me, myself and my first blog

In the middle of the night
I hear a soothing song
of the breeze whispering to the leaves
And the branches dancing along.

Why are the elements so happy?
when I'm so sad, so restless?
I search for solace in the arms of sleep;
(sigh) wasnt meant to be. Cruel and heartless!

Its so dark all around and the world,
well, goes about doing its own thing.
And the background score(leaves branches and breeze)
moves to and fro like a swing.

The day-dreams come back to haunt me
Worse than nightmares ever can.
I ask them to leave; After the night
They promise never to visit again.

I make another hapless plea,
To be blissfully unaware for the night,
And in this vain hope
shut my eyes real tight.

Eyes dont move
Images begin to fade away,
When they open again, dawn greets
bringing with it, yet another day.

If I can stop one Heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one Life the Aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

---Emily Dickinson

Was on my way home and noticed a small bird lying down. The watchman says it hit a glass structure nearby and was unable to fly. Twas pretty cold(by Indian standards at least). I could see it shivering.  It was desparately trying to fly ... back to the skies where it truly belonged. It was barely the size of half my palm. I took it home, wasnt sure what to do with it. Left it in an empty shoe-box near the balcony. Checked on it after an hour or so. It flew away. Nature took its own course.

Well, we all agree that the grey skies have strange effects on us Indians. But there is also the other side of the monsoon. Kinda like a combination of romance, gloom, hope(for all the farmers), running noses*sniff* *sniff* and other ailments, floods(in some parts of the country), damp clothes, not able to wear your favourite pair of shoes and dress, water-logged streets, children playing the throwing stones game with puddles.

For now I hope to see a ray (a few if I am lucky ) of sunshine, and let it rain cats and dogs. We need the water and how!

I think a majority of readers here, might not be too concerned bout this or maybe they are?

This, like many of my other blogs, was inspired by some conversation. Reading conversations can be boring at times, so I shall make it as short as I possibly can. Blame it on my creativity-challenged brain.

Mrs X, this middle aged lady I met at this gym. The other venues you could run into such ladies are at shopping malls, restaurants, ice cream joints, kitty-parties. This is the first time I met her so we were just doing all the small talk,
"where do you stay?"
"what do you do?"
"do you come here regualrly?"
"look at that lady. she's been on the stepper for an hour now and burnt 400 calories. she depresses me! but do you think is good to do it for so long?"

She goes on about the futility of her regular gym visits and weight reduction being an uphill task because of weekend-restaurant-food-cravings of her slightly grown up children. Their fav joints being Melting Moments or Ohris. Ahaaa calories ka addaaa those. All these excuses, I've heard a million times. I suggest maybe fruits and protein are good? She cribs, no bananas, mangoes, grapes. Only papayas, guava and watermelon are good and they are seasonal. So all that we should be living off is Love, Water and Fresh Air. :lol:

Then[bracing myself] she asks me 'Do you have grown up children?' *shock* *shock* *faint*. Twas by far the biggest blow in recent times to all my efforts in weight-reduction (and thereby looking young).

Hell No! I am not anywhere close to that age, I am not even married leave alone having kids. Damn she runined my weekend. Have not been thinking about anything ever since. Its crazy how we are always conscious about how we appear. How obsessed we are with how old we appear as compared to how old we actually are? Anyone guesses our age as less(any margin) than our actual age we go delirious... and if they guess more, the amount of misery is directly proportional to the difference[guessed age- actual age].

Looking young is always desirable. Have you ever heard anybody say "Hey I wish I look forty, must be so cool to look forty!". We have the players in the cosmetic industry raking in so much moolah because people are ready to spend obscene amounts of dough just to look young. All these slimming centres with their endless before-and-after episode advertisements promising a new, confident, slimmer, prettier, younger and what-not you! Whoever talked of beauty being only skin deep must be lying or the general public doesnt seem to agree with him/her.

So where exactly is this fountain of youth ? What does one have to do to look younger? Is it one among His favours? When I figure out, would be only happy to let you know.

Ever wondered how a one-year old would feel during his first birthday celebration. Bet ya he/she wouldnt know half of whats happening around. Sometimes I am not sure if I wud look at the Cds or photo and be proud if my parents gave me the grandest first b'day party with balloons floating all over the place and other kids enjoying camel rides??

It never happened tho. I mean my parents giving me the grandest one. I am sure there would have been some rejoicing and all ..a few snaps, a small party for near and dear.

As we begin to grow older, we realise birthdays are something to look forward to. Goodies gauranteed! New clothes, gifts, if you are lucky you get whatever you ask for...you are assured of a party unless you are born during an exam season[and end up cursing your DOB]. You also get to take sweets to school, wear colored clothes on that one day whereas the rest of the school come in uniform...and the works. These days kids get to have their parties hosted at some swanky Pizza Corner or Shoppers Stop .. [Back then, those few days we went out for pizzas were like parties]

Once past high school they begin to get more fun..more late night stuff, games, parties, B'day bums[memories of such still cause an ouch]. Out of college and into work.. things tend to get a lil more seirous. Each passing year brings more responsibilty, more goals. A job one year, a car the next, a house 10 yrs down the line. Getting married somewhere in between :). Each birthday is like a milestone towards each goal. After a point, certain people start getting jittery about age. That one grows older is ineveitable, and looking at the other option I'd choose the former. Funny tho, that the looking-forward-to factor of birthdays drastically reduces with age. An amazing exception being a man I saw at a pub recently. Whole of 75 yrs and danced with his grand daughter with gay abandon, putting all guys on floor to shame. :)

Back to b'days, this is for someone who just turned 28 today, loves music and is indifferent to CnH. Cheers..*raises a toast*. Bash on regardless!

"I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within.  It is there all the time."   -- Anna Freud

"How odd the human race is - so alike and yet so different! We are capable of working together, build the Pyramids in Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the cathedrals of Europe and the temples of Peru. We can compose unforgettable music, work in hospitals, create new computer programs."

"But at some moment all this loses its meaning and we feel alone, as if we belonged to another world, different from the one we have helped to build."

"At times, when others need our help, we get desperate because that prevents us from enjoying life. And then there are other times when nobody needs us and we feel useless."

"But that is the way we are, complex human beings just beginning to understand ourselves; it's no use despairing on account of that." - Ken Casey

Well, the title might lead you believe I am gonna talk about some person called Mr Abbas Ali. I request you to be patient and hang on.

English is such a weird, funny and eccentric language. The words, pronounciation, the history, influences from languages across the world play havoc on anyone trying to learn it. The grammar, idioms, phrases et al dont do much to mitigate the pandemonium. Those who have seen episodes of 'Mind your language' would definitely agree. Even Eliza Doolittle of My Fair lady had a major trouble with a phrase as simple as 'The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain'.

The first time I was introduced to the idiosyncrasies of the language was when I was 6 [maybe]. Just learning to read... was told to read the newpaper(instead of asking pesky questions). Now at that age you would prolly be used to bat, mat cat or more simpler words. The day I chose to pick the paper I had good fortune of having the headlines of a particular country called Egypt. Now how was I to know how Egypt was pronounced? Since I was asked not to ask too many questions I tried to break it down to manageable proportions.

Egypt look at the word from an 6 yr old viewpoint.

Eg-ypt ?? Ok Eg could be tackled as egg but how do pronounce ypt? Maybe the newspaper guys made a mistake. Was still stuck with egg and just as I figured pyt could be pronounced pet, my mom passed by. Having done all the hard work I had to know if I was anywhere close to being right. I slowly mumbled Egg-pet. Mom came to me calmly hiding all her disbelief and controlling all her laughter. She asked me to repeat what I said. She was deceptively calm. Not sure, I went ahead and repeated myself with a shade of doubt as well as disguised aplomb. Little did I know  then that those words were to be etched as one of the finest and memorable goof-ups in family. Till date, if anyone is a lil upset, one word[egg-pet] is bound to have them ROTFL.

Another such incident in a science classroom. Of course science and geography classes had maximmum number of mis-pronounciation incidents. In a biology class the teacher asked me to read aloud some section of wildlife in India. All was fine till I came to the word, bustard.

Out in the city, one does find so many banners having words that are either being mis-spelt and mis-pronounced. People do make an attempt to speak in the language and it ends us confused more than anything. pelain, geroove, pesdo (instead of plain, groove and pseudo) ... sure does crack us up.

A friend once vistied an Irani cafe during some cricketing season. India was batting and an opener got out. The guy who serves tea said "Abbas Ali, Sachin is gonna come." It leaves my friend (and his friends) perplexed. Who is this new guy in Indian cricket? Abbas Ali? Only one guy got out why are two coming? After a few exchanges, it finally bulbed that Abbas Ali was infact, his way of saying obviously.

Why do we play games. simple ..coz all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy[and Jill a boring girl].

Fortunately [not completely though, wait and you'll know] for me, I had real sporting parents. My father would try ANY sport in ANY corner of the world (unless, of course, it involved a chainsaw). He would pick up the nuances and strategies before you could snap your fingers. His attitude was equally amazing. Basketball, swimming, carroms, chess, billiards he excelled at all of them. During a game his temperment was unflappable. However weak  his partner be, he would more than make up and worse still made it look so easy. Skill, confidence and temperment to me are the key ingredients to success in sport. Killer instinct would probably have to be there but I never saw him show it. Its also not like he never lost games, but it never mattered to him as long as he knew he played his best. There was only once I remember seeing him grouch over a loss, to somebody 15 years younger to him [whom all the spectators were cheerin] over a game of billiards in the final of some tournament. It was beyond me as a kid but maybe now I can vaguely understand why he reacted the way he did.

My mother was a different kinda sport. She had a good dose of enthu and never-say-die. And if things got worse, she'd just bend the rules. Was always fun to play chess with her as kids, She actually made us take back moves till things were like ok for her. And we couldnt argue with that. Always kept us on our toes as to which rule she would pick up to bend.

So naturally there was quite a lot of sports and fun as we grew up. But sadly for me of the three key ingredients I seem to have inherited only the spirit. Which is not that bad, except that I end up embarassing myself way too often. Like off late I've started playing baddminton and TT a bit more regularly. Have had more than my share of frustrating moments.

In badminton,very often you drop the shuttle[obviously on the other side of the net] low so the opponent can only lift it, and you can go for a kill by smashing....only thing is it goes way too high and we hover around the point we aniticipate it, gather all momentum, make a huge swirl for the racquet to hit air and the shuttle lands beside your shoes. Error in judgement, or timing or both! Might as well forget about making a smashing impression.

As for ping pong, simple rallies are fine. The moment the person on the other side spins the ball, I look as graceful as Daryll Cullinan(or any non-pinch hitting South African except Lance Kluesner) facing Shane Warne! Choppin or slicing the ball again, never managed to get the hang of it. Never played tennis, but seems like I do have semblances with one of my fav sports woman Steffi Graf. No its not poise, power or looks as much as a weakness at tackling back hand. Yep an Achilles heel alright!

All said and done I refuse to pack my sporting equipment and gear.  Many people do accuse me of not playing to win... are they blind? Cant they see all the odds stacked up against me. They say there is no point playing unless you want to win. Well my friends I'm afraid there is. Playing IS fun. And thats the whole point.

.. is something everyone looks forward to. But then they say its the only thing that is constant in life. If its constantly happening why do we fail to notice it?

Is it like a grain of sand in an hourglass, miniscule, insignificant and unperceivable? And over a period of time becomes stark and irreversible.

How many times have we not pressed the rewind button on our lives, paused and done then-and-now analysis? And how, in the past we have never imagined that we'd be as we are today!

Life really is full of surprises. Never ceases to amaze you. And no matter how much you crib, complain about the lack of it, change is very much there. Only you cant see it.

Reminds me of lyrics of a song I heard recently:

raste na badle, na badlaa jahaan
phir kyon badalte kadamb hain yahan ...

Have you ever fely insanely happy? Insane because there seems no real reason to be happy. Does one need a reason to be happy? Guess not...of course not!

Not sure if its the grey skies, the drizzle on your face or the lively green all around. Or even the cool breeze that flows right through you ...

Its more pleasurable if one were to feel thus on a Monday morning!

I hope its not just me ............

Women have a raw deal dont they? Right from the time Eve consumed the forbidden fruit ...

Over the last few decades, women have strived to come out, made their lives better. They have fought their battles, sometimes they won sometimes they havent.

To me, the essence of emancipation lies in being able to make a choice or a decision. To have the freedom to do what she pleases with her life. Education is probably her first step in knowing the options, and trying to make her more independent. She is empowered with knowledge and also with a sense of independence, can secure a job and support herself.

I am limiting the discussion only to the Indian context. A girl graduates and what is the immediate concern of her parents? One word - marriage. They have been saving every penny so that they can get her a good qualified, well-to-do groom. If she has younger sisters she should marry in a hurry so that the sisters line is clear! Now all educated people know dowry is against the law. The only reason where dowry can be justified is the couple being newly married might need some additional cash to settle down. But no, wedding ceremonies are all a big farce where the emphasis (more often than not)is on ostentation. And the brides parents are to bear the lions share of all the expenses involved. Why, because the grooms parents  have spent a penny too many on their sons education or on their daughters' marriages. As if the govt provided free life long education to all women. huh!

Ok lets assume marriage is done happily no major dowry hassles and stuff. The educated middle class girl wants to work too. Sometimes in-laws object.  Sometimes they dont. When they dont, they crib about the girl neglecting family etc. Lets keep the saas-bahu warfare out for a while and just concentrate on the girl. Let me illustrate the case with two examples

Case Study 1:- Girl from middle class family. Good at acads. Does her post graduation from reputed institute. Secures job. Is commended  by her boss for her acumen and leadership skills. Sends her abroad. Girl gets promotion and lands in a nice position. Father thinks its high time she got married. Finds her nice groom. They get married. Groom works in city A. Bride works in City B. Father tries to help.. tells groom to see how long it will work? Groom doesnt listen. Bride wants to work but lands in City A cutting veggies and making rotis so that Groom is very happy. Who cares how happy she is?

Case Study 2:- Girl again from a middle class family. Girl does professional course. Girl is encouraged by parents. Girl gets married. Girl makes it through post-graduation exam with good score. In-laws not willing to help finance. Ok parents sponsor further education. Girl has a child. Husband has a business in his hometown. Waits to wind it up so that both can move to the city. Girl wants to work in city. Husband cant wind up business immediately. She gets herself a job in the city but stays neither with her child or her husband. How happy can she be?

These are only two isolated cases. What is more disturbing is the incidence of such cases in educated classes. It could be far more prevalent in the uneducated  lot! And laws in India do not address many core issues. Like single motherhood, domestic violence, abuse, harassment. Even if such crimes are committed they never come out in the open for fear of disrepute! I know a lady who has fought for the custody of her child for 10 long years and all she gets in the end is some piddly Rs 3500/ a month till the child is 14. After that another case!

There is another more pragamatic angle to this emancipation deal. Lets assume husband being in the driving seat and wife sitting beside happily. Over a period of time husband gets edgy and time and again gets used to stopping the car and uncerimoniously dumping her and taking off. Never showing his face back. The lady tries to remedy the situation and stands up, goes and get herself a car learns driving and manging her own affairs. Now assume husband driving his own car and wife driving her own and they take off onto the journey called life. The biggest casuality would most certainly be "Communication". After all everything comes with a price!

Been close to a month since we moved and have almost settled down now. Was fun tho .. having two to-do-lists everyday and a check list at the end of the day.

Work has been pretty hectic off late not enough leisure to gather thoughts and pen them down. The most common cliched complaint one has with their life, I guess [ no time ]

My mind wanders back to the day we were moving. We hired some packers 'n movers. They landed at 12:00 two guys from the packers and two people hired as help. The guys who were packing did their job meticulously and wrapped all the furniture and expesive electronics in some kinda packing material. It took them a while 5 and half hours. All the baggage was packed and placed close to the truck.

Now the scene was like this at roundabout 7pm there was we(the family), the packer guys, the labour fellows and the luggage all below. And guess what happens, the labour fellows refuse to help out. They say their times is up. What the Hell ............? 30 min into the hartaaal and all attempts to convince the pig headed labour guys were in vain. Even extra pay. They refused to budge. We naturally were in a state of panic. We were tired, running late and werent sure when we could arrange the stuff and relax. Things like these hit you when you least expect and easiest thing to do was to press the panic button. All we could do was stand and stare at the stuff in front of us and ...

We hired a cab to drive us over to the new house. He looked around and all became obvious. The cabby too tried to convince those pig headed fellas but to no avail. He volunteered to load the stuff and told the packer guys to cheer up. And the three fellows loaded a houseful of stuff cartons, furniture, electronic goods and all ..including pots of indoor plants etc etc. I dont know how he did it but when all seemed hopeless and tiring, he made it look easy. Everyone was now rejuvenated and managed to complete the stuff.

We drove in the cab alongside the truck. A few observations seemed imminent. Like no matter how well you plan, things could definitely go wrong. Pig headed people are bound to be there in any situation. Or normal people can turn out to be pig headed for no rhyme or reason. And then you also have another breed who, out of the blue, manage to re-assure you even when things seem hard.

That night was pretty long ... re-organising whatever was immediately necessary although we wanted to crash almost instantly. The packers were honest and the cabby, well he was the saviour for the day. Of course we tipped them all well.

Right now, I seem to press the panic button way too many times.. I think it just got jammed, refuses to work. Tells me, I must be patient and learn to deal with situations in a better way.

A lil bit of cheer will definitely help, I say.

Suddenly the music stops and the lyrics refuse to flow. It happens even to the very best, I am told.

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again. -Oscar Wilde

I dont have much to write home about today, and yes if you think I am spamming, well maybe I just am. Adding to my post count... hee hee! After this I would just check on my blog at least 40 times a min to add to the hit count. So if you want me to stop uncessarily adding to the hits go ahead and add a comment. ;)

There have been plenty of new blogs floating around. The free lunchers should be happy! But do these new blogs sate your appetite? And sometimes there is a risk of overeating ....a huge list of things that can happen after that. Those with a diss-advantage(no typo that) should be delirious with so much of fresh blood up for grabs. But are they meaty enough, anyones call.

All I can say, the more the merrier, go ahead ppl blog on. Who knows maybe you will get better with time, maybe you wont, but at least you tried. And you'd (and hopefully we'd) prolly be richer by the experience.

When you get the gym into your routine and then somehow let it get out .. you feel sick! You wish you hadnt let go of such a groovy habit, knowing you will be stuck with pangs of super guilt whenever you feed those mean monsters who make your tummy their home and the taste buds their hunting ground. Surely, only the gym can squelch them.

So, you finally make up your mind to find your way back, hunt for a nice cosy lil one(ooops wrong word gyms are anything but that) that fits into your scheme of things. Dont you forget to check out the weirdo factor of the ppl who come there! 

Day one, you do all the standard warm ups, stretches, sidebends, touchdowns etc for about fifteen min...not bad you'd think. Start checking out the machines one by one ... the stepper, the treadmill, the cycles, the twister wow ... the machines all looked good and they surely get more sophisticated with time. There are so many more but since I can spend only 1/24 th of a day, I ignore the rest.

Enter your weight?
Choose work out type...
Set Time
Set Distance

The guy who runs the place has a TV screen and puts the Itv channel. I wonder if it is to have a motivational effect on the ppl who come there (not just the music mind you )... there must be a visual aspect too ..all those pop videos and endless doses of eye candy. Gee we all get dreamy eyed dont we ... gimme a month and I am gonna give all those remix queens and VJs one helluva run for their money.

So this being my first day after a long time, josh levels are soaring. And like an everyready battery I just go on and on hopping from one machine to another. Even the instructor was perplexed. He couldnt quite figure out if I was a newbie or this was another flash in the pan visit. But discouraged we shall not be. We just went about our own thing, as always.

And after a good amount of huff-puff the screen displayed your heart-rate, distance, time taken  and calories burned. After all that the calorie count was dismal like 30. There must be something wrong. Do they want me to starve or something??

The instructor came upto me and gave me a whole list of options that they provide yoga,  aerobics, cardio kick boxing, power yoga, personalised counselling and many other. Having so many choices surely makes life soooo complicated. I just responded with 'will think about it' (one pulled out from my standard set of responses when people try to sell me an idea I dont really want to buy)

Was pleased as punch after useful and exremely sound investment of an hour and a lot of sweat. I had a spring in my stride and was sure I was right back on track.

But the pleasure was shortlived. Only for a night, that is. Come morning, the first hurdle was getting up. Any side the right side, wrong side .... movement of a single muscle required monumental effort. Rise and shine!! How was I going to get thru the rest of the day?? How?? Its a miracle I got through till now and believe me when I say my knuckles are the only joints that arent complaining.

..am still in terrible pain, muscles, joints, psyche all of them hurt. And if you've been to a gym after a 6 month break I am sure as hell you know what I am talking about.

And oooops I just dropped my pen. Will somebody pleaase pick it up.....phleeeez ???

Tomorrow is another day.......... (I dont even wanna think about)

And yes, another favour...try not to tell me anything that's terribly funny.

• the total medals tally against India in the Olympics runs in double digits with at least one gold.[not really sure if i'm asking for too much]

• there would be no examinations. Of course many of us are past the age but I hope they discover a better way to assess students [with greater emphasis on learning than performance in exams]

• competitive exams are leakage-proof.

• people have better sense, any sense will do civic, traffic, common, dress .....

• people in power are less corrupt.

• there is an abundance of water in the whole of South India.

• the rich-poor divide gets to manageable proportions

• I could do a cart-wheel during a flight take off :P. like that will happen, they wont even let me stand :)

• clocks dont rule our lives. I hope 24 hours to be sufficient to get enough done in a day.

• life is a heady mix of leisure and hectic activity

• when healthy food(like subs for instance) costs less.

• I encounter fewer weirdos ;)

• I get fewer SMS frwd jokes and more typed SMSes or phone calls. [Blame it on the Hutch guys really, there are times when i get the same joke from the same person a good 5-6 times]

• when they have paragliding somewhere close to Hyd......

• I can tell myself "I've done more than I could today and have less to do tomorrow" every night ~sigh~

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