Mob Self

Every man has a mob self and an individual self, in varying proportions.
~D. H. Lawrence~

Very true.

The rather unfortunate thing is most of the times we are our "mob self", when we look at life as per the views, needs and expectations of others.

When did you last connect with your "individual self"?

Thought for the day

Never look down on people and situations.

Life humbles all....it's only a matter of time.

Predictability

Sometimes, unpredictability is the only thing you can predict :)

One more of life's peculiarisms I guess....

Inferences

Inferences are inevitable.....necessary.

There are always more data points apart from the words that you "hear".

Stereotyping

The world strives to streotype. Anything else is not easily acceptable.

No wonder, changes take decades and ceturies.

P.S - The world is you and me.

Disillusionment

When it hits....it hits hard...

Say Cheers !!

While on a Friday evening outing with few colleagues, I got to know the history behind saying "Cheers" before you taste your drink.

One theory says the clinking of glasses was to ward off the evil spirits. The more popular belief is that when you crash glasses together, it causes the drinks to spill over in the other glasses, hence establishing the faith among the drinkers that none of the drinks is poisoned.

Interesting stuff, isn't it?

Today vs Tomorrow

One today is worth two tomorrows.
- Benjamin Franklin

Where the mind is without fear....

Heard this on radio today, while driving to work. Not sure in what context the RJ was mentioning this poem, I had just switched on the radio.

This poem used to be one of my favorites, when I was in school. This is actually a prayer from Tagore's "Gitanjali". It embodies his vision of the kind of country and life...which he dreamt of.

Only when one reads this, realisation dawns on how far we are from where he wanted us to be....

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore

No posts?

In case you are wondering why Devika isn't blogging for the past few weeks, it's because her parents have not found time to "type in" her posts.

Hope they read this...and oblige :)

Bucket List

For the past few days, I have been thinking of creating my Bucket List. Had some interesting discussion with my friends to find out the things which they would want to put in their bucket list (some of the wishes were hilarious and cannot be shared here).

There are some things which I know I definitely would want to do before I die. Have decided to restrict my list to only 10 items as of now (it could be the effect of the movies I have seen on this topic).

Here are a few of my bucket list items :
1. Driving a Formula 1 car
2. Writing a book
3. Having my own photography exhibition
4. Running a half marathon with sub 2 hour timing
5. Owning a beach house

Some look impossible, don't they? What the heck, if they are easily acheivable, then no fun.

There are five more to add....the thinking process is on.......

India's youngest blogger?

Devika is 6 and a half years old.

Stays in Mumbai.

Got inspired to blog when she her mom started her own blog.

She writes her thoughts on a piece of paper, and daddy dear types it for her.

It's called Rabbit Hops.

It's amazingly refreshing and very cute.

Take a look. It will definitely remind you of your childhood :)

The Photo Connection

For the last year and a half, I have been trying my hand at photography.

While different people have different things to say about the photos I click (the ones who know about photogrpahy have lots of things to say of course :)), there were a few things which really touched me.

For example, I saw one of my friends using one of the pictures I had clicked as her laptop wallpaper. I was pleasantly surprised that she would think it good enough for a wallpaper.

Another friend wanted to put up some of my pictures on the "photo wall" she planned for her new house. Very flattering again !!

The last but not the least was when a friend said she found the nature pics of mine very soothing and peaceful and looked at them when she was upset or low. I seriously did not know how to react to this. This was far more that I had expected and it really took me by surprise. One never can expect what different things can mean to different people.

Maybe I should stop being so lazy and take this hobby of mine a little more seriously.

Also, now that I am working on my bucket list, maybe ..just maybe..I should think about having my own photogrpahy exhibition sometime in the future.

Sounds like a target, doesn't it :))

Life Learnings

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

~Kahlil Gibran~

Selfishness

Life makes one realise his/her selfishness in unexpected ways.

We all are selfish, whether we like to believe it or not.

Power

He who knows you the best, has the ability to hurt you the most....

Is there Fate?

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

...says Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Something to chew upon.

Rakhi and Reality

I absolutely HATE reality shows.

I have NEVER watched even a single episode of the likes of "Indian Idol" and "Big Boss". I do not mind feeling out of place when people around me get into excited discussions about these serials, who should win, who is overrated, who was unfairly dealt with etc.

Basically reality shows is too much of drama for me to swallow.

Seems like things are going to change this time, thanks to Rakhi Sawant.

I cannot wait for this show to start !!!!

The Pursuit of Happiness

Interesting take on happiness.

Following lines in particular caught my eye:
Unhappiness is the natural outcome of fine-tuning one's sensibilities to the awful truths about the world.

Does "Un-tuning" do the trick?

Introducing the apple of your eye...

This is a write-up prepared which a friend of mine prepared on his 2 year old son, when he was sent to his first day care. The idea was to acquaint the day care staff with the kid's habits and preferecnes.

Read on......you will definitely it interesting....(and hilarious if like me, you know the kid personally - :))

Background:

General habits

- Active kid, curious to touch things especially SWITCHES, put things in his mouth (especially BUTTONS - we often make him wear clothes with buttons on back instead of front, at home)
- Loves CAR and AUTO. (But we are careful NOT to give him toys which have PARTS WHICH ARE REMOVABLE-things he can PUT IN HIS MOUTH). Also, phones and remotes.
- Loves ball. Good at throwing, spinning and kicking gently.
- Loves cuddly stuffed toys. But he is not attached to any particular one as such.
- He is not toilet trained. Sometimes announces AFTER THE ACT.
- Day time sleeping approximately is 1 and ½ hr on average. Usually around lunch time. Can get sleepy at 12.30 p.m. Active engagement can keep him awake till lunch is finished most of the times.
- He loves touching soft skin. (BEWARE HE OFTEN DIGS HIS LITTLE HANDS UNDER OTHER’S CLOTHES).
- Affectionate. Very liberal with gestures such as TATA, BYE-BYE and KISSES (incl FLYING KISS) on cue.

Speech
Limited vocabulary-English/Hindi. (List not exhaustive)

Key words:
- Mum-mum: water
- Mama: Mother
- Papa: Father
- Baby: Himself (He does not call himself Arnav, though he responds to it, BUT NOT ALWAYS)
- Dudhu: Milk
- Chu-chu: Urine
- Potty: Bowels
- Hawa: Passing wind (!!).
- Fan: Fan (useful object for distraction)
- Bhu-bhu: Dog

Eating habits
- At home, he always eats on a HIGH CHAIR
- He is exposed to variety of fruits, vegetables and eggs on a daily basis. Eats many of the healthy foods eaten by the rest of family. Comfortable with natural flavourings and sprinkling of mild spices like pepper (and salt) with boiled egg.
- HAS NO STRONG DISLIKES for any food.
- A typical session requires patience. Only a VERY, VERY FIRM REFUSAL ACCOMPANIED BY CRYING AND RESISTANCE THROUGH LIMBS, signals that he does not want to eat for the moment. This could be due to fullness of stomach, disagreeable food or desire for toilet.
- We DO NOT feed UNHEALTHY and PROCESSED FOODS like potato chips, noodles, packaged juices or confectionaries like toffees and chocolates.

Quite well written, isnt it? You might want to save this away for later....:)

All or nothing

...is how certain things in life should be.

Mahatma Gandhi and auction

This , I would say, is patriotic use of money.

Long live Vijay Mallaya :)

Night time milk

Well, I know this is old piece of news (the article is dated 2004).

But I happened to stumble across this only today, while reading up some articles on the net on insomnia (its 1:50 am now :)).

Does anyone know if we get this in India? Would definitely want to see if this helps.....

Et tu Wikipedia??

Saw "Manorama Six Feet Under" over the weekend. My second Abhay Deol movie in two days (Difficult to accept that Abhay Deol is from the same clan as Dharmendra, Sunny, Bobby. Anyway, am happy for whatever happened to Abhay for him to be different from the rest of the bunch !!!)

Anyway, getting back to the point, was mighty impressed with the movie so decided to check out some facts on the movie and especially the director.

Wikipedia threw me this . And when I clikced on the name of the direcor, this is what I got.

Double checked, didn't you? And so did I.

“Be suspicious of anything that works perfectly - it's probably because two errors are canceling each other out”
- Dave Bartley

So watch out from now on :)

101st Post...a new milestone

I have acheived a new milestone in blogging....my last post was the 100th one on my blog.

I started this blog way back in Dec 2005, and frankly, did not expect it to survive this long.

I am happy it did. Once in a while I go back to my earlier posts and really enjoy reading them. At times I wonder what exactly was I thinking of, when I wrote something, while some of my earlier posts leave me happy and even impressed :). Was it really me who wrote all that?

Hope to see more milestones going forward....

Review of "Dev D"

A must watch.

I haven't seen anything like this for a long long time.

The film is a modern adaptation of the famous story Devdas, which has already been made into 9 movies so far.

This one of course is different, the characters are tweaked to fit the modern world, they are pretty bold and of course the story does not end in the same way.

After the movie, I read a little about the director Anurag Kashyap. The wikipedia entry on the director is quite interesting. He seems to have had a life of dreams, consfusions and frustrations before he could make it in as an acclaimed director.

When Anurag Kashyap was in college, he seemed to be heavily into drugs and alcohol. Maybe that explains his wonderful portayal of the "sense of high" his characters feel in his movies. I found it absolutely brilliant !!!

The music in the movie is a wonderful blend of quirky (Emotional Attayachar), hard rock and folk music. Very different and refreshing. Great job here by Amit Trivedi.

Now I am waiting for Kashyap's "Gulaal" and "Bombay Velvet". I can safely say that 2009 will have at least 2 good movies from Bollywood.

Quote

To truly hear you must quiet the mind.
~Unknown~

Optimism

Optimism (rather the concept of it) is misused in its worst form when once does not want to face the truth.

How does one realise that the feeling is actually cowardice?

Happiness

Happiness....everyone has their own unique definition of it.

Learnings

The best learnings in life often come from the worst experiences.

Ironical...isn't it?

Random Hearts

Yesterday, while switching channels on TV, I came across a movie called Random Hearts. When I read the movie info, it reminded me of a book I had read many years back.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to watch the movie, mainly to confirm if the movie was really the adaptation of the story I remembered.

I did not remember the name of the book, nor the author, but for some reason, I remembered the story very well, and remembered it fondly. Sometimes some things stay in your memory, for reasons which cannot be rationally explained, and this was on of those such things.

It turned out to be the same story after all, the movie was an adaptation of a book by the same name, authored by Warren Adler (I got these details when I googled later).

I was happy to see the movie, especially since I recollected the story pretty clearly, even after so many years later. Of course, the script of the movie had some deviations from the original storyline. The adaptation from paper to reel was still a good one.

I was therefore pretty disappointed to read the reviews of the movie and its ranking on IMDB, a mere 4.8 out of 10 :(. Also, there was no appreciation for Harrison Ford's work in the movie, something I thought was done very well. I have never seen Kristin Scott Thomas in any other movie earlier, so cannot say much about her performance.

Inspite of all the above published facts, I still like the movie and would love to watch it again.

Maybe this was one of the good movies which did not do well in box office....

Maybe I liked the movie because I am a romantic at heart....

Maybe this is one of those things which cannot be explained rationally....

The "Insect Syndrome"

An insect, no matter how hard it tries to improve, does not evolve into a higher animal. Its life continues and ends as an insect.

All of us, at some point in our lives, go through this. We feel limited by our limitations. One reaches a point when the only thing that hinders progress is not attitude and effort, but one's own capability, or rather lack of it.

And there is no worse feeling one can have than than feeling powerless, and feeling like an insect.....

Shots...Bhojpuri ishtyle

And now presenting Bhojpuri Shot Glasses

Truly amazing :))

Invitation

If you are visiting this blog via non-google search, chances are you are one of my friends and are checking for posts on this site.

I have been busy, really busy....and lazy too as always....hence no posts.

I guess am getting more and more into "slow blogging" (that sounds cooler than lazy :))

But I do intend to keep this blog alive. By sharing my experiences and thoughts as well as those of others who are close to me in life, my friends, family etc

I have asked one of my close friends to pen down his experience of Jagriti Yatra, for which he was one of the thought leaders and organisers.

Hope to have that entry here soon.

And other entries from you, on the things you would like to share.

So come forward and use this space to share your thoughts, feelings, opinions...

Looking forward to more posts. Till then Ciao.