, with water shortages common, people often find it necessary to use water from the lakes for household purposes.

Individual states in India are encouraged to compete in making deals with companies, foreign countries, and development agencies. Hyderabad is the capital of a state, Andhra Pradesh, whose Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, has become the World Bank's best pal and India's champion dealmaker. Last year, he out-hustled the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, which was to have hosted a massive new PVC-plastic plant.

The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board had banned the operation, citing the deadly chemicals that are the inevitable inputs and outputs of PVC production. Naidu was more than happy to step in and welcome the plant. But to win final government approval over environmental objections, the Indian company behind the project, Chemplast Sanmar, has recently had to develop a "public awareness campaign."

In 1980, most of the output of India's economy was biodegradeable, but today India has waded deep into the Age of Plastic. As if Hyderabad and other cities weren't already being buried under it, India has been welcoming waste plastic from around the globe, to be recycled along with mercury, batteries, old ships, computers, and incinerator ash. "Recycled" usually translates as "dumped." A journalist in Hyderabad told me that ships from European countries, governed by strict environmental laws, often dump under cover of darkness and in remote areas of India's seacoast, but U.S. waste is dumped openly, because America fears no laws anymore.

Anything that can be dumped just might be dumped. In 2002, a public outcry stopped the importation of World Trade Center rubble into India. At first, Indians were told that the shipments were just the usual sort of garbage that arrives regularly in Indian ports. As a result, more than 150,000 tons entered the country before the cargo's real origin became widely known. The intense reaction against dumping of the rubble had more to do with its karmic than its toxic content. Nevertheless, experts say that all remains of the WTC -- a nerve-center for the kind of "clean" economic growth that's fueled mainly by the global movement of electrons and photons -- contain some extremely dangerous compounds that were produced when its carpets, plastic construction materials and furnishings, computers, etc., were melted, pulverized, and incinerated.

It May Be Green, But It Still Has a Cost

To his credit, Naidu has invested heavily in parks and gardens around Hyderabad. They are open to all and very popular. But even the characteristics that we associate with desirable public and private urban spaces -- "well-lighted," "green," "freshly painted," "accessible," "clean" -- entail the consumption of resources and production of wastes.

Along the road to Hi-Tec City lies a square mile of prime real estate -- once a hunting ground for the city's ruling family -- that has been walled off as a national park where kids can see what the region was like before the goat, the plow, the automobile, and the computer. But a 30-foot swath around the perimeter of the park has been "tamed" as a walking path that attracts large numbers of fitness-conscious citizens every evening. Enclosed between beautiful gardens and high, ornate stone-and-iron fences, winding among native boulders and up and down stairways, the path took a couple of years to complete.

During construction of the path and walls, stone masons and other workers lived in cardboard-and-palm-frond huts within its boundary. By early 2003, only a few of the workers remained, putting the finishing touches on the walking path. But with the path already in use, they had been forced to crowd their huts and families onto a traffic island next to the park, spoiling the "green" view for passing motorists.

The city's parks, its central loop road, and Hi-Tec City can exist because people somewhere are breathing paint-factory fumes, sacrificing their water supply, or having their village flooded by a hydroelectric project. In the back streets of the city, conservation is still the rule: Proprietors of small shops, just as they did in 1980, make sure to keep their fluorescent lights turned off unless a customer comes in, and buildings are still allowed to turn soot-black before they are washed and repainted. But around the central loop and along the route between the airport and Hi-Tec City - the only territory seen by most foreign officials and investors - scarce water is lavished on annual flowers in the road's median (deep-rooted trees being long-gone), and huge billboards stay brightly lighted all night, each one consuming more electricity in the wee hours of one morning than a back-street shop uses in a month, or maybe a year.

One day last year, I walked along a wide, pleasant stone path that now stretches for kilometers along the shore of the Hyderabad's central lake. At one point, the path ended abruptly, where workers were busy breaking up big granite blocks in order to extend it. No one had to tell me where those blocks came from.

Scattered around the countryside near Hyderabad and far beyond are high hills - actually piles of gargantuan boulders, some as big as houses, in often bizarre and beautiful formations. That region of India has been exposed to the elements longer than most other land on earth, and those rocks, being harder and more erosion-resistant than any surrounding material, have survived for billions of years. But a decade-long frenzy of blasting, cutting, and pulverizing has flattened and scarred large parts of the countryside. In a geological or even historical eye-blink, most of the ancient rocks will be gone -- reincarnated as roads, overpasses, park walls, software towers, and mansions in Jubilee Hills.

In this way, a "weightless economy" can crush granite.

Stan Cox is a plant breeder and writer in Salina, Kansas.

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Eyes closed in slumber deep
Covered with a white cotton sheet
Never to be aroused out of sleep.

Shock and disbelief
Precede immense grief.
A grief that knew no tears,
The sobs that no one hears.

Many a friend a shoulder lend,
Awkward as they may feel
They still manage to speak
Words of faith, of hope, of prayer.

A hope for a miracle
That time go back...
Even if it were for a day
A hope that those very eyes
Would open once again.

After the final farewell,
One would learn that
Death may strike only for a moment
But leaves behind a long miserable battle
Against gloom, against sadness, against angst.

Slowly but surely,
One would learn the inevitability
Of living with the vacuum
Or better still fill it
with memories of joy
Of warm moments shared
And happy days gone by.

There are bound to be moments
When you miss people
Who have departed thus.
Fret not, they have
Messengers in huge numbers
Who come out in the night sky
Watch over you ... and twinkle!!

Ever been to an art gallery? Does anyone (other than connosieurs, collectors) want to go there? I really doubt that.

I visited one recently. What took me there? First, I was simply tired of the blank white walls staring at me and secondly, there was one very close to home.

Just as I stepped into it some people flocked around. Obviously no takers. Or we really looked like some patrons. They gave us more than detailed map of what-was-where. There was nothing for sale except for some souveinir shop in some remote corner. Fine.

Deciding that I had to make up for the Rs. 20 I spent on an entry fee .. I might as well see what I can make of it. Learn a tip or two about art appreciation, maybe.

There was a real good collection there I must say. They had a different art forms in various galleries, the more prominent ones being :-

---

Rock art

Rock art is used for drawings, paintings and engravings on the bare rocks and the walls of naturally formed caves, rock shelters and boulders. Evidence of this art form is present right from Neolithic, Mesolithic and Megalithic Ages. The challenge lies in uneven surfaces. Typical geometric figures, hand prints and what he sees around him seem to be artist's muse, which is in fact very inspiring mainly because of primitive man's desire to express through art.

Ajanta

This form is a high point in Indian Art. With the aid of simple tools like chisel and hammer, brilliant technique and conception impressive figures were carved out on the walls. These exquisite wall paintings and sculptures speak volumes of Indian art. Most of the paintings depict stories from the Jatakas and tales of Buddha. They provide insight into the lives of people of the 3rd and 4th century. Princesses and nymphs, are also elaborately portrayed.

 

Miniature art

Indian miniature painting has often been described as a 'visual chamber music'. These works are basically visual creations of emotional and perceptive aspects that depict the ragas of Indian classical music. 'Miniature' generally refers to a painting that is small in size, amazingly intricate, meticulous and delicate in brushwork. This art form thrived during the Moghul period because the rulers patronised them. The veiled women with nose-rings, wide-eyes and graceful stances may not be just an art form, but speak of immense charm of a bygone era.

 

Chugtai

His line-and-wash technique particularly favoured poetic thought. His paintings aresaid to be inspired by Persian fairy tales that wer narrated to hi m by his mother. He is said to be a pioneer in using Islamic classics to express feelings of community. An original Chugtai today is said to be a treasure.

 

Contemporary Art

With the arrival of the British, Indian painting took a new turn. This era saw the emergence of an Indo-European genre of painting. Much of the art of this era depicts the then newly emerging social and political consciousness. Most modern Indian paintings contain vivd imagery depicting the human condition in modern India. With modern techniques they express India in its diverse forms, rich in variety and respect for tradition.

 

 

It is said a picture can speak a thousand words. As a layman what would be your first impression as you look at a picture? How would you decide if a picture was worth it or not? I mean if you looked at Mona Lisa by da  Vinci or "Sunflowers" by van Gogh would you have ever thought they were masterpieces. People from the art world have deemed tham as masterpieces do we accept it at that. Many a time we have found ourselves swaying to the popular opinion and critical review without actually knowing why we like them. I think one has to go with what one feels because there is no right or wrong here. There is a popular saying that a artist/poet can tread into territories where even sun beams can never dream of entering and that would be the human mind.

Just seen replays of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Most of these ceremonies more often than not live upto the expectations .. left me with a sense of awe and bewiderment. Most of the people who watched it with me had their jaws hanging.

There was the regular breath-takingly spectacular visual and audio display which spoke of the great heritage, culture and contribution to the modern world from host country Greece(philisophy,democracy and mathematics). It might seem ironic that the event come back to the country where it was born and revived after at least 100 odd years.

It was the cheer and sense of aniticiaption from the participants from about 200 countries that proved quite infectious to the viewers as well. Must be such an honour to hold your flag and represent your country on such a magnificient stage.

But it was the moment the torch was lit and for some reason had me with the unexplicable phenomenon of goose-bumps. The torch that has travelled all over the world is finally lit keeping alive the spirit, energy and enthusiasm in pursuit of sporting excellence. The flame is said to be a symbol of noble competition, friendship and peaceful co-existence.

And finally sorry about the title(borrowed from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), may take away some enormity of the occasion but like the movie, the event seemed to be a confluence of ancient and modern, and somehow in the end left you feeling hopeful.

 

Do you want to hazard a guess as to what you would be reading in the next few minutes?

Sorry it has nothing to do with the hopeless traffic situation in Hyd, or other Indian cities or even cities across the world. Try again??

No its not about the safety measures one has to take at ones home/workplace to minimise the possibility of physical injury or damage.

I am sure your roving eyes wouldnt have missed the glaringly obvious image and you are not quite sure what it is that I am trying to tell, allow me to be so kind as to save you further trouble. Er irritation actually. [Arent I so sweet?]

Its just *drum roll* the (incomplete ;) ) title of a book I put down only recently. "Accidents like Love and Marriage". (There might be a few resultant accidents but she refrained from the topic. No prizes for guessing why it didnt quite make it to the indelible mark category. With a title like that the author could have probably done a lot more. With the aid of a family in Delhi and three other related families she tries to delve on incompatibilities that seem to be inevitably surface in almost every marriage. I must mention it was more like a light hearted bollywood movie, quite predictable and moderately funny. One thing had me thinking do people really know love and marriage to be accidents or are they wise after the event?

Finally getting to the subject I really wanted to talk about. Do I hear some sighs of relief or what. :)  "Love and Marriage"
First, Love. Aaah! What more can I say? What more can anyone say? I am so sure reams and reams would have been churned out(not only by the writers employed by greeting card manufacturers) before this blog and is likely to continue till some doomsday-like situation leaves the world in total annihilation.

Now on to marriage...hmmm and where do I begin? I am not really sure. I have nothing against the institution. Seriously! But if it were left to me I would braodly classify the world into two: married and the singletons. And the married people can further be divided into two
1) those who want everyone else to marry,[ardent matchmakers these] and 
2) those who do not want anyone else to marry.

It doesnt need an IQ level of Einstein to figure out category 1) are quite happy with the turn of events after their marriage and 2) arent. But once in a while one does tend to run into another unexplicable kind who are not happy but still want others to get married.

My take on marriage .. well seems like an inevitability if you look at it in the Indian context. How often have we heard people saying .. Aaah he is 30+ and he is still not married ? And by the end of the discussion he would in all probability be reduced to some mean worm wasting his life in sordid underground dungeon with only some moths for company. It could even be worse if it were a lady. It might take a while(maybe a decade) before we actually have characters sketches like Ally McBeal or Bridget Jones? Certainly, I am not saying they are my idols. But marriage is not the be-all or end-all of life.

Off late, I have been meeting quite some new people, ladies actually .. happens, when you move to a new locality. And another thing I am in the process of getting used to through these conversations is... the third or fourth question being as to how many (non-existent)kids I have?? aaaarrrgggghhhhhh. Roll my eyes and reply in the negative also informing them about my single status. And the kind of replies I get are pretty thought provoking.

"You dont know it but I swear you are so lucky"
"Enjoy as much as you can, you are surely gonna miss it later."
"If you ask me would I prefer being single or married, I am not sure I would be in a position to tell you?"

I am sure there is a Cupid(or a matchmaker) lurking somewhere for everyone. You need any tips to match your wits with the match maker, maybe I can help. But if its Cupid, I am getting outta here.

Here's an image that throws light (and other missiles) on the all-so-serious topic of love and marriage(to some extent).

Disclaimer: The image is an English adaptation of a cartoon by a pretty famous Telugu cartoonist by te name Bapu. Thanks to a colleague (who is quite good at photoshop) the image is in front of you.

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