bahUt soChna pAdta haI!

this has been the feedback on my blog! when friend number three said the above mentioned quote - i realized i had to take friends one and two seriously! friend number three added salt to the wound by saying - i generally skim throught the blogs, yours i skim even more; its a little difficult to understand you see, its like someone's writing in The Economic Times! looking at my crestfallen expression, the person hastened to add - no, no, it's not that tough, its just a little heavy - not simple and smooth you see... after this her voice dwindled and words fumbled when she realized that if looks were daggers, mine would've massacred her by then!!! ;) anyways, to add to the burden, friend number four decided to tell me -
'heyyy....that was cool...i didn't understand most of what you have written otherwise....but its very cool...i can never express myself so well....'! and since his comment was totally unconnected to the previous three comments, i gave in to the 'critics'! or at least am giving in to them today! ;)

so - this post is short and sweet and as simple and smooth flowing as i can make it....

with that, i come to the end of today's post. :) i'll just add - life's looking good again today, but well, now i've become wiser - i've realized ......oh no!!!! here i go again!!!!!!!

to simplicity.... ;)

Weird days are here again...

I've realized a blog is the best way to keep a record of your mood swings! Wasn't it just last Tuesday that life was looking up? All beautiful, hunky-dory? Well what's happened today? Little tensions, ambiguities, distance, sickness, break ups, arguements and negative comments can go such a long way in contributing to a downer!

Why is it that loved ones can exert such great emotional control over us? Is this what we called 'moh-maya'? Is this what one needs to free oneself from? I guess so....

As I'd strarted to write this piece, my mood was in the pits. Its very surprising, coz it was a very productive day at work and I'd had pleasant exchanges with everyone in office. But some things that had happened over the weekend seemed to creep their way into my consciousness and collectively pulled my mood down. Man - what immense power! I'm just imaginig - if this energy were actually converted into mechanical / electrical energy, there would be no short supply of energy in this world! The cumulative negative energies of the world would be enough to sustain mankinds needs, and we'd keep the natural reserves untouched!!! Lol!!! What a weird thought!! Lol!!

Anyways, as I end this piece, I'm once again buoyant. All thanks to a phone call - this friend's getting married and seeing his transformation from an unaffected bachelor/fun loving boy to a loving, demonstrative fiance-to-be, is very very amusing and beautiful!

To happiness, beauty and 'paanch paise ka farak nahi padta' attitude to negativities!

as a post script to the post below:

'Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labour, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!' (Dr Zhivago)

couldn't find a more paradoxical finale to the 'quotes' post! :)

catch you later my dear blog!

quOteS...

i realize that travel is the best medicine for a mind pining to be with itself! it gives the mind ample time and space to indulge in itself... and oh, what a creature the mind is! i guarantee that it can beat any glutton in its capacity to gorge and indulge! :)

well, today my mind got its much needed dose. as i blocked the world out... my mind started giving me some interesting company. somehow, today it decided to focus itself on things people have said which have left a deep impact on it. this blog is dedicated to a few of those...

charles chaplin, or charlie chaplin as he's more famously known, was a beautiful, interesting and very intelligent man. a month or so back, i'd bumped into a picto-biography on him. will dedicate another blog to that and his life, coz here i'll just concern myself with something he said that left me speechless. he said - 'a perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustations, because it is more than one can express' . i cannot agree with him more... and, i cannot wish enough to experience this frustration...

another statement that comes to my mind is something SRK once said in an interview. he said 'if i have to choose between a quickie and peace of mind, i'll choose the latter...' or something to this effect. simple words, powerful thought. the reason this has had such a profound effect on my mind is that i believe it has yet another aspect to it, besides the stated - that the implications of any action should be well thought out and considered before indulging in it. i believe every action creates its own effects. every one of these effects constitutes our karmic quotient. as such, on a personal level, i believe that this thought should apply to just about every aspect of my life.

then, there's something i was reading a few days back in a book called 'questions from the city, answers from the forest' by Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu. ASB is a/an (american) buddhist monk. a question was asked of him, about how this (a) person could not stick to his vows (his new year resolutions!). as i could just so relate to this question, i read on... there are two very beautiful things that came out in his answer. one, that the person who made this vow isn't the same one who breaks it. wisdom, which is a positive energy, generated the vow, and ignorance, which is a negative energy, generated the breach. the second thing he said, which really really surprised me was this - he said that when we decide to change our behaviour, it is useful if we take a little time to perform a ritual to underscore the commitment to change. to a cynic, any ritual looks silly and feels embarrasing, but for someone who knows how to use them, rituals mark a moment in time with a powerful gesture. the moment they mark is now, for change only happens in the present moment. we add weight to our intention when we include spiritual elements in the ritual. there was a lot more to his answer, but i'll keep it to this, as i now come to the reason why this has got mentioned here. the very next day after reading this, there was an interesting discussion happening among us friends on marriage - 'should marry, shouldn't marry. the one thing that kept coming up was, what's the use of marrying, just have a live in...it's the same thing, why marry?' .. why marry indeed, i thought? what after all is the difference between marrying someone and living in? the saat pheras? the vows?..... and that's where the above answer took the most astonishing shape in my mind. suddenly, i understood it all - suddenly i felt the gravity and meaning of these rituals. for the first time in my life, i got a solid answer to this question.....

to many meaningful rituals and successful vows...

nothing specific to put up today.... so no title, no structured thoughts.....

lots of things whizzing in my mind and i'm in no mood to lead them to a conclusion....

the day started with me wondering what's the essential difference between a maharaja and a raja...got no answers yet...

then... was hearing an english (american) number, which had a nice humming in b/w and it suddenly struck me, that the way i enjoy this humming will be so different from an american... coz there are a million subliminal reactions that constitute any response to a particular stimuli, and each of these reactions is product of a multitude of socio-cultural exposures.... at that moment i wished that there was a way in which one could verbalize exactly what one 'feels'......

life's changed from one extreme to the other in a span of days... how?... it's just been taking me by surprise, and it seems to have gone past so fast, that i haven't had the time to catch even a few moments and savour these changes... so much... so much... i don't want the good times to whizz by so soon...:) hmmm, may they last an eternity :)

ah, and fnally... is writing a blog actually a means of attracting attention? a comment to this effect came from a friend yesterday.. it set me thinking.. yes of course a lot of people are reading it.. so, one does become conscious.. but upon futher pondering.. i realized... a blog need not necessarily be a diary... that would then in a way justify the comment... but a normal blog?.. well no...i guess i don't agree.

to questions, insights and learnings....

weeKeNd leArnIngs...

This weekend, I bumped into an interesting book- 'The History of Writing'. What's interesting, is that this subject is something, so taken for granted, that to read about its history and development was something I'd never imagined!

It started with the same history book infomation - Papyrus etc etc, but for the first time I saw what Papyrus looked like - quite like the 'chinese umbrella' plant! You can have your own glimpse of it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus. Learnt that Egyptian writing comprised not only of Heiroglphy but also two more derived scripts - Heiratic and Demotic! If you're interested in furthering your own knowledge on the same you can have a crash course at - http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/writing.htm. Also, I must say, that heirarchy reflected in their scripts also, as in Heiroglphy, the names of kings and queens were surrounded by an oval inscription (called Cartouche)!Lol!

And oh, finally got the name for the 'Russian alphabet' - it's called the Cyrillic script. It represents five (or more?) Slavic languages! Cool eh? It's creation and development is interesting still - but I won't go into those details here...

Closer home, how many of us knew that the Times New Roman font was created specifically for the 'London Times' in 1930? Hmmm... good fun eh?!

But, the one thing that struck me as highly unsual and really surprising, after going through it all, was that almost all ancient scripts - Egytpian, Urdu, Chinese etc., were written from right to left (vertical or horizontal) - then how did the English (greek) language develop as something so radically different?

Food for thought?

i bElieVe i cAn flY!

It was this phrase from an oft heard song that flit through my mind, yesterday morning, when I was brushing my teeth. It was preceded by a series of rather random and seemingly unconnected thoughts, each of which surprisingly developed from the previous! And as I brushed, looking at myself in the mirror, with the bright sunlight coming in through the veneered window to my right, I just wished I could fly.... And then, all of a sudden, the phrase hooked itself very deeply in my mind - and I realized what it meant to be able to fly.

The exhiliration came from the fact that rather than just 'thinking' the words, I imagined the reality of it and suddenly for that brief moment I was transferred into the realms of a child's world.... I actually imagined something impossible to be possible. Oh what a wonderful feeling that was! How long back was it, that I'd felt this optimism? Such excitement and happiness that only emits from the naive and nascent imaginations of a child.... And thankfully, I was privy to it!

The cynic inside me reads this piece and wonders - God! Have I lost it... the Child within, smiles with delight at this reaction! Little Keerat did it! She finally came out from under layers and layers of adulthood and its experiences and gave me a peek into her mind!

I felt I could fly..... :)

tHe beGinNing

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..... :)

Hmmm... its my second attempt at writing a blog, but to be honest - my first serious one! So lets hope we see this site blossoming under the able and sustained guidance of this pondering mind :) [ignore the 's' in the url, it was added to get this required url! the helplesness of us mere mortals against technology!]

This blog is going to be a serious attempt in listing down thoughts and ideas, emotions and desires that continously keep flashing through this mind, but vanish just as quickly. It's an attempt to sort those thoughts out and to lead them to a meaningful conclusion. Amen! :)

After a gazillion breaks, due to 'urgent' [??] interventions by colleagues / work mates, I've finally managed these two paras! And I guess, that's it for the day!

Cheers to a great weekend!