Magic

You can feel - love's around you,
Like the sky round the moon.
This is how love has found you -
Now you know what to do.

Song: When You Know
Artist: Shawn Colvin
OST: Serendipity (2001)

Beauty

Saw the most gorgeous sun rise early morning today while driving - life is simply beautiful :)

You ask

Questions – sometimes I have no answers to some of them. Such questions have been coming my way of late - from various people - which have taken me aback for a while – left me wondering.

Describe yourself in one word
I don't know – I would say I am stupid. I make mistakes and DO NOT learn from them. I repeat them - again and again. I am here writing about the fact that I repeat my mistakes and I am sure that I will still not learn and repeat some of my mistakes - so yea, stupid is the word.

Am I beautiful/ugly
What does one say when some one asks you such a question? All I can say is that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Beauty means different things to different people – it might be looks for some – intellect for some one else – sense of humour for yet another – so beauty can be perceived in a number of ways. Each person is beautiful in their own special way. You need to love yourself for what you are – whether some one thinks you are beautiful or not – frankly – how does it matter to you in any way?

How can you leave your parents and just run away to US – being a single child?
I admit I have been feeling pangs of guilt thinking about it – the fact that I am in some way ditching my parents’ big time and just leaving them alone here and running away. But on second thoughts, I would like to believe in my parents – believe the fact that they are strong, independent and smart people who can very well take care of themselves – I would not like to perceive them as weak, old, emotionally drained people. So yea, am sure they will be just fine even in my absence.

Why do your blogs and your emails read so different?
Frankly, I am not sure I understood the question right but my first reaction was – laughter. I don’t know – was it hinting at plagiarism – or double standards – or what – but I was laughing – big time. Well – my blog is what I think – I write what I think – simple. I don’t know if what I write is heavy serious stuff or total nonsense – but I write when something touches me or when I want to remember a particular incident or feeling. My emails – well – I talk – a lot at times – nothing at times – am moody – am unpredictable – like so many others. So when I write emails, I talk – and you don’t talk serious stuff and mind your P’s and Q’s in an email I guess – at least I don’t :)

Will you ever come back to India?
Of course – you can take the Indian out of India, but you can’t take the India out of an Indian – that’s so true. I will definitely be back – but if asked for a time frame – I will just count the spiders on the wall across me.

What will you miss the most about India as a country?
I have never been away from India so I have never got a chance to miss it. I might have an answer to that once I am away from India. But I will miss the people here more than any particular thing I think.

Define love.
Wonder why people think I might have an interesting answer to this question just because I read few books and write some stuff! Well, I once tried to define it here – but ended up nowhere . It remains a mystery to me – and I like it that way I guess. But yea, love changes you forever – for better or worse – that varies from person to person. Usually, love is always your strength – never your weakness. Any love which makes you weak is not love – its an addiction - a need. So, my definition of love is that - love is strength.

Why don’t you like Bottles&Chimney?
Am stumped! Yea, its true - I don’t like the place - all my friends love it - I don't - it’s a fact. I have my reasons - very logical and solid ones, but they are better left unsaid – so there.

Can you be friends with some one you love/loved?
Honestly, depends on how selfless your love can be – and its totally upto an individual – so there is no one-word answer for this. Ask me this question – I’d say yes – but from what I have been hearing, I realise that different people think differently about this subject.

All you need is love

If I am a traveller I need not to journey across the land.. If I am a voyager I need not to cross the vast ocean.. and if I am captain I need not to soar throughout the blue sky.. for I need not to go anywhere but beside you.. because when I'm with you.. I already see the world.

~ Mark Aaron A. Corrales

Is this what I am going to feel?

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.

~ Jack Kerouac in 'On the Road'

Jobless!

A friend sent me this questionnaire - was fun - I had an awesome time filling it - hope u have fun reading it :)

1. You can whistle and steam can whistle, so why do you sing in the shower?

Coz steam won’t sing for me

2. The first time you had your shoes taken off - how surprised were you to see that you still had toes?

As surprised as I was when Mimoh’s first movie was a flop – totally expected.

3. Describe the sound of a moist waffle falling onto a hot griddle.

I don’t know – teeth chattering – me singing - mice giggling – dogs barking – frogs croaking.

4. Try making up the rules to a game where you tie knots in a yo-yo string just to see if you can get them out.

I don’t think am that jobless YET! I would rather play ludo.

5. You get to ride the big roller coaster three times in a row. What will keep your dad from taking a bite out of your candy apple?

Telling him that I saw our dog lick that candy apple.

6. Foxes are clever and tigers are cunning. So, what's your cat's safety school?
The Feline School of Sheer Nonsense.

7. Lionesses have no manes. How do they know when they're grown up?
I bunked all the biology classes in school – sorry!

8. Your bow is not broken but you've run out of arrows? How can you fake being a bard?
Bard is a poet right??? Jokes apart, is it Bard or Bart Simpson???

9. You forgot your mom's birthday!! What can you make out of super glue and olive pits?
A cake??

10. What's the best time you've ever had licking stamps?
Just after I watched Dead Poet’s society. Watching that movie was more boring than licking stamps I guess :)

11. If you could peer far enough into the night sky, you'd see a star in any direction you looked. When would you sleep?
Duh! When I close my eyes.

12. You have to dig a hole to China, where to you start?
From your ear

13. When you hesitate before hitting snooze on your alarm clock, are you being lazy?
No – am being abnormal.

14. You've written a hit musical! How will you avoid having fame go to your head?
By reminding myself that even Himesh Reshamiya has hit music to his credit even though he sucks!

15. The children are waiting! Please tell them the story about the bald frog with the wig.

Long long time ago - a frog was hungry – he ate his hair – he became bald. That’s how he was called the bald frog. The fish gifted him a wig – he ate his wig and the fish – and he ruled the pond happily ever after – the end.

16. You're trapped in a well with a goat and a slinky. Describe how you will escape.
Sing in my most “melodious” voice so that all the creatures in the well will throw me out of it within seconds. I am alive – am alive :P

17. If you were a pirate, how would you avoid laughing when saying poop deck?
Is it necessary to avoid laughing?

18. Your hand has been replaced by a rubber stamp. What does it say?
Mera bharat mahaan - am serious – dead serious.

19. Whoops! Your tongue is now a magnet. Whatever will you use for silverware?
I will eat with hands – good old Indian way :)

20. Your superpower is that you smell like dandelions whenever someone lies. How will you maintain your secret identity?
Always carry a porcupine with me coz porcupines stink!

21. Your pajamas have duckies on them. Why did you switch from choo-choos?
Coz I moved out of Lebanon and now wanna be accepted by the Iranians.

22. What's the earliest you've gotten up to watch cartoons and what did you see?
5 AM. The hindi news on Aaj Tak.


23. You've got to make contact with the alien leader. How will you tell when the conversation is finished?
When I feel like slapping the guy who arranged this meeting with the alien leader in the first place.

24. What reason do you have to believe the earth is flat?
I like to be referred to as a conservative grandma. Makes me feel very special.

25. Your people want to make a statue in your honor. What will it be made out of and what victory will it commemorate?
Cream and sugar – victory of the dog over the cat in my neighbourhood.

26. If mud is dirt plus water, what is clay?
Clay is fun timepass!

27. Which is easier to make a model airplane out of and why: a banana peel or a wet sock?
A banana peel - coz U get to eat the banana before u can start making the airplane with the peel.

28. What would you wear for camouflage if you were hiding in a gingerbread house?
Something brown – duh duh duh!

29. For your birthday, your aunt gave you a maple syrup dispenser shaped like a rooster. Please write her a thank-you note:
Dear aunt- thanks for your gift. Please don’t send me a gift next year – gift vouchers will do :)

30. You have a red jar of cedar chips. Why do moths miss the forest?
The moths did not tell me – how would I know then? Lemme guess - coz they died?

31. Radio wire is often used to make bird nests. What station do they listen to?
The voices in Bart Simpsons’s head?? I heard its awesome entertainment.

32. Why do you think honeydew is the money melon?
Coz apples are the king of the forest.

33. What did you dream when you ate a spider while sleeping?
I dreamt that Mimoh was the reigning superstar of Indian cinema.

34. You've rented a sky-writer to propose to your significant other, but it's completely overcast. What will you do?
Do the frog jump in the rain?? No? Sounds like fun right?

35. The hair from your last haircut ... what would it say about your new style?
Tra la la lalalala

36. How do you pronounce the 'g' in bologna?
The ‘g’ is silent right?

37. In the dream where you show up to school naked, why do you never go swimming?
Coz I prefer to keep things practical n realistic even in dreams - when did you ever swim to school????

38. If there's no I in team, why is there meat?
I think coz there is a mirror around somewhere :)

39. What spells can you cast with magic markers?
Let’s not hope for much here – “spell”ings are all you get out of magic markers.

40. When you've got water stuck in your ear, how do you get it out?
Put your head in an oven and wait for the water to evaporate.

Did I dazzle you?

I had a 1590 on my SAT, I got a 44 on my MCAT, and I have a 4.0 GPA from MIT. I thought I had my life mapped out, but then I remembered what my non linear equations professor once told me, always account for variable change... I let down my good friends, but as it turns out, they weren't too bad at simple math either. I scored the prettiest girl in school. I got beaten down by an old school Vegas thug who was having trouble excepting his retirement, but I worked out a deal with him that got him a nice pension... And I lied to my mother, but I confessed a lie and well, she still loved me... So my senior year of college I joined this team and I learned this new skill. I went to Vegas 17 times to use it. I made hundreds of thousands of dollars counting cards. And then I had it all stolen from me, twice... How's that for life experience professor? Did I dazzle you? Did I jump off the page?

~ Ben Campbell in 21 (2008)

Heal the world

That's what hunger does to millions of people - some where - every day.


Make this site or this site your home page and you can make a difference to someone's life. Do your bit in healing the world - everyday - it's just a click away.

"Great art picks up where nature ends"

Google tells me it's Marc Chagall's birth anniversary today. When you first hear it, his name does not strike a chord but ever seen Notting Hill? This post will definitely remind you of Chagall if you are a huge fan of Notting Hill - like me :) On an honest note, I never quite understood his art - his definition and usage of symbolism was a little weird according to me - using goats, cows, horses and what not - somehow he did not seem conventional or normal. But he once said - "In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love." Yeah, he had his quirks - but he was weird, queer, wise man awrite :)

H-A-P-P-Y-N-E-S-S

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking: How did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue. And maybe we can actually never have it, no matter what. How did he know that?

~Christopher Gardner in The Pursuit of happyness (2006)

Frankly speaking

Marriage - why don't some people understand the weight - true meaning - essence - of this word. Everyone is in a hurry to get married - but do they know what they are signing up for - I don't know. I have seen many friends get married in front of me and most of them are sad - bored - tired. No logic exists - no words can explain it - no silence can justify it - the suffocation of a marriage going bad.

Who can one blame - the wife - the husband - the parents. I don't understand arranged marriages - they somehow mostly don't work in today's world. Don't get me wrong - am not supporting love marriages blindly - but come on - you at least know what you are signing up for - if things go wrong or right, you are at least living the consequences of decisions made by you. In an arranged marriage - you live some one else's decision - is it fair - is it right - I don’t know.

One advice to any guy who would care to listen - treat your girls with respect - they are smart, intelligent girls - treat them well - if you can't make them smile - at least don't hurt them with your words and actions - when you marry a girl, she does not become your slave - get that into your head first. All adjustments are not to be done by the girl alone - learn to adjust for Pete’s sakes!

For girls - adjust with your guys - but not at the cost of your self-respect. It's wrong to take things lying down beyond a certain point. Respect him but don’t forget to respect yourself for what you are - don't let any guy tell you how you are supposed to live your life.

Yep - I have spoken my mind - I can only imagine the helplessness of the two partners involved - pray for them - talk to them. They have to help themselves out - to make things work.

Hilarious

Disclaimer: To maintain the flow of the post, I have forgotten modesty momentarily and have gone ahead and typed the kind adjectives used by friends for me - excueeeej me :)

Recently, a conversation went something like this -

G: Hey – wonder wot’s up with V man! He’s going to BITS, Pilani! Told ya – he’s one fundoo freak!

R: Serious! Cool man! We slog it out in Bhavan’s while he’s off to Pilani – man some people just have it all….sigh

G: Not all that bad man – almost all studs out of BITS have big heads – all snobs – snooty weirdos – show offs I tell ya.

R: Hmm….you are right. Maybe we are not in that bad a place in life after all. Look at us - look at Dollz - we are modest, down-to-earth people – we wouldn’t have been like that - if we were from say BITS or IIT – right?

Me: I am not so sure about that :)

R: Ya right! BTW, which college are you from anyways?

Me: (after a long pause and a grin) BITS, Pilani :)

Long silence followed by laughter – these are definitely good times I say :)