wonderful thoughts....Life's Little Instruction Book

Have a firm handshake.

Look people into thier eyes.

Sing in the shower.

Own a great stereo system.

If in a fight, hit first and hit hard.

Keep secrets.

Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday.

Always accept an outstretched hand.

Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the
difference.

Whistle.

Avoid sarcastic remarks.

Choose your life's mate carefully. >From this one decision will come 90 per
cent of all your happiness or misery.

Make it a habit to do nice things for people who will never find out.

Lend only those books you never care to see again.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all that they have.

When playing games with ! children, let them win.

Give people a second chance, but not a third.

Be romantic.

Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as
important as it first seems.

Don't allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for your
convenience, not the caller's.

Be a good loser.

Be a good winner.

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.

When someone hugs you, let them be the first to let go.

Be modest. A lot was accomplished before you were born.

Keep it simple.

Beware of the person who has nothing to lose.

Don't burn bridges. You'll be surprised how many times you have to cross
the same river.

Live your life so that your epitaph could read, No Regrets

Be bold and courageous. When you look back on life, you'll regret the
things you didn't do more than the one's you did.

Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

Remember no one makes it alone. Have a grateful heart and be quick to
acknowledge those who helped you.

Take charge of your attitude. Don't let someone else choose it for you.

Visit friends and relatives when they are in hospital; you need only stay a
few minutes.

Begin each day with some of your favorite music.

Once in a while, take the scenic route.

Send a lot of Valentine cards. Sign them, 'Someone who thinks you're
terrific.'

Answer the phone with enthusiasm and energy in your voice.

Keep a note pad and pencil on your bed-side table. Million-dollar ideas
sometimes strike at 3 a.m.

Show respect for everyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial
their job.

Send your loved ones flowers. Think of a reason later.

Make someone's day by paying the toll for the person in the car behind you.


Become someone's hero.

Marry only for love.

Count your blessings.

Compliment the meal when you're a guest in someone's home.

Wave at the children on a school bus.

Remember that 80 per cent of the success in any job is based on your
ability to deal with people.

Don't expect life to be fair.

Few yarns of our Hampi tale

Pooping pigeon. The onset of our Hampi trip a pigeon pooping accurately on the only printout we had about Hampi. The page we were looking at: where to stay at Hampi. We planned to be backpackers..and were deciding on where to stay at that very last moment. And the poop did not matter, we tore the paper around the poop and moved on.

The TVS Excel. We rented a moped to behold the scattered ruins in and around Hampi. At Rs.150 per day and couple of liters of petrol we covered the entire Hampi town. To start with my travel mate had to make sure he could ride the bike. The bike was at its best and neither did the hot pre-winter sun nor did our novice-ness in navigating impact our ride.

Venkatesh. Our little guide during our second day sojourn in Hampi. He was physically tiny for a 15 year old boy. We bumped into Venkatesh, this post-card selling boy early in the day. We had just started a small trek to see a few scattered ruins around the river. This boy explained the relevance of Ramayana and its significance among the ruins in his own words. The naively adulterated words he used jolted us. The terms we don’t use like lovers, villain, ran away, especially when we talk about our religiously guarded epics. He has customized his words to suit his profession and his customers – the people from foreign countries who visit places like Hampi to get a slice of the India that has been portrayed to the ‘big-brother’ nations. His was a sad story… orphaned at an early age he lives now to live. Cheers Venkatesh!

Colonized. India once was. But, pockets like Hampi are still very colonized, not by force of a powerful nation, but by choice offered by the numerable faiths and religions from various nations. The locals cater so much to the non-Indian travelers that they seem to have imbibed the language, food, culture – to an extent. The locals are at ease greeting people and exchanging pleasantries.

Lonely Planet. This book has a mention in almost every other name-board of a restaurant or home stay/lodge.

Others. Our routine idli-chutney breakfast, that pretty much woke me up every morning. The ‘goli’ soda that is not a very common sight anymore was around in Hampi.
The beauty of the twilight and the dimming light by the river side near the Virupaksha temple. The small winding inroads with many hidden pathways, the sheltered and relaxing Mango Tree restaurant, the customized coffees and teas that is made on order, the long stretches of roads without traffic lights, the few road humps, the empty roads sans traffic and the tranquility in the nonexistence of corporates, the sprawling expanse of cultivated land and the rickety mopeds and empty buses… Hampi is still not so far from the madding crowd.

Lesser Mortals..

The uncanny knack of our government to reduce accidents. The government is filling pot holes and breaking road humps to help the traveler. And how is all this helping: Here its is… look at it from this point of view.
• Pot-holes are filled. Unevenly: A couple of inches above the road level or a couple of inches below the road level.
• The road humps are broken. Unevenly: A crude digging job that leaves the area uneven and the residue scattered on the road.
So, the speed is under check and no worries about employing more cops to check speeding. The noble intention behind this intentional activity is reducing death rate due to accidents. (hmmm this is probably a topic that infrastructure development students can choose for a thesis. The data am sure is readily available at hospitals or police stations). The thought goes like…reducing speeding reduces accident and thus cuts down on mortality. The fringe benefit also includes optimization of personnel employed to police around.

My gratitude to happiness..

The melancholic days, the urge to talk, the want to listen, the callous moments, the brimming anger, the unlimited anxiety ridden hours, the tension topped exam days, the stress of the unseen, the constant worry of worrying, the hassle of the bloodline, the lonely tear-filled nights, the loneliness in an overcrowded world, the pretense of happiness, the criticism of self, the irony of success, the insincere friends, the loathsome selfish humans, the ego filled individuals, the untruthful, the devastating cheats of nature, the hunger to want to know… the incline to life goes on.

The cosseted avenue of my life is harbored by happiness. Thank you. The beautiful mornings, the wonderful camera, the ever-willing paint brush, the happy people, the unreal friends, the ‘friends’, the pjs, the ability to laugh, the mind to think of the unimaginable, the smell of a fresh bake, the moments of love, the pine to travel far and beyond, the unforeseen success, the ability to run walk and talk, the urge to spend, the unlimited joy of being, the support of life, the willing suspension of disbelief, the face-hurting tear-jerking stomach-churning laughs, the coffee, the light to capture the moment for eternity, the nights of blissful dreams…and the continuous dream filled days. The days in life are a mock tail of the zeal to live. The ardor of life is an understanding of the happiness by dealing with obscurity.

Should Oct 2 be a National Holiday?

What did I do on Oct 2? I watched some TV, ate, drank, slept…it was just another day. But then, a long weekend. What is the purpose of this National Holiday? To spend more time on doing all the regular things we do on holidays?

Can we make this a working day instead. Make another religious celebration a national holiday. Calling our country, India, a melting pot of religions or calling it a sub-continent alone will not suffice. Effort has to be made to make this mark in ink indelible. We have to make an effort to create avenues to make this country true to its name: a melting pot of religion.

So what did you do on Oct 2?

Eyes Wide Open...

This phenomenon happens to me a couple of times in a year, I guess. This is the time when my mind gets enough light and thought and I begins to think. Trala la…The last couple of days have been those phenomenal days ;)

I have thought, professed to myself, smiled a lot (which I do for no reason), tried to come to terms with reality, blogged a bit, and opened my eyes wide. The world looks a lot more pleasant, people don’t bother me – they remain painful and boring…but doesn’t bother me much, songs make me happier, I did not yell at the scoundrels on the street, nor did I sulk… oh… this seems like a year. But then, one thing… had no one to spew my PJs at…

Anyways… continuing on the life’s winding roads…glad to be at the pleasant curve.

And then comes Keats…

OH! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,
When streams of light pour down the golden west,
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, far - far away to leave
All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve
Fromm little cares; to find, with easy quest,
A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest,
And there into the delight my soul deceive.
There warm my breast with patriotic lore,
Musing on Milton's fate - on Sydney's bier -
Till their stern forms before my mind arise:
Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,
Full often dropping a delicious tear,
When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

..A Foolish Romantic??

I am overloaded with work. But its been a couple of days that I am unable to resist my blogging urges. Never happened before. I just want to talk…

Something I have been mulling for a while. A while being many many years…from the time I felt those butterflies in my stomach… should I say heart (just to distinguish hunger from love).

My concept of love… not to market a theory but just to get clarity in my head. I am a romantic in my head. Completely. I get all cheered up with flowering rows of trees, the sunshine filled lake, the touch of drizzle, the idea of romance, the thought of walking down a rusty leaves filled walkway, the idea of talking about the obscurest of things, the idea of a walk in the clouds, day dreaming, possibility of travelling and everything about life. I smile for no reason and I have no clear idea of what love is.

Have ended without words at the end of conversations on love. Have been called a ‘foolish romantic’ for having a thin line between good friendship and love. (on a tangent, I love the foolish romantic usage. I truly don’t mind being foolish in romance). I think love is about the comfort and compatibility that you share with a good friend, which has to then be converted by effort to make it more than that. By effort I mean, the effortless attempt to zoom that extra mile. Saying the love we have, the yearning to be with the other, the thought of togetherness, words of endless love … all these come in with an effort made over a period of time. I do not want a bunch of roses or a basket of cocoa or candle light dinners. I might be the least a guy would look for in the terms of a girlie girl. I don’t dress myself for fashion…but do it for comfort and I don’t have the flirty sentences and laugh. I am a snob and like very few people and have very few friends. But I am happy there are people who are friends with me and agree to disagree with my rants. I have found love. Love in all that life has to offer. I have decided not to fret about losing something…but to be happy that I had something. Loss has added to my perspective of life. I don’t have time to let go of opportunity for I am living. Time is short and I don’t know where my end is. So what if I don’t drink beer and smoke.. I enjoy life and am high on life and will always be!! Thanks to those many many that I yearned to be with. I have learnt what love could be too.

Abruptly Speaking…

What is love? Professing my theories… I always believe (or I don’t know if I should say believed) it’s an amalgamation of a lot of emotions put together. It’s mainly about the ease of comfort and compatibility that springs out of friendship between two people. In the long run, it could include compassion, affection, yearning and all the host of other things. But then when is one in love? Is it something I can fit into my drafted notion? Is it just comfort and compatibility? Will a person be able to see the bleep or the halo on or in the head?

Going into one of these conversations on one rainy night… I heard different notions on the theory of love. One the many that intrigued me is the concept of love – which is realized only when you miss a person. Bogs me..What is missing a person? The feeling of getting into a habit and suddenly having to break it? The feeling of missing a cigarette? The feeling of missing a door that existed in the hallway for 5 years and you walked past it everyday…and one fine morning did not find it there? Then you miss the door? How can you miss a person? Is it like your parent that you saw every single day of your life and then came back one day to realize they are no more? Or is it simply missing that person who entertained you? Is it the idle mind that craves entertainment that we can call ‘missing’? It’s not ridiculing the interpretations of missing..but it is my attempt to understand this complex feeling. Like the Taj Mahal built as a tomb in the memory of a beloved wife. Is that an ostentatious exhibition of a personal feeling? Os just an immortal expression of love for a life?

Before the philosopher in me takes a shot at answering these questions…I take leave. I prefer to exclude myself from these complex emotions of life and get back into my shell of obscurity and contempt and take it as it comes. Cheers!!

PS: This piece has resemblance to many conversations living and dead. It is purely not coincidental if you thought you discussed it. ;)

Great Expectations??

My take: Expectation is life. Expecting more...makes it greed. So can't I be human and expect.

I want to go out, I want to eat, I want to be, I want to be loved, I want to be happy.

This is not about illogically romanticising life. Its about wanting be happy. After undersanding the journey of life - with two fixed points - why don't I go ahead, with no strings attached and love life.

I wonder why I think too much, analyze and want. My expectation is not greed...I don't want more...but will i ever let go of my fear of refusal or sadness and move ahead and be able to ask for my want.

Starting with an understanding of expectation and ending with a surreal understanding of expectation, is what life is according to me. Being born is the purpose of life...and then the inverse proportionality of growing in life and losing the meaning of life. The growth definitely clutters the mind with unnecessary weeds that breed to swell the unwanted.

As confusing as it may sound... it is. I no not how to put the thoughts in any sound logical format. I no not what to do..So be it, life will go on.

I choose...

Choice. The option to choose exists at every step in life. Knowingly or unknowingly we do it. Be it deciding at a restaurant or selecting the body wash. The sometimes more less obvious, the words we use, the people we like and the stealthy glances.

This concept of our choosing was re-jigged at the life education forum I was a guest at. Somewhere in the dark corners of our mind rests the decisions made. Time only fades it from memory. It’s a matter of understanding how everything is a result of the choice we have made. The person who you don’t like is because of the choice you made to like the person. The person who doesn’t like you is also because of the choice you made in thinking you are liked. It was nice to remember the string of choices that have embellished and dented my path of life. It is my creation and no matter what the result is, I own it.

This vicious cycle of choice is a mind trap. A trap where we get entangled in thinking about the results of a situation. The mindboggling mind never cares a damn about its neighborhood…the heart resides close by and they soo need each other to survive. They only tend to ignore each other’s requests, very true in my case. Sometimes it’s the eye and ear that add to it. They have such conflict. The heart cannot strike a chord with the reasoning of the mind..and to add to it the eye might be totally in agreement but not the ear. So much of conflict in a skin-locked region of body parts. If we think, the mind is tired..we might want to think of how much the others are crying in unison about the neglect.

In this land of mortals, and in a body of conflicting parts…I choose to live in the world of imagination. Hail Calvin!

Learning Life...

Learning is an art. There are days when I come up with ample evidence and proof to strengthen my theories. The general human race can be divided broadly in two types of learners. One who learns with life where experiences are proof enough to learn. The other kind being the ones who need an authority to teach them or reinstill their experiences.

Some thoughts I need to ponder..
Belonging to the first kind of learners, I go by usually grasping things from learning, viewing, observing and listening to people I know or want to like.

Going through an forum for education about Life, I realized how egoistic and steadfast I am about life and its learning..in their words..the design of life..called a game. Especially, when someone I don’t know or cannot relate to or doesn’t impress in one way or the other is trying to. Am not being rude… but just mortal.

I also heard about my extremities in expectations. From not giving into or rather having any expectations to expecting too much. I wonder, why should I lead someone or give into liking someone when I don’t want to. Another extreme, which I did not realize, that I have expectations from people who mean something to me. I truly did not want to make it known. I have a task to do and adhere to making expectation nill or unknown.

Another interesting but very unconvincing thought the speaker wanted to instill was living life without a pretense..but the contradiction came when he said life was a game. A game where the opponent was a creation of our imagination. I thought this tied back to pretense. Guess I understand less or think too much.

Hmm so much so. I also understood how I loved many things in life. And they inturn give me the design to my life. In the hues of life, colors are nothing but the things we love in life and not the people who make up a chunk in this world.

My beautiful mind

Today is my day to feel blue and high, low and spirited, romantic and marvelous. The trees look greener, the streets look cleaner, the wind feels less gusty, the people seem friendlier, the air smells fresher, it’s the way I want to feel.

I wonder what it is, that on some days I feel the want to dwell in the happiness of creation. The question of the state of mind is always a griller. I wonder why?

Like an ode to Autumn.. Wordsworth and his magically charmed verses always linger in my days of blissful solitude. The fading melancholic thoughts are transported into the dark chambers of my delighted mind. The expressions of the soul fill the heart to reach out and stretch to the mugged mind. It’s the way I want to feel.

In sync with the real, I reel in the realm of unreal. When the hurdle is happiness, I wonder why. It’s the way I want to feel. The moment of truth is short lived. Long enough to anchor the protracted days of my lost mind. Cheers to life. High on life as always. Hic hic…

Mindboggling Mind

I wonder...waiting to see a recovered patient struggling to recover. . It's not a wrong statement...its right. The games the mind plays is tricky.

With reduced mobility due to the process of recovery, the immobile mind is only at work. The forced physical immobility mobilizes the rested mind and lets it take over other parts of the body. This is a forced situation...with no option while at recovery. This does not amaze me. What intrigues me is the mind of the perfectly (so called) sane medically certified homosapien.

Mind is a matter of choice for the sane. So, if you make a decision or choose to make one ...why regret? This incident in my life literally dried the small little ocean of trust I had in my belief about friends in life. I still truly believe that friends for me is only the 6 of them. They do exist...they make me happy and they make me sad. But they don't have weird, unrealistic, unreasonable and illogical minds. The 6 from the FRIENDS I watch on TV.
My life has been sans friends. I am a closed book and don't regret not being a friend to anyone. I am a loner and prefer to be it. Its my choice. A small thought made me wonder ... about my closed life. I progressed...and tried to be a friend. I paid a price for a reason of my friend's own choice. I was a listener and watched it unfold and happen....and my friend walked away. What did I do? Being my own apologetic self, I tried to think if I erred. Did I? I wonder? I only wanted a friend. As everyone says... a friend is one who you can talk to, fight with, scold, beat, go around with and then be betrayed by. My sane mind has reasoned the unreasonable friend and refuses to believe in anything like friends in real life. I believe people are just acquaintances in life...the ones on this land that we meet when we walk the road of life.

The illusion of the friend I had is just a hallucination of my mind. I progressed... so I think. I will not regret not making an effort to make a friend. I made and failed. So be it, friends forever...is a wonderfully embellished phrase for an acquaintance.

Long live the friend. The friend is dead.

Where to go??

The spray of twilight, the colors of the setting sun.

The homing birds, the blowing wafts.

I know not where to go.



The untouched dew, the clear morning air.

The new chaos of the day, the flitting engines.

The whiff of freshness, the hurried monotony of routine.

I know not where to go.



The walk of life, the stealth of silence,

The tranquility of the unseen,

I know now where to go