My echo, my shadow and me...

For most of the people from the part of the country I come from, Diwali is just an occasion to burst crackers. It was not much different for me too. The very thought of Diwali was scary (!) for me. My poor lungs were too weak to bear the amount of pollution in the air, thanks to the tons of crackers burnt. As the days closed in to Diwali and people around start count down, I would be crippled by the images of me, sitting in a corner of my bed, struggling for breath. I have had sufficient reasons to hate the festival. Even then there were certain things I liked about the festival. I was scared of it but waited for it...waited eagerly to watch the lines of diays that maa (mamma) would put around the house, making it look like a heavenly abode...I longed for the day when there will be silence all around; I would sit on a chair and watch the flames dancing with air waves. Sight of diyas struggling to keep themselves alive when air movements became too ruthless evoked countless thoughts i...

How tough can making chapatti be? If you are a natural cook, you will frown,"Making chapatti tough?" Ask me, I have been trying to learn that for the past four years.Just to add to the variety of food a bachelor can have at his own auspices. Even then I am miles away from proficiency. Demonstration of my imperfection starts right from the stage of preparing the atta dough. Either it will be too hard or too soft , as if to create problems at the time of rolling the dough into a disc. There will be no dearth of reason for the discs to be uneven, at times taking the shape of the map of India.As I was never good at drawing, a map of India used to take "more or less" the shape of a disc. Now, the chapatti discs I roll take more or less the shape of a map. The major disaster happens at the last and final stage, browning the discs. My teachers say chapatti can never be called well-prepared until and unless it puffs while browning. I have never seen that happe...

Photo courtsey: www.robi-bobi.net

"Yuji San! Are you happy?" asks Frank. (San is the Japanese equivalent of Mr.). Yuji looks at the space in front in a meditative mood (as if he is trying to work out whether he is happy or not). Then he draws a typical big Japanese smile on his face that reflects extreme happiness and shake head heavily, "Yes, Yes"(the second yes to confirm the first yes). This would set all five of us into a roaring laughter. This was the second time I met with Frank. He is 67 and a manager of a European auto giant. He works till 2 O'clock in the night (!) and gets up at 6 in the morning. In spite of that I have never seen him dozing off on a ride as long as four hours. I also have never heard him raising his voice to express dissatisfaction. His silence was enough to set all of us into motion to correct what ever mistake made or occurred. However his voice shakes everything around when he is happy, when he laughs. Yuji is an engineer. As it happens with almost all Japanese, Yu...

a prayer for those who have lost their lives in the mumbai blasts on 11th of July, 2006...an also for those who is suffering because of this brutal act... photo courtsey www.lapster.smugmug.com

After fretting for a long time about the sameness of the days it was time to have a taste of the other side of the coin. At the end of a week long race against time and spaces, I am physically exhausted but mentally prepared to live n number of weeks like this. There were hundreds of occasions that made me aware of my limits. But there also were multiple of hundreds of factors that inspired me to strive to defy these limits. The three hour journey from Mumbai to Silvassa was a picturesque ride among the lush green hills, charged by the touch of monsoon. Watching them with wide open eyes, I struggled for words to appreciate the beauty. But somehow I failed to enjoy the sight. Open eyes does not necessarily mean sight. To enjoy beauty you need to have imaginative eyes, need to integrate the inputs from eyes with the imaginations of the mind. But the later was busy in searching ways to manage the loss that Mumbai rains have caused, messing up all our plans. Trapped for hours on the Mumbai...

Do you have any language preference for your thoughts? I mean to ask do you think in any specific language. Not un-usual, until a few years back I used to think in my mother tongue. There was a sudden change when I had to shift to Bhopal in search of a career. In order to adjust with the changed language environment I have had to change the language preferences for my thought process. Then only I realised what difference it can make to you, thinking in your mother tongue and language that you have acquired. It was some kind of a jerk and my mind waves, thoughts often stumbled making me feel helpless. You search for your vocabulary for the perfect word and it comes up with a blank screen, forcing you to go mute in between conversations. The only option is to use a word that somehow resemble. You use that option. At times the one in conversation with you either feels offended or burst into laughter. I have got the chance of becoming "a laughing stalk" numerous times so far. At ...

I usually don't peep into the affairs of others around me. But I failed to avoid noticing that the girl (in her early twenties) sitting next to me was dozing off with a book open in her hands. Allan Pease's "Body Language: How to Read Others' Thoughts by Their Gestures"...I felt the curves on my face taking the shape of a big smile. Perhaps it's the period of life when almost everyone craves for a peep into the life of the people around. I too tried my best to acquire the magic power of reading one without letting know that I was doing that. It started with my reading of a piece of Allan Pease's article in the magazine Competition Success Review about the importance of the ability to read body language of people, how mastering it can make things different for one, improve communication skills etc etc...inspired deep into my heart, I tried to grasp everything I can get on the topic. I n the same process I came in terms with the art of analysing handwritings...

Let's celebrate... Thanks Motivated Motions

The other day, Rita posted a comment on my blog, "You've been tagged. Check my blog." The tag was to list six of my wired habits! Hey what about the scale to measure the amount of weirdness? I do not know whether the habits I am listing are wired or not...but just following my mind... 1. I like to believe people. I like to be able to have faith on people around me. I believe, except for a few who have the habit of making phony statements, people generally do not fake or trick. Back in my university days, once I was in a long queue in my bank to deposit ten thousand bucks. I was in a hurry and the bank security person offered to deposit that on my behalf. One moment and the man inside me said, "Yes". My friends said it was foolishness on my part. Even I thought so. But I was not surprised that he did not tarnish my faith. 2. I have a heart weaker than my brain. Cause, I have used my heart thousands of times more than my brain so far. And I know for sure, it pai...

"It's not figures, but the trend that is important." "Mere millions and billions mean nothing. Weigh them against one another. Compare the present with the past, read gaps and find a projection for the future...you need to predict what might be the status after five or ten years. So my son, go back to work and redo the slides. You have eight more hours...” My biological ALU gave a stark reaction to the instructions. I have to deconstruct the rigor of past seven days and reconstruct in one day! In the next eight hours, I would be struggling to crack the millions and billions, extracting growth rates and compounded growth rates...it was a race with the second's hand of the clock...it seemed all of the hands of the clock were competing among them, running at a rate higher than sixty seconds per minute... As I was crack my head to find the trends to project everything to the year 2010, some of my wicked brain cells infused one of the most meaningless and cliched ques...

The idea of writing this post came to me, the other day, during our lunch time nonsense-talks. Our usual lunch itinerary at 'Village Food Court' says you place an order and wait at least for 40 minutes, for the food to be served. To utilize this interval, we start something you name leg-pulling. Luckily Neeraj never min ds being the target of all the activities in these sessions and consume all the bullets fired on him with his usual baffled calmness. Vikas had a presentation at the FMC that day which I missed (!). "I was all prepared to give Neeraj proper answer for the questions he asks. But I was surprised that he did not come up with a single questi on today. Probably it was a good day for him," said Vikas in jest. Neeraj is famous (dreaded!) for the questions he usually asks during presentations and lectures. As they went on with the pastime, actively participated by Keshav, Naveen and Amar, I started processing the question in my mind. "Why do we ask ques...

After a long time, I noticed the scar on my right elbow again. A one and half inch cut mark, almost fading away. You will not be able to identify it until and unless I tell you beforehand... I was just preparing to leave for school when Latu came running. "There's a wounded Neelkanth lying under that Sal tree. She is struggling for breath. Come fast." I saw tears in her eyes. Next moment we were running in the direction of th e tree. Often I used to get information of wounded birds from my friends or the elder ones who knew my craze for these winged creatures. Most of them were catapulted by the tribal children and left to die. I would struggle to keep them alive with the little primary aid skills I have had...most of them did not respond to my treatment and died. Every time a bird died in my hands I would promise myself not to treat wounded birds any more. It's painful seeing them dying. But next time I'm informed I would just rush like a fire brigade. ...

Lightening that mocks the night, Brief even as bright… PB Shelly, Mutability Her questions stripped off, one by one, the faces I was wearing, and here I was facing the reflection. "Damn it!" I screamed, frightened by the sight of real me, perhaps first time after decades. The escapist, in hibernation, who has forgotten how to stand the rays of the summer sun. I have been here before, But when or how I can not tell: I know the gross beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, Sudden Light, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Yes, but I never bothered to peep into, beyond the reach of the sunrays. I never thought there can be so much of darkness hiding in each and every corner of the rusted inside. I sat in my cold stone room Choosing tough words, granite, flint, to break the ice. Demeter, Carol Ann Duffy Now, I am sitting with the old rusted tool box. As the keys have denied moving inside the lock, I have to hammer it down....

part I "Have you heard the songs of Fanaa? Chand Shifaris and Mere Haath Main are lovely. Get them, you will love them too," Deepu suggested, back in April. After a little search I found them.Yes they are marvelous. As it usually happens, I missed no chance of listening to them. "This is going to be another film I am going to avoid," I told myself. part II One of my colleagues found it difficult to consume my logic. "What the heck yaar! It's the height of absurdity." Yes, it might appear absurd. But it happened many times. I stopped myself from seeing a movie because I loved its songs in the first place. ?:)) Irrespective of the picturisition or role in the storyline of a film, a song has got its own existence, appeal. You hear a song and it clicks you somewhere in your heart. You do not know why. You record it in your memory; integrate with your i-Drive (Imagination Drive!) and drool over it. You will be getting different tastes, matching you...

Here's a spur-of-the-moment struggling to live an organized life. Perhaps it's like a creeper trying to standalone, imitating a tree. Suddenly I realized everything was going out of control. You have ten things to do, all of them having nearly the same dead-line. My gut feeling was that I have to rearrange my mind-set and upgrade it to 'multi tasking enabled' mode. And I started using an organiser...get the habit of preparing ' To-Do-List'. Preparation of TDL before start working became a daily ritual. At times I have had to drag myself an extra bit to meet the self commitment. But the results of doing so in the first few days really satisfied me... It does not take long for the nuptial to be over. I found myself revising and rearranging the TDL many time a day to meet the demand. No matter how hard I tried, there were left-over of the day's TDL, for the next day. TDLs started piling up. Now I am a silent helpless spectator, of the TDL getting elongated ever...

The Expression... In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood- Theodore Roethke The Question... What's the colour of darkness? The Realisation... Finally the idea of changing layout of blog bugged me also. I decided to change the colour scheme. "I need to do away with the striking black dominating the layout." But after exploring various colour combination and permutations, nearly for a week, I became aware of the fact that my inclination towards black is inherent to my ' colour sense '. Although I came up with many impressive templates, minus black, when it came to using them I failed to convince myself. I also realised none of the colours can produce the contrast as black does. How can I do without it? The Question Re-phrased... Is darkness black?

It rained again last night. Second rain of this season... Yet another pleasant, clean and green morning... an indication, there are going to be abundance of mornings like this, in the coming days... Someone whispered into my ear,"A few more showers and they will loose their significance. Perhaps it's time you stop keeping track of them..." image courtesy www.treklens.com

Creepers on the metal grill appeared extraordinarily happy when I wake up this morning. The sparrows, the squirrels were too more playful. Who ever I faced smiled at me and I smilled back in return... Yes, what can be more soothing than the first summer rain and how can my blog miss such an important celebration of nature! I struggled all the day to steal some time out of the schedule to type a few words, to put down the feelings that last night's downpour created in my heart and mind... that I resisted the temptation to go out in the rain , thinking of the grueling week ahead...but as ill luck would have it, there was hardly any time and now it was too late to write anything. But these entire quandaries just evaporated when I read what my new found blog mate wrote about the rains last night… Dilli me Barsaat "The city is rocking. And the first real rains of this season have come in style. I just came back from a ritual I have been doing as long as I can remember. Had a great ...