Morning After

There is a concept of the morning after; how you feel the morning after is the best indicator of how an incident happened. An incident might give you a brilliant high, the glory, the attention, the sheer excitement, the people, the kick of doing what you did, the spotlights, the honour, the joy!

But once the make up is off, the spotlights are off, the costumes sent back and when the exhaustion sets in, and you have to face the real you in the mirror and live life with the people who matter to you, if you still feel good and at peace with yourself, you did the right thing and if you dont you know you made a mistake.

Never judge by the hype in the moment. Face the truth when you look at yourself the morning after :)

long lost

2 of my closest friends from school refuse absolutely refuse to pick the phone!

whatay life!

I am not kidding. I got home at 5:50 pm yesterday and that was because the routing guy in office goofed up. I should have been home 5:35pm! But I guess you cannot get everything. But that is not the point of this post. All the above was for people to feel jealous of me. Muhahahahaha!

But this is the whatay life part. I had not run in the morning. So I decided to go running. And it was rainy. So I wore my biker's jacket (sad that I do not have a bike) and went off. My colleagues at office shared some awesome English music with me and I decided to put it on my I-pod and started running. And some point during the return run, over a flat part of land it started drizzling and began to get very windy; cold windy.

And as my sweat pores worked hard to get out all the heat from my body, there was this amazing feeling as the wind blew over and played its games with me. And I thought, what a life!

I will kill, maim and murder to be able to run down a windy wet road at 6pm everyday! Whatay life!

sec 377

I came home today and amma announced that Sec 377 was toned down. I am very happy, this was long due and I do hope apart from decriminalization, which is like the worst thing to do, our society can respect and integrate the sexual minorities.

But the best part was I sat down with appa and amma and discussed this issue. They took it very naturally and though in slight discomfort, they too seemed to welcome the decision. Boy! They are broad-minded for their age!

independence

Bitch and I were drunk; not the usual high, but the rare occasion where I am out of my mind. Completely gone :) and we were on an old fashioned swing, sitting cross-legged across each other and asking babu to swing us back and forth, back and forth. The alcohol when you swing, makes you wilder and madder.

And after all the how important we are to each other and how we never find enough time for each other, we spoke about a very serious thing; I wonder how we managed in our drunken stupor. But we did and it was very important a topic. It was that of independence. Not in terms of constitutional rights but independence in a relationship.

Love binds us to the person we love; more so when such love is romantic and it is expected that we depend on the person we love. This is in contradiction to what a lot of people strive for and stand for: the fact that they are strong-willed independent individuals; that they can sort out their own issues, bend their will they way they want to come up with incredible things; to pull themselves up on their own when they are feeling down; to never cry or breakdown and so on and so forth. In some ways, independent people build a fortress around themselves so that internal struggle can never be seen. But is that something that will let you be what your lover wants you to be. Love is often described as two bodies-one soul, of being able to read each other's mind and just know what to do, to let go and trust completely; and sometimes in an obvious way. Independent people can love and can love very deeply; but it does not show always. They have a wall around them, and their character does not let them bare it all, not even to their most loved ones. And that often causes a lot of angst and frustration.

There is no solution to this, no right and wrong; but my take is that there is an immense satisfaction in the fact that you can depend on someone so much that you can let go of something that you have stood for so long; may be that is why they say love makes you so humble. To every independent person; I say let go of it my man and give in.

P.S. This independent tendency is more with men than with women. That is just my observation.

we should all read this

Sometimes all that you do in life seems of irrelevant that some of these lessons that I came across seem so useful! and yeah some of them make good IM taglines...

This is something that got forwarded in office...

This is something we should all read at least once a week!!!!! Make sure you read to the end!!!!!!
Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
15. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
16. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
17. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
18. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else
19. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
22. Over prepare, and then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

A holy man was having a conversation with God one day and said, ' God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.' God led the holy man to two doors.. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles, that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, 'You have seen Hell.'
They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and lump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, 'I don't understand…' It is simple,' said God. 'It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves.'

I wonder where 20 and 21 went though :)

the weakness in the moments

Life makes such fools of us, why is it that mankind so stupid that it fails to realize that all weakness is in the moment and a moment of pushing away the impulse can prevent a lot of blunders. A moment of despair can spoil a life oh hope, a moment of anger can kill a lifetime of peace, a second's impulse of recklessness can kill you, maim you. Rationally we all know all of this but it is but nature's way of playing with us, making us do things we should not in spite of knowing that we should not! Life is a bitch, aint it! But like they say, its puppies are cute! And I guess that is what makes it worth it :)

Just when you thought.....

Doma and Ajja and megs came home with amma today and the one thing that made me feel the nicest was "I am very happy that you both have taken your parents' consent and gonje ahead. It speaks a lot about the maturity you have" :))))))

Just when I thought it could not get better, it just got better :)

the forth of joolai

There was the stupid team outing! Some silly resort, the sillier team members, the crowds from eight other companies, the drunker brawl between us and a second company and then going back to office to do some work that happy venkatan had asked me to do made the day rather drab. Vicky (short for victorious god of the heavens) was sleepy having stayed up in office till 3 in the morning. I just wanted to drop him off and hit the gym to burn the gulab jamoons and ice cream I had eaten. But life had slightly different things in store and aint I glad that life had slightly different plans for me.

So me and Vicky ended up talking for over three and a half hours about life, God, destiny, the Gita, his life, my life and a whole bunch of other things. He is a fine chap, and it was awesome to listen to him talk about what he has been through in life and more importantly what he has learned from that and how he applies that in his everyday life and life in general.

I cannot express what I felt after speaking to him, it is something so personal that it can only be felt. But the biggest things are that I feel i have found a friend and something has increased my resolve to study the SrimadBhagvadGita.

Thanks Vicky!

And yes in remembrance of this lovely evening I post one of your favourite words (Thanks Rudyard Kipling for this)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Passion

There must be something, something that I badly want to do! Where the hell has it gone? Where where where! What happened to all that ambition, passion, everything else? Is this what an engineering and MBA course has done to me?

There must be something! I have to have to find it :|

Selling Out

I keep saying people sold out for money, careers and all that.


Sometimes I wonder if I sold out for happiness and peace :)

They just dont heal

Someone called today. This someone had once inspired a post by me earlier in this blog.

I thought I had gotten over it, that I had pushed the pain away, and cleansed my soul of the hurt to be a free-er individual. I dread the further encounters. One part of me says I am so glad it is still important and that the relationship matters and that the old ties are renewed. But I know that the niceties and fun and laughter is not permanent, it will disappear as though it never was. And it leaves me hurting, fuming, broken (well may be not, broken is a strong word) and sore all over again and just when I am about to heal, the call and the meeting happens again.

I know I should expect less, but that does not happen. Some things are just fixed, they really can’t be changed. It just won’t be the same if you change what the person is to you. It is different, to put the person in a new role in your life, even if you know that the current role was not meant to be. It is not a position or a responsibility in a company right, it is about emotion, about people and the way you feel for them.

I have tried and God knows I have tried to heal, but no avail. The hurt just does not go. I guess they sometimes just don’t heal :(

Ambition

I lost it in the middle and was sort of settling into a life without one when all of a sudden i find that it is in something so material :)

Yeah, 203 it is :)

Stuff

It was a brilliant weekend in Ooty. Lovely weather, nice car, decent roads, no urgency and lovely company. The drive was awesome and the rain and mist made it beautiful. The food rocked as did the hill station as well as the chocolates, of which I have so much, so drop in home if you want some of the 9 types of chocolates that I bought.

But all this is ok, and I would have enjoyed it anyways, even if I was alone. What then made it so nice?

The only thing that made it so special is that it brought back so many feelings and committments that were pushed to the back of our minds. I, actually, we realized that the friends from college are still as important, if not more, at this point in time. We need each other, if not for anything else, just say "I love you for what you are and I will be around if you need me." Just a confirmation of the fact that we can be liked, that we are nice people, and that there is someone who is just a call away.

Some of us in the group are in love and will be married sooner or later. But we still need these friends, the good old friends from engineering days who will always be there, like us for whatever we are and will become.

In this trip, we realized this and this one thing, makes the whole trip so so worth it.

Keep in touch people, for nothing else in the world, not all the money, cars houses or holidays will take us through a rough patch in life, or even more simply, make us feel like the most special people in the world.

P.S. I wish this was a post in a physical diary, the ink would have smudged. Che che!

The fine line

It is weird but we all go through this! Atleast I think we all do and I definitely do!

And that is this eternal question of whether " I am doing too much of too few or too little of too many."

And the question has no one right answer!

It is a constant turmoil that haunts me all the time and causes me to sometime discontinue things that I was so passionate about before, things that I stood very strongly for. But today I find myself not so keen and don’t do it at all.

This is a complex dynamic decision based on current and future commitments, current time availability, the constantly changing priorities, ad hoc work that comes up, boredom with existing things that you have been doing and so on.

And this question will like a non-linear optimization align how much time and effort spent on how many number of things in line with the above stated parameters. To make it more complex, all you need to add is the whims and fancies of the person that you are.

See it is so complex that you don’t know what is right and what is wrong! And for someone to judge you at this point and say you are lazy, or you don’t have your priorities right and all that is not correct. Like I was telling P today, never judge a person wearing you shoes, I used to do it, today I don’t, I would have lost out on a lot of very good friends of mine if I had continued to be so judgmental. I am still opinionated but I don’t judge people so harshly anymore and I am so much more open.

Also, I am open to change, much more than ever before and I can understand if people's priorities change. When priorities change, the " I am doing too much of too few or too little of too many" question pops up and you change things you are doing. Don't judge someone as wrong when this change happens for this change was bound to happen and it did, whether you like it or not.

A thousand flirts!

There are a thousand of them,
they come close to me,
they talk to me
and remind me how beautiful life can be

In all hues and colours they come
and in rhythms and beats
i love many of them
i flirt, through the day

Dabbling between various kinds,
at home, in office and while i move around
some dance in sync and drive me wild
so much, that I get drunk on them

But only some stay
and whisper in my ear all night
and play with me through the night

And in the middle of the night,
when i rest in peaceful slumber
they leave as quietly as they entered my mind
and slip away in the dead of the night

Very few remain, all through the night
to arouse me in the morning
and these, lovely ones, make it to the list on the right :)

The life I want to lead :)

So nice it is,

Had a fairly useful week, personal, professional, private yada yada yada
And I did not skip the gym any weekday
Had four meetings yesterday with friends and PBPs. Sooper it was. And yes I realized that the moonlight is cool and sunlight is warm :)
And that the company's measurement criteria along with the world's most valued brand is a sooper combination, anytime :)

And today is Sunday, lazy day, happy mind, happy people,
amma cooking special stuff for the family friends while I make the phone calls to all concerned, read of human bondage, listen to "Sunday songs" on the newly refurbished comp, appa reads the newspaper and watches India lose to Australia, I wait for the lovely lunch, the lovelier siesta and the eggy evening at N's place with Sw and Meg.

It is that nice lazy sunday that is so needed to soothe the nerves, relax the mind and make you feel all nice and yellow like below

It is the life that I so want to live :)

Somethings make you day

I got this yesterday and I felt nice
9:59 AM Cashew: UNCLE!!!!
:D
I missing yous!!!
:D
you are zee peppercorn of ze zuppa of ze life
10:00 AM no zing wizout ze peppercorn :(

Somethings never change - Thank God

I met an old friend yesterday, we spent 2 terms of a dreadful course together and it would have not been as much fun, if not for him.

I met him, he is this hot shot i-banker now, but he is still the same. Wears the same stupid clothes and comes and eats at restaurants, nice classy ones, in stupid bathroom slippers and bermudas. And yesterday I was expecting him to do that and he did just that.

The talk was as peaceful and nice as ever. Guess somethings never change and I am glad that they don't.