before sunset...

i think i might have already written a post on this movie earlier.. that was a long time ago.. things have changed since.. my perspectives have changed... and that might warrant a revised brand new movie review :-)

before sunset.. why is this movie so special to me? i am able to identify with Julie Delpy in a way that almost seems impossible.. her views on past relationships, romanticism, living... everything... its not even like i have had the kind of experiences she has had.. its just that i know that if i did, thats how I'd feel... it feels good... to know that there are people who think the way you do... the way she is mean to the guy and he understands completely that its coming from her own hurt and does not mean any harm..

i just hope everyone finds one person, to whom they can confide... everything.. their fears, their wishes... their beliefs... its is important.. because thats when you actually get to know yourself.. sometimes we are unable to introspect... and when we are with this person who understands us and with whom you speak a different language altogether... one in which there are no apologies... no harsh words... no heated tempers... just pure and perfect understanding... that you actually gain the courage to analyse the real you... and its a rewarding experience..

they say that you are not supposed to depend on somebody else for your clarity... that sometimes, thats the easiest way... and a most memorable one too...

In any case, I am on my way to try out yoga and meditation to find out the real me. It seems to be the only real alternative to the many of us, who feel disillusioned with everything else.

curiosity, expressions and all things human...

one of my friends was recently apping for MBA.. and there was one essay which just asked "what is the most important thing for you?" now this was a tough essay and my friend had to consult a lot of his friends on what they thought was most important for him.. in the end he settled on the safe answer "growth".

but this set off a series of questions in my mind.. and I couldn't rest till I decided for myself what was most important to me... I started with thinking what guided my actions and my day to day life.. was it relationships? money? growth? love? what... and a strange answer was lingering out there... it said expressions.. it was a weird answer.. nevertheless.. that was the reslt of my reflections.... as I was just toying with the word and trying to make some sense why my mind decided to spew this out, the different meaning of the word started registering... music, language, ambitions, IQ, EQ, XQ, curiosity, feelings and all things human would not have meant anything at all but for our ability (and keenness) to express them.. human beings are considered evolved because they could express things...

communication would be a merely utilitarian form of expressions... it would miss out on the art andthe emotions that's part of expressions... and we as humans are able to scale these expressions, measure them in different ways, store them if necessary and use technology to transmit them anywhere and any number of times... anyways... the impact of this would make sense to you if you considered yourself without your five senses... you would still have feelings, you would still have curiosity but you would not be able to express yourself... you could as well be a fish!!! because I am not at all sure that a fish doesn't have the same feelings and curiosity.... maybe its just not able to express... how am I to know?

anyways... let me continue what I started with... I have decided that to be able to express myself is most important to me and to not do that would mean death... maybe thats why I have a blog in the first place... and maybe thats why I love to sing despite my voice... and maybe thats what my tears burst forth and my laughter booms around me.. and thats why I was doing when I determined to get through JEE... to express the power of my will... maybe...

good.. now that I have told you whats in my mind, you can all go and figure out what is most important to you!!!

peace and amnesia...

hi guys...
yet another lovely sunday (like all sundays are..)
eating hot bujji's and luxuriating in the beautiful evening...

will go in sometime to buy a movie/book etc... been long since i went out..

actually its one of those moments when i am feel very peaceful... really rare.. these moments... but when they come I can't believe my own luck... probably its my plan to go to sikkim this december... my new boss.. who seems to be very stern... but very nice at the same time... whatever it is.. feeling good... seized with peace almost... after a long long time...

its so weird... as you keep growing.. your past keeps increasing in volume... and there is so much more you can think about now! there is never a dull moment with all these thoughts (wanted or unwanted) keep swirling in your head... i wonder bad it will get as I grow older... I have this funny habit of living largely in the present... thats why i forget most of my past... to the extent that I recently asked a doc if there was any pill for long term forgetfulness..

its like a wanton type of amnesia or something which plagues me forever... anyways..

enjoy all your sundays friends... they are far and few in between :-)

feelings and all that...

well, I nearly stopped writing after the criticism (destructive I am sure) I recieved for my previous post.. but then, this stubborn streak within me yearns for this mode of expression, where I can write on and on and come back to read it several months later only to be clueless as to why i wrote all this shit!!

anyways... my days have again gone from simple to not so simple... and i sit most of the letting my mind wander in the wilderness... the one i am really happy i did was read all the four books of a certain author - Nicholas Evans consecutively... man... it makes a difference.. I have always done this... the moment I decide I like an author, I go out and read everything he/she has written... so that i don't miss out while I am in the mood...

this particular author has such a beautiful way of writing... the characters he writes about are unforgettable... seemingly simple yet complex in their sensitivities... his description of nature... I almost feel like I have spent the last couple of weeks in Montana!!

a lot of people have accused me that i have a tendency to be sad, even when all was well... and i agree... i think that its when you are slightly sad that you enjoy the things around you in its several shades.... you know, otherwise its all black and white and I want to percieve the grays in between... and this authour has done just that... and maybe thats why a typical award winning novel always leaves one feeling melancholy and thoughtful rather than a light exhilerating feeling which you might think must constitute a good piece of writing...

why is it that what people mostly talk about are mundane while what people think are so complex... and thats what poetry and good books and music are all about... to discuss a good piece of writing is to explore the human nature... and what can be more important than to understand human nature... we study history, literature and social science to understand human behaviour... even economics has its roots in understanding motivations...

i have seen that you call a person close or a friend, when you can share with them things beyond the mundane... like your feelings... not opinions.. but feelings... you might ask of what practical importance are feelings?? in this busy world, to spend time on feeling things has almost become a luxury of sorts... when most of our time is spent on surviving.. where is the time or enthu to 'feel'?? thats probably why I feel rich when I write on my blog... it makes me feel that i have the time and enthu to feel things and actually pen them for all the world to share with!!!

okay guys... hope you all had a great diwali unlike the one I had... spent it suffering from high fever and what not... have fun...

ami kolkata ashchi...

well.. its been long.. the whole transition from a wandering nomad to a well settled uptown girl... nothing particularly interesting to write about actually... except work and of course kolkata... we will take up kolkata first..

kolkata (cal in short.. the usual way I have always known it as) and its people are all about contradictions... its a charming and an equally irritating place... while the utter poverty irritates you.. the fact that these poor people would eat mishti dhoi instead of the usual dhal chaval with the few coins they manage to earn charms you.. you would think the people are laidback till you hear the almost daily phenomenon of "cholben cholben" -- small groups going on strike for something or the other.. (like their company not serving them kukure at tea time?!?)

another thing that has me totally befuddled me has been the way these people celebrate their pujas... my god.. you would think that all the gods in the world have rushed to reside in their idols for those ten days of puja... the place goes mad... and i am not even sure with what.. is it religious fervour, socialising spree, some spurt of creativity that gets expressed through the dressing up of the idols/themselves... god knows... but the reason behind the thousands doing their mid-night jaunts amidst all the rush in the name of Pandal hopping is beyond me...

let me come to work now... I am now a manufacturing manager (on probation.. but I will let that be) and its quite cool... lots of responsibilities... lots of liabilities... lots of fire fighting.. lots of fun.. for once I don't feel like I am wasting time... wasting all the resources of mother earth by my sheer useless presence... I know why I am here on earth... I am born to make tea for all the tea drinkers of the world (oh yes, we export too!)... which is as good as any other purpose I suppose... anyways.. lets just say that I am happy making tea (leaf, dust, plain, flavoured, you name it... ) for the time being.. now that makes me quite a busy person... and hence this post after a long long time (just kidding yaar...)

anyways guys.. will stop now..
before I lose the few fans that my blog has...
enjoy.. and wotch (oops.. sorry.. bong inflections seem to be to have caught me already!!) for tea made in cal ;-)

Lincoln..

I have always admired Abraham Lincoln. How can one man be so fine. He has embodied so many virtues, and most important of all humility, which I seldom see in today's world. Since the day I had read anecdotes of this simple yet great man, I have always thought that I should and would be someone like him, someone I can look up to and admire.

While a gandhi or a buddha had their own way leading people, I find Lincoln someone who I can be, without having to shed your clothes or leaving your family. Part of mankind, someone like you and me and yet so fine. This letter, I am sure most of you would have read some time or other. But just for the truth and hope hidden behind the lyrical beauty of the words, I wanted to post it in my blog. Hoping these words would forever strike a chord in my heart...

He will have to learn, I know,

teach him that all men are not just,

all men are not true.

But teach him also that

for every scoundrel there is a hero;

that for every selfish Politician,

there is a dedicated leader..

Teach him for every enemy there is a friend,

Steer him away from envy,

if you can,

teach him the secret of

quiet laughter.

Let him learn early that

the bullies are the easiest to kick…

Teach him, if you can,

the wonder of books..

But also give him quiet time

to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky,

bees in the sun,

and the flowers on a green hillside.

In the school teach him

it is far honourable to fail

than to cheat..

Teach him to have faith

in his own ideas,

even if every one tells him

they are wrong…

Teach him to be gentle

with gentle people,

and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son

the strength not to follow the crowd

when everyone is getting on the band wagon…

Teach him to listen to all men…

but teach him also to filter

all he hears on a screen of truth,

and take only the good

that comes through.

Teach him if you can,

how to laugh when he is sad…

Teach him there is no shame in tears,

Teach him to scoff at cynics

and to beware of too much sweetness..

Teach him to sell his brawn

and brain to the highest bidders

but never to put a price-tag

on his heart and soul.

Teach him to close his ears

to a howling mob

and to stand and fight

if he thinks he’s right.

Treat him gently,

but do not cuddle him,

because only the test

of fire makes fine steel.

Let him have the courage

to be impatient…

let him have the patience to be brave.

Teach him always

to have sublime faith in himself,

because then he will have

sublime faith in mankind.

This is a big order,

but see what you can do…

He is such a fine fellow,

my son!

- Lincoln

the state of our fate...

today, i am not sure whether it was fortunate or not, i happened to read a couple of articles in the hindu editorial... one on the recent floods in maharashtra which were ascribed to extensive deforestation and improper dam designs... and the other on the food security in india (access to food, not just sufficiency) which stated that 57 million indian kids were malnutritioned... and only 47% of the kids got even primary education....

and i was overcome with such an immense sense of shame that i cannot describe it... what am i doing with my brains, my will power and all the energy that god endowed me with when doing something for this country/world did not even seems like a long term goal of mine... i was always thinking that I would enrich the world with art and literature and philosophy... that i forgot the age old adage that said, a man can do anything, provided he his body has a scrap of cloth on it and his stomach has food...

when so many kids, the future of the world have not even the privelege of food and shelter, of what purpose is all the poetry and beauty of the world? can't beauty be found in the contented sigh of all the creatures on earth.... should it only come in the form of color on canvas?? anyways... my brain is muddled with emotion now and I feel addled...

lets see what this seed of thought fructifies into....

abstract concepts....

I have been most fascinated by this pic since the day i drew it some 8 months ago when i was a trifle bored at work...

one of them is made of all lines curving down and while the other is made of all lines curving up... and look at the stark difference... what does it mean??? has god given meanings to shapes too??

I lied...

do you believe in truth?? i am a big time believer of truth... and i believe that even if i lie, my lie will become a truth in itself... so i now feel trapped in truth... there are so many people who lie left and right... and nothing really wrong happens to them... then why is it that i get an almost physical like pain when i am forced to lie sometimes??

and the world is so unfair... it wants lies... like, for instance... when i was sittin gfor placements, i was asked if i wanted to app... if i said, yes, i was not selected for the next stage... so i lied.. got a job... later it so happened that i really lost interest in app, and i didn't app after all... so see... its so scary....

anyways... i recently sorta lied, for another meaningless thing... and am feeling extrememly quesy about it... though it doesn't have a major impact except that if i may have to cover lie later with another lie... and so i hate myself for giving in to pressure and lying in the first place... anyways... the conclusion is that i am not gonna lie anymore... whatever be the reason... though i feel odd at times when i have to say the truth, atleast i won't be suffering like i am now...

its so much more easier to say what you believe in and know its the truth... all said and done... its been a valuable experience... and the main learning for me has been: don't lie! its not worth it...

yours truly....

feeling rich...

I have been thinking about what makes people feel rich and contented? Is it money? No, money is only a tool that gives us choice. Is it choice that makes people feel rich? Maybe, but if I like what I am doing and I know I have what I want, then why do I need choices? Then maybe the answer is being you want to be and doing what you want to do. But this keeps changing with time. Hence you need money to accomodate your changing needs. Which is probably why money makes people feel rich.

I always used to think that you feel rich by spending/giving and not by earning. In fact earning makes me feel poor, cause many a times I do things I don't wanna do, just for the money. I think we are making a compromise here: you give sometime to earn money, during which you feel poor, and the rest of the time you spend it, during which time you feel rich, cause you have the choice of what to do with the money. Which is probably why I am doing whatever it is that I am doing.

If the way I have posed by arguments remind any of you of Calvin, well, yes, I have been reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes lately :-)

Have a great Weekend all of ya...

finding neverland...

I am filled with doubts... doubts gnawing at the peace of my mind... sometimes I don't wanna live anymore... I feel like 'been there done that'... nothing that i do seem to give me peace... wanna become buddha... go far far away from everything i know and everything i have been... refreshing newness is what i want..

maybe thats why I was so drawn to this film that I saw recently.. finding neverland... the concept itself is so alluring... having a neverland of your own, where you retreat when you have had enough of the world... enough of the mad rush of the people around you... with which you can't identify... not anymore...

there should be a commune... a secret one... consisting of people who want nothing but for the beauty of this earth to be preserved.. for all posterity... green earth... blue sky... flowers of all colours and fragrances.... cool breeze... bubbling brooks... graceful deer darting around... white clouds billowing around happily in the sky... occasionally blunting the mellow warmth of the sun... wow... i sincerely hope that i live my dream.... surrounded by nature... and warmth... a small brick cottage.. a furry dog... a majestic horse... and me... with books and music.... alone for the rest of my life.... no, i don't want people... i am disillusioned now... people only make me feel more void... no, i don't want people with me... me and nature... thats it....

oops... gotta go now..
maybe i will sit by the beach this evening (its only 50m from my house!)
let everything else go to hell..
i just want some peace...
and let me enjoy it while it still seems within reach...

tata guys...
hope your dreams come true too...

secret..

i think i now possess the secret of living a content life.. its about keeping the sweet little wellspring of joy and purpose hidden in your heart and cultivating it for a little time everyday before moving on to the daily activities of life... when your thinking is limited to mistaking the summation of daily activities as life itself, you are left feeling shallow...

Any thoughts??

life is beautiful!

hi guys... I am suddenly seized with a desire to write about my life in my blog.... it seems that my life is one long continuous maze with a new twist coming at every unexpected moment.. last year, when I was one of the happy recipients of the prestigious bachelor of technology degree from one of the best colleges in India, if you had told me that I would be sitting in a small factory on the outskirts of Pondicherry typing out a long post on my life at the end of a long day, I would have laughed at you... but thats precisely what I am doing now... I came to IIT to go abroad... when I got my JEE results, the first thing I told my mom was "my gate to the US of A has opened at last"... from that moment till my final year, I worked towards a good app... then suddenly my dream didn't really seem all that appealing... India did not seem all that bad... in fact India seemed to place I had to be in...

anyways... now that I am here... with a job that I reasonably enjoy doing... life seems boring... everything is so in place, that I am itching for something to go wrong... an interesting job (where I got to boss around!), a good pay cheque, a small lovely town (half french I might add), lots of books, DVD's of every imaginable movie (at 30 bucks each!), a rocky beach, little french restaurants (filled with french beauties in lacy attires - not that it means anything to me, I am just describing the place... ), tamil, south indian food, air conditioned bedroom and summer trainees for company... it seems so perfect that I am not able to believe I am bored with it...

the day after tomorrow is my birthday... weird that I should mention it... since my birthdays have never assumed too much importance in my life... the last time I celebrated was when I was way too young to remember it... in college I never had an opportunity to spend my birthdays with friends or family and this year is not very different... and without people who care about you around, birthday is hardly a memorable day... and distributing chocolates to and recieving token gifts from the not-so-close-people around me does not give me any joy whatsoever... it only makes me feel conscious and embarrassed...

thats about all thats happening in my life now... but it feels good to have written this blog... I wanted to tell someone about whats going on in my life... and I have said it now... my car has come I gotta go home... So long!

urgent

this is for all my dear friends who care about my fame as a decent blogger...
It was moments after I posted my previous poem (if you can call that sequence of rhyming words that) that i got my first 'constructive criticism' that it was 'shallow'... and it didn't take long even to me to realise that... the reason it first went up to my blog was because I was telling my sister, how to write rhyming poems... and my enthusiasm to teach got the better off me, and out came that 'shallow' piece of writing...

in any case, I wanted to immediately write this post apologising for putting up that piece of shit and disappointing the precious few who bother to read my blog... but things kept coming up (including more notes from more friends on how bad the poem was) and hence in the middle of my busy day at the factory, I decided that enough is enough, and hence this post...

more meaningful(to me) stuff will soon follow....
sorry...

choices

Life’s no longer a race,
to be completed, a mission,
I am grown up now, an ace,
the only thing lacking is a vision,

To decide what to do,
in this short living,
my intention is true,
it’s the choices that are confusing,

a politician, I wannabe,
when I think,
that power is the key,
to save the people from the brink.

or I might be a poetess,
and I shall mime,
life with its facets and finesse,
with my rhyme. or maybe I should make,

maybe its music Ishould make
music that can heal,
music that causes ripples even in a silent lake,
music that make even a dead soul feel.

I have always wanted teach,
for it’s the young minds that I can mould,
their reasoning I can reach,
with lessons and smiles and an occasional scold.

a farmer I will be,
till the land and sow the seed and reap the crop,
for it is he,
without whom the world will stop.

a real estate agent,
an investment trader,
a beauty pageant,
economist, scientist, philosopher!

the choices are too many.
what is my true calling,
things are making me go zany,
confusion seems to be my failing.

hi

i know the hi sounds feeble.. its been so long... not even sure why i wanna write this... but what's for sure is that i am not capable of churning up something original, lively or funny... am in chennai branch office now sitting in someone's seat temporarily and waiting for the day to start, when i noticed this cute poem stuck on his cabin wall... thought will it share with you guys...
have a nice time...
and be happy
always ;-)

Little Things..

Most of us miss out.
on life,
Big Prizes,
the Pulitzer,
the Nobel,
Oscars,
But we're
all eligible
for life's
small pleasures,
a pat
on the back,
a kiss
behind the ear,
a full moon,
an empty
parking lot,
a crackling fire,
a great meal,
a glorious sunset,
hot xoup,
cold beer,
don't fret
about copping life's
Grand awards,
enjoy its
tiny delights,
there are plenty
For all of us.