tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8410952921568246752024-03-07T14:17:11.335+05:30S u r r e a L F l a v o r SLife Marked With <i>Chocolate-Box</i> Splashes...!Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-18088954523329046492010-08-18T03:12:00.002+05:302015-10-31T15:26:30.076+05:30Language Love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Call it all bilge, but every language has its own personal delight of usage. Each one of them brings its own signature set of ideas, expressions, locutions and a constitutional curiosity while spoken out. It's difficult to see any foreign language in the same light as you would do to your mother tongue, and that's where the beauty lies. You develop a singularly new<i> inner voice</i> with each language you learn, for many of the expressional experiences and subtle nuances of one language can't be translated to another.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">In childhood, I used to love Hindi, knowingly or unknowingly. Not that I was found of Hindi Literature or was a high-scorer, but because Hindi would often surprise me by furnishing words that could easily dissolve and evoke certain complex feeling of mine, hitherto inaccessible--like the way hot winds carve out sharp sand dunes over the desert. For example, the word '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">dampati</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' means a married couple, but it is often used in comic, tongue-in-cheek manner, such as when you have to crack a joke on a couple's slapstick antics, or on the mundaneness of their internal life. I learnt this word and I "tagged" many couples around my family, and giggled inside. Then the words '<i>dampati</i>' and '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">jhagraa</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' (fight) would often appear together, and I would consider them under a single cluster-thought. Why should both of them so near to each other? They need not be, it was just so because that's how it was used around me. I raised no questions either. Those who do, tend to become highly creative, lateral thinkers. Creativity is just about connecting disparate disciplines/subjects which conservatively don't mix well.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Nevertheless, that's how with time you learn to form an association of words together, which later ferments your language-sensibility and overall thinking mindset and world-view. An idea cloud grows as your vocabulary grows. And your thought process flows only to the peripheral confinement of these self-made word-nodes that you've "learnt" in life hitherto--true to their core. That is, you are essentially </span><i style="font-size: 85%;">confined</i><span style="font-size: 85%;"> to think, reason and </span><span style="font-size: 13.6px;">perceive</span><span style="font-size: 85%;"> the world based on the limits of your vocabulary. </span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Every word represents and encompasses a strictly irreplacable <i>idea</i><i> </i>on its own.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Please dump the fucking Thesaurus.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">I learnt the word '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">budhiya</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 85%;">' (old woman) way earlier when I was still sucking thumb in my mouth, but I was then also told not to use it for my own grandma or the elderly aunties. It always used to be either for that "other" person, some old lady on the roadside--that I won't be knowing of personally--or for the story-writing that I would have to do in school. Hindi surprised me again. This is the other sort of discovery of childhood everyone makes somewhere along the way--that most things and people have referential duality meant to </span><span style="font-size: 13.6px;">deceive</span><span style="font-size: 85%;"> the words they are labelled by. And no way saying 'old woman' in English could substitute the figurative pleasure of imagining a '</span><i style="font-size: 85%;">budhiya</i><span style="font-size: 85%;">' in Hindi, until unless you know specific words such as: '</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">termagant</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">', 'harridan', 'crone', 'hag'... whatever closest it could be. But that's not the common <i>colloquial</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;"> English. That's the multiplicity you have to bear with while practicing two languages in abundance--one the mother tongue and the other that everyone else says that its everyone else's tongue and you are supposed to master it [English].</span></span></b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Nonetheless there used to be many </span><span style="font-size: 13.6px;">savouring</span><span style="font-size: 85%;"> discoveries like the ones mentioned earlier in the growing years. The </span><i style="font-size: 85%; font-weight: normal;">just </i><span style="font-size: 85%;">way of learning the language as an art; in its pristine form. But I didn't use and pursue the Hindi words much, didn't pursue my 'inner-voice' and interest of learning new terms (ideas) and giggling while using them, and that's why my Hindi is rickety weak now.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Early years you would also have learnt phrases such as '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">gusse se tilmilana</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' (extreme rage) in your list of difficult words in the Hindi textbook, but those times you can't use it upfront to describe your dad's violent rage. Or hardly did. The word was always meant for your school study book. Always to be written as-is during make-sentences-of-the-following-phrases assignments. The study of language and literature in early years suffers from this duality. Just see how much of words from the lyrics of beautiful Bollywood Songs people actually use in their conversations. Not all of them are too lyrical to be of daily use.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">And then Sanskrit shook my life. Sanskrit came and it appeared what Hindi would look just before committing suicide. It was forceful and aggressive, demanding extra effort in all of its verbs and nouns and phonology and what else. It was a loose baggage of crawling, pointy characters that aberrated the admirable compactness of Hindi. In writing as well as speech. Ask anyone the perils of studying Sanskrit in higher classes and s/he would've story to tell. S/he would be either a hit or miss. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">I missed the beauty of the language. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">After bungling with Sanskrit for few years, and realizing the future inevitability of looming English, my solidarity for Hindi grew a million times.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">There's one thing Hindi has given to people that's too subtle to realize. You've the word '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jantaa</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' in Hindi for '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">public</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">', and '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jaagruk</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' for '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">enlightened</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">'. Note that both start with the same letter '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">j</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">'. Needless to say, words starting with same consonant occasionally club together as distant lovers. It gives a lyrical swing to the sentence or the idea. The commenest of the Common Sense of a language. Look at the these phrases:</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;"> Lady Luck, Tinkered Thought, Memento Mori, Perilous Plight, Part n Parcel</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;"> etc. These coupling phrases have a greater impact than what would it have been without the ryhming first letter. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">So there you have the word '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jaagruk</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">', which is often used in Hindi to mention some sense of awakening of a being. The vernacular is ripe with its usage and cliche. However ask any native about this and the picture s/he gets of word is that of collectiveness and bordering out of the periphery of the self. That's because it is more too often used alongwith '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jantaa</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' , or any other bloated rhetorical construction. Pardon my expertise in this, but I've rarely heard '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jaagurk</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' in use for another construction in the common parlance. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Just to test, start talking in Hindi --about a topic themed around '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jantaa</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' for one minute long, and someway or the other you would jump to the idea of '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jaagrukta</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' (enlightenment) in your line of thought after a while...like an ant eventually finding its way to food after several iterative paths. Such realizations take time to settle inside your head. You are "wired" to think a certain way, based on all the words that you have only learnt/known, and the language leaps you into the word web you've woven for yourself --if you are not conscious enough to break through.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Similarly, think of the term <i>aadmi</i> (Man/Individual). The cloud of image that pops up in your head when you would start thinking around this term would invariably subsume the phrase <i>aam aadmi</i> (Common Man), because you are used (wired) to view it that way.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Hindi has given us that elegance in expression which allows us to float above the central idea of fact being stated, and savour in its longitudinal craft, rounded vowels and tense phonetics (credit also goes to the import of grace of <i>Urdu</i>). Hindi has given us the structural closeness of '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Bura</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' with '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Bhala</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">'--a folksy illusion--which 'good' and 'bad' lack in English. Hindi has so much of a romantic word as '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Lamhaa</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">' (a moment's time), without meaning romantic; Hindi has given us '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Jaagruk Jantaa</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">'.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">:)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">: </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Flickr</span></a></span></div>
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Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-29001043153483838142010-08-12T21:09:00.009+05:302010-08-16T21:19:47.491+05:30Sparks. Committed To.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgtTeDVL4NHPu9cjaZdlJffgb5rbjvC7RWIIlsCnceKvB5CTI6xepLOmi9WKwltavQLuZMhymEZ6Vqtio5Idq5ubzNWiyFXiiIiaNsvQ5bEs7jzx3xNozhT2jM0_I2_XMo4alXHTTkw/s1600/addicted_to_dew-sparkle+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgtTeDVL4NHPu9cjaZdlJffgb5rbjvC7RWIIlsCnceKvB5CTI6xepLOmi9WKwltavQLuZMhymEZ6Vqtio5Idq5ubzNWiyFXiiIiaNsvQ5bEs7jzx3xNozhT2jM0_I2_XMo4alXHTTkw/s320/addicted_to_dew-sparkle+(1).jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: orange; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A spark flew from there to there*</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Unbecoming, unfinished and undone</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">It coasted and it sought no direction</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Nor did it find some cement to adhere</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">As we sat and we watched it together, </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Watched it shedding its own dominion.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Perhaps it strayed off on this shore</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">From some rabid wind-buffetted flame</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And she said 'Go douse it before...'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">'Before it can become a fire a fiend'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But I thought, 'Why to? What For?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">For some Sparks outlive themselves</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And it wasn't one of those for sure.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A Spark flew from there to there; And it lay </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Like those inconspicuous Sparks instead</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Which shoots up within us every other day.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Spark within us</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Of an </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">obvious</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">but ever-renewed </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">prosaic </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">idea </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Of cageless passion and the hint of a rainbow</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Of a romantic intuition and unfathomed areas</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Of sincere reproach and disowned choked ego</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Of all imaginative love and wellspring-ed will</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Of fresh energies and flashes of clairvoyance,</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Spark within us</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Of the dawn of a slightly different tomorrow.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">'I should try this, I should visit there'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">'I should explore more, I must ask her'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">'I should quit here, I should start anew'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">'I must learn lots, I should be more hued'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But none of these or suchlike, we ever do.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And which all Sparks wither more too often</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Less for the need for daily bread,</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And more for </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">need for greed</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Oh this Lazy Ass! Oh this Dickless Snobbery!</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">It leaves us grim and gormless, </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And it leaves us criminally bare</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But Hey wait! I've grown out of this snare</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Which is what I try telling her.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The Spark that flew from there to there</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">This she said not I...</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I just sat there close to it, close to her</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But for me, both -- She and the Spark,</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Seem to be unattainable...</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Both of whom I wish t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">o be committed to,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Forever...</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">*This line is not mine.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Flickr</span></a></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-76873649508703007532010-08-05T15:07:00.045+05:302010-08-19T00:33:22.065+05:30Book: Known Turf<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfPWjHQ8NUKwrX9DVnCP6c1JwktQk_B14JE7OqXbvVB0cjCwhcIFHJ2CmaFdMRkNQ6iYbW4sBxgr0pK715Cg3vsknf7EvZwqH7Tqr29W0gfdaIS0jqo9ZkUYARPobQ9cG7pQDw9XzcA/s1600/KT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfPWjHQ8NUKwrX9DVnCP6c1JwktQk_B14JE7OqXbvVB0cjCwhcIFHJ2CmaFdMRkNQ6iYbW4sBxgr0pK715Cg3vsknf7EvZwqH7Tqr29W0gfdaIS0jqo9ZkUYARPobQ9cG7pQDw9XzcA/s1600/KT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfPWjHQ8NUKwrX9DVnCP6c1JwktQk_B14JE7OqXbvVB0cjCwhcIFHJ2CmaFdMRkNQ6iYbW4sBxgr0pK715Cg3vsknf7EvZwqH7Tqr29W0gfdaIS0jqo9ZkUYARPobQ9cG7pQDw9XzcA/s320/KT.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Few days back I had my turn with an eclectic read --'</span><a href="http://travel.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265832"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Known Turf</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">' by </span><a href="http://www.anniezaidi.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Annie Zaidi</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The book on the whole had a mooring effect on me. In parts, I found it as one of those rare reads which manages to connect with the confused middle-class twenty-something youths (like me). Confused between the liberal upbringing we've received, and the larger hard-lined realities which, if ever had touched us --it was only intermittently, like reaching in waves.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dalits in Punjab, Value system in Dacoits' lives and families, Exploring <i>Sufism</i>, Displacement, Identity-crisis, Weavers of Benaras and many more --Annie has covered a wide gamut of subjects in her book --and shuffling through each section unfolded a separate shimmy world in itself for me; petal by petal to a bloom. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I liked the way she talks about the life and times of Dacoits using Bollywood's </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sholay, Dushman</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> etc as point of reference, and especially parts which come out as personal memoirs...such as the place where she felt queasy while calling the 'legendary' dacoits such as <i>Raghuveer Singh Gussi</i> or <i>Lokman Dixit</i> (Lakku Daaku) --the ruthless murderers in their hey days --as 'Baba', while meeting them in person. This was amusing and unique. Through the reportage I got to learn about Bandits and Dacoits sans their comic aroma, that is in a way I or most of the current growing generation hadn't read before.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I loved reading about </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sufism </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">and Sufi shrines, especially at places where Annie gets Sufi defined as "</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">anyone who stood against caste, and stood for humanity, could be called Sufi</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">", or where someone tells her: "</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sufism offered us an alternative reality of Punjab, one which is not talked about...</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I also loved the tender descriptions Annie presents of cities like Allahabad and Patna. There's an unindulgent delight that comes while reading miniature details of life at places you've yourself grown up. And one advantage of having grown up in a small town is that you remain aware how impersonal a larger monster of a city would always be. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">While reading about the rickshaws in Bihar that the author describes about with good charm and amusement, I was reminded of the scene from the movie </span><i><a href="http://www.naachgaana.com/2009/10/19/review-haasil2003/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Haasil</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(set in UP, India) --where the gorgeous heroine is riding at a vulnerable place in a rickshaw, a loud goudy rickshaw full of bling and baubles and tassels, and she feels so embarrassed from the shrill and, sort of jolly jingling caused by the decorations, that finally she grows too self-conscious and reprimands the rickshaw-puller:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Itti saari ghantiya lagaane ki kya jarurat thi, lagtaa hai dashahre ki jhaaki jaa rahi hai...</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"</span></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's the fucking need of putting so much bling around, seems like I'm the joker of a festive procession)</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-To which the rickshaw-puller replies, in a typical crude insouciant (Bihari) style:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Arre! Rickshaw jawan hai, sajayenge nahi to rooth naahi jaayegi. Aaein...</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(Whoa! My Rickshaw darling is young, if I don't adorn her, won't she be furious? You hear?)</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">:)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Besides, I also liked the shriveled-up train journey descriptions (having experienced similar fate), and Annie's unselfconscious search for identity, and her quest for defining 'home', </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">as accurately as possible</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">; such a conny little word it is. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Her stories stand as worthy cultural mouthpieces of the times, with a capital bit of warmth and humor.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And her writing did to me what any sincere piece of writing does; it refreshed my sense of the world around.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Way To Go.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: orange; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">PS: Great that I managed to meet Annie at the book lunch and get a Signed Copy :)</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: orange; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-79422000250257105502009-08-03T01:22:00.017+05:302010-08-14T15:44:14.861+05:30Demons Washing Out<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epictetu.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Epictetus</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> once said "</span></span><span style="font-size: 85%; font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...that your son is sick, not that he may die of it</span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">." I don't think many people (would) get this right. The implied ignorance is deceptive, while the impossibility is a worthy, smug feeling -- like being always sure in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1643758065">mistaking paradise for that Home </a></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Frankie_Lee_and_Judas_Priest">across the road</a></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. And what people end up with is a stewed over mess. They don't realize that in their daily dosage of anxiety and fear and the verisimilitude of uncertainty itself, someone plays the anchoring role to keep them tight. Someone without whom no accomplishment will be worth a penny, let alone the pearl. Demons.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipTraHI7cs72CLZdE86RTdb3WnOxP5oD_9bVQjn8Dph1FjpYB_udy33GjIQLnrGLxx8c_drCHXd-bHRxpJm6zdySNSsl7MJsZovfIUxEi6FfT5G-PNbHf_qq2fTL2KeyoTFWc5Qy-x5A/s1600-h/epic.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365480185410714610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipTraHI7cs72CLZdE86RTdb3WnOxP5oD_9bVQjn8Dph1FjpYB_udy33GjIQLnrGLxx8c_drCHXd-bHRxpJm6zdySNSsl7MJsZovfIUxEi6FfT5G-PNbHf_qq2fTL2KeyoTFWc5Qy-x5A/s400/epic.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 199px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 199px;" /></a><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I don't hold nothing against the Demons when they come to hurt me; when they deliver to me something as inscrutable and as out-worldly as I'm going to tell you about. It appears that as they come and go; they become a delicate cocktail of your dissolute life - just as your morning floss and evening yawns are, just as your favorite peg and joints and smokes nail you down to your basic instincts. They make you feel like a man. They are the one's who keep you humble and grounded, the one's who shake you up from your amnesia of relentless self-love, the one's who help you to raise high and wave you flag of rebelliousness, if ever you want to.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So it happened that not very long ago my Facewash and my Laptop landed up together and decided to have a feud. As you wonder what has it got to do with Demons, you are mistaken, and you need to be sanitized. See, even demons come in variety now. Great product-mix. Demons inflict your good luck charm and disturb the normal ascent of your libido. Demons churn up your mundane assumptions and keep you on the edge. There was absolutely no fucking reason why my Lappy interfere with my cosmetic indulgences, no fucking explanation why they landed up in the same travelling backpack, and overpower each other. But Demons, here they come. The bag was traveling in high speed with me; the laptop, with its useful weight, pounded over the baby Facewash gruesomely; which in turn, with all its tenacious will --puked. Not at the front cover, not at the back casing, but right inside into the screen. Guess who won then.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The demon did its job well; 9k bucks it got from me for the laptop repair, as I still wonder of Facewash's novel prospects of usage for pouring it over to cause a crash-Laptop (can make up a great Ad, if you include a smiling blonde to do it for you). But in between the Demon also made me realize that I'm so homogeneously promiscuous when it comes to money and my possessions and my love for them. And my love for loved-once. Fuck it.<br />
</span> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbDYZef2GKSQoIA2RP9tEJFV57p08Insf5JuOagDm2Jl-M_juvSIngLjA4fQeNHptVaAt7CKqJ6STJ7kECEsum2bQmqr7WOHIDXao-3gS67KlvYHUXGgfU3GlrfG961BU51NEdm3r6bQ/s1600-h/La_decadense.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365483656014272066" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbDYZef2GKSQoIA2RP9tEJFV57p08Insf5JuOagDm2Jl-M_juvSIngLjA4fQeNHptVaAt7CKqJ6STJ7kECEsum2bQmqr7WOHIDXao-3gS67KlvYHUXGgfU3GlrfG961BU51NEdm3r6bQ/s400/La_decadense.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 150px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 117px;" /></a><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These deferential Demons -- as I must </span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">address them, are the ones who wretch your own glamorized sense of self-importance, ones which make you more than the sum of your parts. It reminds you of your finite existence, and your childish limits of showcasing modesty. "</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don't be so modest, you are not that good</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">" -- sometimes I want to scream it aloud to as many as possible. Because earnestness and modesty are like those Mannequins standing in the still and glitter of the shops. Liked for exhibitionism, but not loved. For they can't </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">do</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> anything.<br />
<br />
Stoicism pays. Demons are bonafide change-agents of fortune. Because chances of Misfortune is as much of worth as is the Fortune itself. Because it causes sadness to seep within you. </span> </span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because </span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">sadness in graceful. Because sadness is so fucking real, so less superficial, so much human.</span><br />
<br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 78%;">Image: <a href="http://huehueteotl.wordpress.com/">Huehueteotl</a>, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/deviantart.net">Deviantart</a></span> </div></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-17259424198708727072009-05-26T17:13:00.008+05:302009-06-22T22:30:03.092+05:30Grounded At The Lord's Game<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Sometime back I got into a directionless debate with a friend of mine, AG. For the sake of few juvenile friends, me and AG both often have to grind pompous topics together, topics that don't really relate well :-) AG is great guy to be around with, the one with whom you can argue endlessly without bothering who is right or wrong. And that goes in everything.<br /></span></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">Here's what we were conspiring:</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">AG:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Yeh icerocket kya hai.... ICeRoCKET mein bhi mujhe sada hua cricket dikhta hai </span>;) [referring to the lesser known website: icerocket.com; and that hidden in these words is that bogus game of Cricket. He hates Cricket, maybe more than cockroaches, or maybe more than the dirty nose-hairs too]</span></div><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Me:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Cricket sada hua hoga tere liye</span>. Huh [Cricket will be BS for you only.]</span></div><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">AG:</span> Cricket leads to lower productivity for this country... Had people be not as fanatic about cricket as they are...India would have had higher GDP and better <span style="font-style: italic;">per capita </span>income.. And the people would be more competitive with the rest of the world. It also leads to more divide in the country...esp after IPL...as if the country wasn't fragmented enough...It's such a sad sight to see flocking around electronic shops and putting a pause to their work. Ban cricket :) <span style="font-style: italic;">Isliye mein cricket nahi dekhta</span>...(That's why I don't follow Cricket). Maybe we can have this as a debate topic next session ;)</span></div><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JDT3pRHqoZEiYFYkpX622U1ImqSirAZG0Ql-Ns7rphiwmU5zYvvcRpN0wixDymOsEaqYD6gKo7jRBuEkwbeMLr0GjTiddOpC5SGekjJTcHJi2yNNgdf7GYEbzc6A7CFWThOedCVGyA/s1600-h/agcc.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 164px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JDT3pRHqoZEiYFYkpX622U1ImqSirAZG0Ql-Ns7rphiwmU5zYvvcRpN0wixDymOsEaqYD6gKo7jRBuEkwbeMLr0GjTiddOpC5SGekjJTcHJi2yNNgdf7GYEbzc6A7CFWThOedCVGyA/s400/agcc.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350191835221946338" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Me:</span> Thou shal be hobbled with chains and inflicted at the Gates of Sepulchura that opens up the dreaded Hell, to let know all the cursed, incarcerated witches of perdition present there -- of what a grave transgression thou had committed once, against humanity and all its followers, against the pantheons of faith -- by denouncing something as gentlemanly and as divine as the Holy Cricket itself...Amen. Truth shal behold.</span></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">AG:</span> Don't think I got scared after your mail last evening or that I had a new-found-affinity for cricket ;)<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Me:</span> I know I know, you've no dread whatsoever for your reprehensible act of denunciation against that Holy Spirit's Game...May all the world's cricket-lover's cuss afflict you till your last cry of mercy. Amen.</span></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ></span><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">AG:</span> All holy things in this world suck... that's why they exclaim... Holy shit or Holy crap...</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Me:</span> Poor boy thou are ill-omened with a sullied eye in this pure virginal Holy world...that's why thou reckon that all of it sucks...Lord bless.</span></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ></span><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">AG:</span> And God said...Let there be light...But poor god didn't realize that people would shut their eyes on seeing the light. Hence the blind refer to the world as "pure virginal Holy world" Then god created hope (a four lettered word)... So that people keep hoping that lord would bless the world some day. Alas! Even the lord knows that he will never bless the world; but its a good ego-massage for him when people exclaim, "Lord bless"...</span></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ></span><div align="justify"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Me: </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And if only could people realize that light deceives as much as it evinces... as much as it blazes shamelessly.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And if only could they sense the stipples and reflections of their mental eye too... eyes that could actually dream. Unparalleled.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And if only could they come out of their fatalist mindset to rediscover most of the things 'taught' to them, which they never quite really explored themselves...</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And if only could they learn to etch away the impassioned dogma their mundane routines are moored to... from the hopeless hope to the overflowing ego.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And if only could they leave aside, for a moment, their crusty cynic sense of scrutiny for all that they care enough about...</span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Then only...the Good Lord proclaimed -- the people shall see -- a "pure virginal Holy world" -- in even the flip of a bee's wings, or in the wisps of smoke, or in the blindness of a thunder-lightnings...Amen.<br />---<br /><br />Pretty mindless those statements are. Forget them. So yesterday <a href="http://www.cricinfo.com/wt202009/content/current/story/410111.html">Pakistan won</a> the T20 World Championship. I'm low I badly wanted it to be Sri Lanka. However, come to think of it. A nation with a tottering democracy, leaving its home soil behind, looking down upon the world's best-of-the-best wholesomely, managed to lift the heavy cup at -- the Lord's. Even the words tend to arrange themselves mystically sometimes.<br />When the distrusted countrymen get even a single bright day to stand up high, to cheer out loud with a collective smile -- then, in a sweeping flash, it rubs off every little blight of anarchism, of failing nation-leaders. Just like the god's whispering in your dreams at night -- for the more religious among us, whispering a hope for the better tomorrow. Or like your neighbors -- </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >for the less religious among us, suddenly </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >extending before you those hesitant hands of trust, with an unfailing like-mindedness, unbeknownst heretofore. That's the realm of Cricket, for you, dear.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:78%;">Image: From <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Created-Cricket-Simon-Hughes/dp/0385614993">the book</a> titled same. Note that this post has got no relation to the book.</span></span><br /></div></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-10107185532290862492009-03-28T14:53:00.014+05:302009-03-29T10:53:46.726+05:30When Miss K Outstripped Me...<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The first lessons of professionalism I learnt were...not here. Not here in office. </span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br />I learnt it from my house-maid. </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br />It was at home, back in the days when studies meant getting some time off the rigorous play schedules, and schools meant </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">a place to sit and conspire and hunt for potential crushes. Our maid was, well let me stand up in reverence and say... Miss K </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">was quite like -- a deep-chilled ice-tea, a deceptive hard fried-toast, a Britney rock-star in her tiny frolicking skirts and </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">broom, a starlet for all her fella workers, a Lara croft on her tomb raider mission, a girl with a villainous chuckle, a maid in </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">prime form...well I pass, she was more than the sum of them all.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;font-size:13px;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Never in her fledgling career Miss K would've had her mistress whipping her ass off and she letting it go without a storm, a </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">soap-opera episode. Never there was a day when she hadn't made her yells register in each corners of her workplace -- </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">unfortunately my home. But what would she do, dirt befriended her so much so that she must leave a trail everywhere. She </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">would just dither and wiggle around the rooms, like a mice on an ultimate safari in a refugee camp. For her little age, order </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">in a home was still something precocious to understand. And she made sure, with a steely conviction, that rooms be left </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">beautifully shabby. Yes that's the first work discipline -- thou must make yourself conspicuous wherever you work, even if </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">you aren't doing anything useful (or just anything, for the faint-hearted). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;font-size:13px;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Miss K was one unfailing <span style="font-style: italic;">prima</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">donna</span> of her art, the soul-love queen of her many workplace kingdoms. She just loved to </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">snivel, fight, run, stomp, snatch, throw, pose, overhear, cry, complain, cajole, croon, curse, care, chill, cringe, cram, cower -- </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">all dutifully in one single visit of an hour or two, with a meticulous regularity of everyday that would even make <span style="font-style: italic;">Forrest </span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Gump</span> shy. Which brought me to my other lessons. Thou must stick to your basic instincts however red-tape your </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">work-processes are. Thou must trust your every little emotion you affect at the workplace, they never lay wasted. Imagine </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">the last time you winked at the receptionist, or the time when you growled unnoticing your boss was behind. My son, they </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">project you as a calm victor, a sentinel of your own liberty. Decency also has a limit, like indecency.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;font-size:13px;"><br /></span><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNhsn-DCu0TrwYi-5OK58AMb169s6EcRiqRU4M4PS8md1FULS7eX3tKyekeegR4ZL5ROwSnEljkt5BaCY_JNwA0_rrSZT_6sEeyA2e_S9jqZyR4lMc0zZ3bLmeLWllMgjFRuVaUfoDGQ/s400/OnTheRun.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 359px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5318471423243918514" /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Miss K also acted with a lot of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">carte</span><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">blanche</span>. She never flinched from 'owning' any household material, from the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">sofa cushions to her TV cartoons to the uninvited lunch and dinners. Don't get me wrong here. A sense of ownership and </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">authority is the first sign of a noisy harmony, of a blinded belonging and of unconstipated relationships -- that can be </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">cherished in no other way. That's something about organisational behaviour for you. That's also something about pride and </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">possessiveness you own for your work, however much you loath it. Miss K also milked her feminist rights to the best of </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">her imagination. If she had known, she would've surely celebrated, in those steamy times as it were, had <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Bill Clinton</span> <a href="http://www.dogchurch.org/dogpac/impeach.html">not been </a></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.dogchurch.org/dogpac/impeach.html">acquitted in the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Monica Lewinsky</span></a> lawsuit. Or better if she was just aware how to reach court for her own little scourges. </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Miss K was the easiest one to get in trouble with undoubtedly the most pacifist kind of her gender-counterpart. Oops! ignore this </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">part as any learning, no one is perfect after all.</span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br />Everyday Miss K and I would run into some kind of a crusade. A scientific surety it was. Let alone her mom who replaced </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">her occasionally on duty, Miss K commanded a huge patronage even from my mom -- owing to her tiny age and tinier build, </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">which elevated her to a princess of cuteness persona. Lets take just one example. Having found my books displaced to a </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">new kind of disorder, hitherto unknown to me, I lost no second for a, well -- legitimate (wasn't it) scowl...</span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">"Why the hell do you touch my books" That was like clipping a bomb's fuse. Poor me, I wallowed at my success for the last </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">time.</span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Books? Which books? I don't know any books...</span>" She retorted with missiles "<span style="font-style: italic;">How could I move those big things? And </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">when do you open them really. I touch them more than you do. You don't even carry them to the school. Do you know how </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">heavy they are? It's me who grapples with your burdens each day. And I know what you do at school without books. Teach </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">me at least I'll be better than you.</span>" I was reduced to my illiterate alter ego by then. </span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br />Without any letting up, she soon reeled into my mom..."<span style="font-style: italic;">Malkini, he doesn't even let me touch the bookshelf, how can I work </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">here. Ask your kid to go away when I'm in. Ask why is he tearing them away. If I had them I would grace them prim </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">at least...</span>" </span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br />So there I was, an educated, <strike>more mature</strike> of the two -- succumbing to this midget, unschooled, noisy creature...creature with a monumental attitude. Get the picture </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">right. She mentioned all things genuine and she was just being herself. And here's the last lessons for you. Thou must </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">know how to correct your counterpart, with right kind of resources, before you can afford to engage in all of such a tirade. Thou must show </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">your partner the bright part of yours and of everything around, even in combats.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">But a thing troubles me. Miss K might have been happy primming her books, but she would've been little less so if </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">made to rote in the classrooms instead of crafting wizardry with her brooms. Maybe that's why her mom didn't </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">send her school, for a moment if we forget she didn't have money for it. Maybe the likes of Miss K just know how bootless the education system is. Maybe education just becomes too trivial against their universal adeptness in handling people and workplaces. Miss K was not just a maid -- a class of profession we ignore so easily; instead Miss K was a maven, a model of every worker's desire.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;font-size:13px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Image</span>: <a href="http://gutenberg.org/">Gutenberg</a></span></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-48578777644122285372009-02-26T23:48:00.011+05:302009-02-28T13:05:15.924+05:30The Curious Case of S...<span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"I liked most the role of Amitabh B..." </span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"What?"</span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br />"Kya bhaiyya kitna accha to woh autograph diya tha..." (<span style="font-style: italic;">WTF bro, I liked the way he signed the </span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">Autograph</span>...)</span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br />Mocked one of them with a rebellious laugh, and we were not sure whether to probe him further </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >for a more serious answer. Poor doting hearts of ours.</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Drawing their tetchy attention for a post-movie </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >sitting wasn't easy at the first place. But we </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >were curious. Maybe a little over-thought. As if whatever their reaction be, it must be an </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >unspoken verdict, an imprimatur to our own understanding of the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >movie-drama-elevating-the-reality. After all they breathe at places of those kinds. After all it's <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a2c1ea6-0167-11de-8199-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1">raining</a></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > Oscars now.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >But there were others in the group, who preferred to see something else in the movie. That day...</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >It has ended. Coming out into the light from the faintly inspired cinema hall that was scrolling the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >credits by now, I could see the contended it-was-just-a-movie smiles on most of the faces. Smiles </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >with evident forgettable casualness. No feel-goodness. And I thought "Oh, even better, maybe".<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >An year and more of experience with them was enough Not to surprise me on this. Who says theirs is a </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >lesser world. Them apart, at their age we ourselves would've nicely sunk into a lot of </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >awesomeness that we would've found in the movie - from the animated game-show glitz to the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >teenage looting adventures in the trains. "It was good, but fir se nahi dekhungi..." (<span style="font-style: italic;">not watch-able </span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">again</span>) -- One muted girl among them had muted. But that wasn't all.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh55fQ6jXCSXqVwzhVlX-d00j4I17OswTMzJ1Q_aBRVDpiDSsjK3C2Vb91Ti_BR8CIidIMitCIVAU7LKOdNTRaxktvzu2ziUfsndfYlg9LZFdf24DkSckjvd2mI9UYalwqaOVGwido8xg/s1600-h/looks-up.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh55fQ6jXCSXqVwzhVlX-d00j4I17OswTMzJ1Q_aBRVDpiDSsjK3C2Vb91Ti_BR8CIidIMitCIVAU7LKOdNTRaxktvzu2ziUfsndfYlg9LZFdf24DkSckjvd2mI9UYalwqaOVGwido8xg/s400/looks-up.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307187377129930498" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >The yawning group sat united finally. Sunken, edgy. Fiddling with everything they could sight. </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Thrown to them were several lines of views -- questionnaire -- to quickly unfurl all that the theatre </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >has dozed them with, before they could peacefully forget it. Dump it, just as they</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > fling away most </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >of the draggy preaching we fill them with.</span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br />And we quizzed:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >All your three Scenes special...</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Any Jamal around you quite real? </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >The character you would play,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Recall & Imagine & Recall & Say.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Etc etc.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"Salim!"..."Why?"..."Didi he was a good friend, uska dosti dikha nahi, dhoka diya bahut jagah but </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >he was a good friend didi (<span style="font-style: italic;">unappreciated friendship, easy betrayal</span>)"...</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"I have a friend bhaiya, hero hai ho"..."Really?"..."Yes bhaiya, he din't have paisa to study. Himself </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >earned some money. Then exam diya and topped...Accha dost bhi hai."</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"So only class toppers can be good heroes? See Jamal."..."No bhaiya! Salim bhi hai na."..."But he </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >did so many wrong things too."..."So what didi, brave tha ho, kitna daring tha usmein (<span style="font-style: italic;">Salim </span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">dared to live full</span>)..."</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And much more. Prior to all this movie-going, most of my team-mates had loved to claim: "It was </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >something they can relate to..." But I was a little sceptical. Wrongly enough. "Just Movie? We </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >need more around." I thought "They need an identity out of it..." Rightly enough.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >***</span><br /></div><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >There were few who had objected on screening the movie to our group of slum kids, for the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >outright graphic and gory content exhibited in it...content we safely consider we shouldn't have seen </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >ourselves while being a kid. But I vouched:</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >That let's face it. That we are not tipping the kindergarten kids here, instead these young guns are </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >the ones who face realities much murkier than the well-to-do 15-year-olds are consigned to be; </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >and who need to grow more mature than their age allows them to be, unfailingly.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >That further to it, consider the likes of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.rememberghajini.com">Ghajini</a> on one hand and <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.passionforcinema.com/raaz-2-movie-review">Raaz</a> on the other (which is also an </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >A-rated movie and few kids here have already seen it, to our surprise) - these movies come with </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >loads of good-and-evil confection - from the sumptuous display of rage by a <a href="http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2008/12/27/review-ghajini-2/">cult perfectionist</a>, to </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >the as-senseless-as-sensual mystery marked with adroit performances (<a href="http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/review/6924/index.html">Bipasha</a>).</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >That not that we should do the least imperative of things by mindlessly promoting any such movies </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >to them; but undoubtedly too, this is their (kids) formative age to learn to sieve out the good </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >virtues from the obvious bad; to see through most of the junk temptations of teenage years; and to </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >rise through their inner poverty of self first than looking around on their street corners. While </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >standing at the periphery, if we can enable these kids to appreciate where any such movie falls </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >out in relation to their own life, then we have substantially met our goal isn't it? (Movie-watching </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >is of course something all of them follow rather keenly).</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicidsIW6n7oq0O2g54HF1pyY0kUBu-ZuagfThDNKHEhUQOHmWH602Iks2u8aUVUsYlxzX1UuWAyg4_lc05-0BhiCbadT7fIcmhnd9T_nH_6_twul17xnD3vULlSY7ka1l7_W7OqBevvA/s1600-h/pos-SM.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicidsIW6n7oq0O2g54HF1pyY0kUBu-ZuagfThDNKHEhUQOHmWH602Iks2u8aUVUsYlxzX1UuWAyg4_lc05-0BhiCbadT7fIcmhnd9T_nH_6_twul17xnD3vULlSY7ka1l7_W7OqBevvA/s400/pos-SM.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307187379449443122" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >That as far as Slumdog M...itself is concerned, well the movie isn't just about the fancy escapism cinema. SM is an </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >idea, a concept that conflicts tradition, a lateral view so outreaching that - neither slum dwellers </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >nor the elites, equally, would ever conceive of if left to themselves. SM risks of playing with the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >clichéd romanticism associated with poor and the poverty, but it does that with some tenderness </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >and lyricism that can only bring novelty in the thoughts of the positive minds of tomorrow.<br /><br />For the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >kids, SM holds a window to the different ways of imagining their own world, to the mere idea </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >that their struggle could bring in</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > a glimmer to the life -- life beyond the-dispirited-self-indulgence many westerners are used to conceive of. Through SM they could watch <span style="font-family:verdana;">the downfall </span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >of a gainful illusion that outsiders had about them, about India and about its ghettos -- as someone </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >said -- that of </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">gurus or Gandhi; that of</span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">cows or cobras; that of wedding or outsourcing... All in a Cinderella like fairy-tale and through the shtick of a film-maker.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Image</span>: <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.ap.org">AP</a>, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.foxsearchlight.com/slumdogmillionaire/">FoxSearchLight</a></span></span><br /></div></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-40869046299241452312009-02-16T23:16:00.010+05:302009-02-17T01:05:16.747+05:30When Rajini Isn't Miffed...<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Few days back I had to hastily put down around 100-150 words just on a given <i>word</i>. The term was quite amusing in itself to write, if not unthinkable. Interesting it is that almost any single word shouldn't be 'interesting' in itself for someone to write on it. Instead you can make it prosper that way.</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Neither should the word represent any pompous concepts like those you and your classmates used to debate in school competitions - with ready made ideas and cookie-cutter arguments:</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Westernisation is modernisation without formalisation of govt. regularisation and this realization of true liberation facilitates the ideation of essential democratisation in the grand old civilization of our nation...(And my school judges in this debate will be awarding me marks for pissing off at the westernisation so that I can win the prize money and buy that red floral tube top with matching heels for my cocktail party tonight...)<br /><br /></span></blockquote></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">OK pardon me none of <s>my</s> the girls debated like that in my school and fortune had it that none wore any skimpy red floral tube top with the matching heels ever, till I breathed last there.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So coming back from digression, they gave me the word 'Miffed' - yes, that old verbal cousin of 'Irritated' - and here's an extended version of what I had written down there:</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm8r_v1PTZ72lh7NdPHa8fmYP3TFwVOXAsE6xije21I_krWsU13BIgwEpaeIsghAHNcai1HhhqprOzokVZm6ZKXjQX5djX7Quy87RpkwqzPXqwqmapBNwa8amSKKVpD89kzXDdkQPMw/s1600-h/rajini55.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 168px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm8r_v1PTZ72lh7NdPHa8fmYP3TFwVOXAsE6xije21I_krWsU13BIgwEpaeIsghAHNcai1HhhqprOzokVZm6ZKXjQX5djX7Quy87RpkwqzPXqwqmapBNwa8amSKKVpD89kzXDdkQPMw/s400/rajini55.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303465744970158866" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Miffed: Oh! I never knew you had this quirky little thing in you...Wow you can talk to us words too!</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Rajinikanth: AHaa! I can burn a fire. I can drown the fish. I can kill two stones with one bird. I can do anything. Mind it! Tell me what you need help for? Tell raja.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Sir I'm little worried. No a lot worried. And I am so helpless about it.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Aiyyo. What's bothering you?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: I am being overtly used by some morons in this world. Shamelessly. People...I mean even the most sinless among them...have no control abusing what I mean and what I stand for...I am not the spittoon for all their miseries, and for their mercurial self.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: I know, that doesn't sup rise me much. But why people use-abuse a little sweet-sounding word like you so much? See, I keep smiling all the time.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Sir you are different, there's a charm even in your angst, even when you feel me. And as for me, I am not just a word - I am an idea, an extension. I feel like I am the provocateur, the floodgate of all the evil.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Raja, don't torture yourself. You come as a natural thought to me, to everyone - and you are our necessity. Have you felt like this for always, for every being?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Not it was so always, nor it is with everyone. Even my playful cousin "Irritated" has a quite life with few minds...less bounden with the daily banalities of their affair. But not everyone.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Then?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: You know, centuries back in the renaissance France, it was vulgar to look busy<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">***</span>. We used to live so effortlessly. No overwork, no sunken faces staying "miffed" all the time, for every penny issue.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Aiyyo. How come there was no evil then? I would've been unemployed there...</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: No! Not that everyone did, but it was just entrenched in their culture, in the masses - that to be composed is the surest sign of nobility and grace. Otherwise people there still hideously fought against their dignity, and fought brutal. Call it a disbelief if you would like to.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ_MTQjopEqvvq4f72sCn8FW4jb3e3Yiu765XiuuefyGxAYT1vLBQ8QPoqtlN2qR6qPAG4PwN4y0tWhBR7-jcijCmoRv4DQAiUh-PIXNHhaJ-57bg7Z7GiEdMp0_zGh7L818-4acjSpg/s1600-h/shivaji9.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 245px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ_MTQjopEqvvq4f72sCn8FW4jb3e3Yiu765XiuuefyGxAYT1vLBQ8QPoqtlN2qR6qPAG4PwN4y0tWhBR7-jcijCmoRv4DQAiUh-PIXNHhaJ-57bg7Z7GiEdMp0_zGh7L818-4acjSpg/s400/shivaji9.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303466509486798194" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: So remaining laid-back was in their ideology. And not all followed it...Ha ha. Do you mean that?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Nope. I mean it's about avoiding me in the most arresting of times, in resisting me when I am most tempting to these beings. Even so many laid-back minds stay quite mature, if you look that way.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Aiyyo. If I were a child I would ask you - that why do you flinch from sneaking into our feelings?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Because I'm a sparing treasure. I am like a rare tiny green emerald-gem that has been gifted to everyone. Effective as much less used. Ineffective without light.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: What light?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Light of the smart self-knowingness in a person, that I am just a passable state-of-mind. Light of the realisation that I can't rule his/her temper long forever. And if (s)he can't remain sensible while still using me...then I am ruined...and (s)he too.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Uff. That was heavy. OK tell me...don't you detest "Calm" - your anti? The word that everyone just forces to love.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: I don't know. It seems there's a cold war between us. We've never talked. Maybe she'll give all the airs of superiority to me. These citadels of goodness virtues mostly appear in biblical papers and idealism lectures. And...</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Eh?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: ...And there she receives a starry red-carpet reception, as if every time she is something new, in all her sumptuous revealing gown of sexy wisdom-ness. As if nobody knew her heretofore. I am the one much more moored to the reality, the one most unsexy.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Listen Raja. If I didn't experience you, if I haven't realized you, I would've never known how important 'calm' can be. She relies on you for all her daily bread. Raja she is your protégé in one sense...</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Is it you who's saying so?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: You mind it! Even all my villains know this by now. You know their standards have really risen over the time! Now they are so slick bastards with bountiful of temperament. They have this whole halo-effect around them - its their heroism, its deceit.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRUktLV-IvtChjaYSS1jboiedJbTNz-ShBsaOylMFgQVkgzbj-F6zoBWgsp-GtH0-v1dB3JheuYnPeLv3ow3gFnENZ-_zWOogKtAbb91paGqOrzgQ2HBuPryd4XEtbVl7p9v0r645GMw/s1600-h/shivaji31.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 245px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRUktLV-IvtChjaYSS1jboiedJbTNz-ShBsaOylMFgQVkgzbj-F6zoBWgsp-GtH0-v1dB3JheuYnPeLv3ow3gFnENZ-_zWOogKtAbb91paGqOrzgQ2HBuPryd4XEtbVl7p9v0r645GMw/s400/shivaji31.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303465741552638002" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: What? Even 'Calm' can be deceitful! Appalling.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Yes Raja. It all depends on which soul manifests you people, and your idea. Me or my villains.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: You and your villains - you all remain different - steeped so far away from the ordinary routines. Sir I'm fearful, I don't want to become another worn-out cliché, stripped of identity in the crowd. What you say allays all my pain. Is it really true?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">R: Aiyyo. I am Rajinikanth, I am truth. You worry not. You would never stand alone betrayed. 'Calm' is there for you, even if she doesn't bear it upfront. Like me and my prim moustachio, you both complement each other. Mind It!</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">M: Who says you are not God, Sir.<br /><br />---<br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">***</span> Refer BF's <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4021/is_200504/ai_n13633042/pg_6">Triumph of Reason</a><br /><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Image</span>: <a href="http://www.rajinikanth.com/">RajiniKanth</a></span></span></span><br /></div></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-8655121558228658602009-01-20T21:40:00.010+05:302009-02-07T11:49:28.806+05:30I Assumed So.<span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"There's no Light."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Why do you think there should be some?"</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"I...I assumed so."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"You assumed did you, or you believed there should be any?"</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Huh! What difference does it make? Light still isn't there."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Assumption brings in a burden. While belief looks further to the idea. Belief enables. Belief is an opportunity."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"And why on earth do you think I'll believe your this piece of shit. Go sit in the corner."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"See you yourself talking of belief, of believing me..."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Hmm So?"</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"You didn't mention you would assume I am talking shit, instead you would like to believe so."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"That's just a rhetorical entanglement. Wonder what you are up..."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Trying to assume would've let you break free easily. Break away with the usual nonchalance and think of being normal again which you are Not actually..."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"And?"</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"...And while trying to believe showed your concern, your novelty of thoughts."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"So do you mean I should believe everything just to show my concern. To also become conspicuously different? This sounds like a cocktail-party mentality. Ha."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Yes</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">No</span>."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"You know you really suck sometimes. You pseudo-intellectual slob."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">NO</span> because you won't naturally be concerned about every little mundane thing around you. And you don't have to. You are no God and you can't be."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Hmm and so why Yes?"</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">YES</span> because it's about believing first-time first-hand, and not assuming and not speculating - is the only way to commit yourself to things you bother about. Only way to consign your thoughts to your uniqueness. And you'll put effort in only those things that you believe in...the last point is quite obvious and clichéd isn't it?"</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Obvious? Be aware you are talking dream-fully abstract. Like asking a lemon for drops without a squeeze."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"It might be abstract. But I am glad you can make that out. And there's some inquisitive squeeze in your words if you can sense that."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Well well."</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCj9CmBTR91ywNhZso71aNyY5xXBmQtJmNlsSSYupcYgqxutzeZlxKntvpsuC4HbQWSIG93BchqN60dPKtOlPnf7MnD8ub-_UCW3X7V-UAMOu9Q_jzujn9GR2d8SeLp1vEAhK_MUHvQ/s1600-h/Dia.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCj9CmBTR91ywNhZso71aNyY5xXBmQtJmNlsSSYupcYgqxutzeZlxKntvpsuC4HbQWSIG93BchqN60dPKtOlPnf7MnD8ub-_UCW3X7V-UAMOu9Q_jzujn9GR2d8SeLp1vEAhK_MUHvQ/s400/Dia.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296771008564406322" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br />"Hmm are you saddened? Are you restrained? Are you..."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"No. Ah wait. Why IS there no light. Where's the switch at </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >the first place? Where's the sun? Are my eyes still shut? </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >What should I do about it?"</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"There you are. You first-hand Belief. See you are more new, Now. Congrats! Bye."</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />"Wait! Light, Still isn't there..."<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Image:</span> <a href="http://filmfanatic.org/">FilmFanatic</a></span><br /></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-31408907680329932512008-12-19T23:19:00.012+05:302008-12-20T17:34:54.190+05:30Word-ly Unwise.<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >You listen to a song, you are furtively intoxicated </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >- and it sticks to your ears, endlessly playing within, like a jammed cassette tape o</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >n a vengeance spree. You indulge into it further, and as it grows on you - you play it again and again day and night, make it a whistle and a shoutalong phrase (say for your peeing-time in the loo), become obsessed with all the subtleties and crescendos within its riffs and basses, but it still troubles you aplenty, exactly like your servile-obedient girl(boy)-friend wouldn't do.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfT-WgDGsVayNZv9Nlg_tmCfQRFEtyM0aCvn6w5w9JfpVIO6E8tUNNnNore_x-Op0QCqQe3QYU2EnLgW75bqknRoTM0-pFZX-iSrdrI1MHoQxUPxSvo91319G3TARt_UM8TYFgLM0zYw/s1600-h/ew.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 138px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfT-WgDGsVayNZv9Nlg_tmCfQRFEtyM0aCvn6w5w9JfpVIO6E8tUNNnNore_x-Op0QCqQe3QYU2EnLgW75bqknRoTM0-pFZX-iSrdrI1MHoQxUPxSvo91319G3TARt_UM8TYFgLM0zYw/s400/ew.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281599346031839778" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >That nasty little thi</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >ng is </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >called an <a href="http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20030227/songs-stick-in-everyones-head">Ear-Worm</a> - a sort of phonological loop. But sometimes I also experience these unceremonious </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Word-worms - Words sticking onto my cerebral lobes like the conspicuous stains on glasses - words that change the momentary perspectives of the world around, and create some sort of tunnel vision for you. Imagine that word falling like snow all over the places around, wherever you try to steal a snap of things around. Imagine feeling like a slave to the mere idea steeped within that word, or it flowing in a stream b</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >oth from your outward senses and from the conscience within. Imagine being hobbled with a daisy chain of a single-word-rings, as you stomp your feet out of the reclusiveness it has put you into.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZ8jibGCGizPoZ-RfZvfpMAOO7vdBFtT9SARG62Iw-P4_I5Q4nP7lKJr7nWf80ftcl6sg32Du_0QsIzD1sTX-x1BEVE3iIx99y1z_ukDJg285OjZkqJVvxjrX1ag1g8ruMiGHG3zm-A/s1600-h/ult.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 208px; height: 146px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZ8jibGCGizPoZ-RfZvfpMAOO7vdBFtT9SARG62Iw-P4_I5Q4nP7lKJr7nWf80ftcl6sg32Du_0QsIzD1sTX-x1BEVE3iIx99y1z_ukDJg285OjZkqJVvxjrX1ag1g8ruMiGHG3zm-A/s400/ult.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281602687968710578" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >One of them, quite a long earlier, used to be that unapologetic entity - '<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ultimate">Ultimate</a>' or 'Ulti...' in short for the deprived ones. Well I strongly refrain from overusing any whimsically-worthy word (any <span style="font-style: italic;">i-know-what-you-didn't-mean-now-shut-up</span> word, any word that appears as your birth-right whenever you utter it with extreme profligacy) - in any sort of parlance, be it's a <span style="font-style: italic;">business-talk, sex-talk, ruthlessly-friendly-talk, friendly tu-tu-mai-mai talk, classroom-talk, sex-talk, downmarket-bargain-talk, jealousy-talk, hopeless-talk, sex-talk, boast-talk, dream-talk, Tendulkar-praising-talk, Lalu-cribbing-talk, sex-talk, scowling-talk, pretending-talk, muted eye-to-eye-talk, self-talk, </span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">sex-talk, advice-giving-talk, swear-lying-talk</span>...you just name it. But what could I've done. 'Ultimate' is (was) just so ultimate. You could chirp it in almost all your pranks you did in your college teen years, from your first drink, to your last crush, to your middle years of classroom renaissance (Note-I never had anyone of these). And I felt so helpless when I had to incriminate that sexy word into... say 14-year-banishment. Poor 'Ultimate' must've felt what Lord <span style="font-style: italic;">Laxman </span>had undergone while imagining his predicament. Throwing 'Ultimate' out of my hollow colloquial, ultimately, was the least ultimate thing to do, I tell you.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjajZnz_KpZRN5mbV6WWlTgydupbbyD5B_ycaYtFjsVIjiG4jjVfqCe8rQbSX0KkdfupuWi5kSYyAgD74tN2ZYk2xtpSr6ifoLeg0JWljq4aAoV_o7qWTMc80YvvI2Oh27kc21Mkmv5Kg/s1600-h/slick.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 169px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjajZnz_KpZRN5mbV6WWlTgydupbbyD5B_ycaYtFjsVIjiG4jjVfqCe8rQbSX0KkdfupuWi5kSYyAgD74tN2ZYk2xtpSr6ifoLeg0JWljq4aAoV_o7qWTMc80YvvI2Oh27kc21Mkmv5Kg/s400/slick.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281599355724014290" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And how can I slip away from shouting that silk-smooth sounding word - <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slick">Slick</a>. Oh my god this word seemed always asking for more. More like the newfound fashion in the street, the new-fangled choice of trying to sound impressive by talking something already impressive. Something that is less ordinary, less pale, less bookish. Inadvertently during the conversations it felt like a nicely conspired replacement for the ubiquitous 'Cool' or less-valued 'Awesome' (Cool as in "<span style="font-style: italic;">That's so cool...</span>" followed by lots of exclamations !!!!...) - yes that drooling word from any of your next-door automatic-casual 20 year-olds, gasping in wonderment of his/her newfound obsession with the new high-end celebrity inner-wear making rounds in the market. The slickness in 'Slick' was like the stickiness of the spit. And then I never felt hesitant feeling it, using it. Using it effortlessly in things like "<span style="font-style: italic;">That's such a slick answer</span>", "<span style="font-style: italic;">Wow, see all her shopping's so slick. Still useless</span>", "<span style="font-style: italic;">I like those awfully-artless-noise-in-between-the-slick-beats in those <a href="http://www.mouthshut.com/product-reviews/Aapka_Suroor_-_Himesh_Reshamiya-925054007.html">Himesh Reshamiya's</a> number...</span>" For some linguistically-romanticized days slick used to rule everything - from my bathroom soap to the business ppts to my temporary-crushes-of-the-day's tight outfit. And I used to feel liberated in my expressionisms. And then it dawned on me that something's fishy. That why do I resemble the phrase "<span style="font-style: italic;">When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail</span>." so much. I sighed.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_ZASND7XMdnnSMTX_SwhzvGXEXYQokz93eoE2k2tkIINpqe9jyQv99m2x01Jr3G182UdKjXmwHGT-ztOFq7OpoAW6KJ3g5CQWuYfQjTC66zwil-VwPmuUL75BzFU6LEyPxxhNdQC0w/s1600-h/cyn.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 175px; height: 262px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_ZASND7XMdnnSMTX_SwhzvGXEXYQokz93eoE2k2tkIINpqe9jyQv99m2x01Jr3G182UdKjXmwHGT-ztOFq7OpoAW6KJ3g5CQWuYfQjTC66zwil-VwPmuUL75BzFU6LEyPxxhNdQC0w/s400/cyn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281599350394773218" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >The latest of the culprit has been '<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,,-6328,00.html">Cynical</a>' - Like I see some genuinely natural smiles on faces and wonder: "<span style="font-style: italic;">See...How less cynical this person is...How can (s)he be this much so...!</span>". Like I meet a stranger on the road and would just flinch from asking him/her: "H<span style="font-style: italic;">i! can you help me become a little less cynical!</span>". Like I feel like in heaven when my tiny (actionable) thoughts actualize a million times less cynical that I could imagine...and wonder it can't be me who did so. Like I talk to most of my friends - close and far - new and old - hip or practical or ideal - and wonder why the F*** they sound so cynical all the time. I get to hear a lot of '<span style="font-style: italic;">Why</span><span style="font-style: italic;">'s</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">'</span><span style="font-style: italic;">For What?</span><span style="font-style: italic;">'s</span> in the times. I remain curious about all the deceptive impossibilities infested in everyone's thought and try to question them. I can see the sapped down fervor in any of the passions one follows, watch it passing away like a careless sugarcane being churned out of all its juice, slowly. Sorry. I just hope they were a lot less so. I hope I could sponge up that complacent, (in)toxicating, and blighted drug of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism">cynicism</a> from within them all...And then say "Now try your wishes for yourself." And I know that nobody is actually lazy here in sensibilities. Laziness is just such a gainful illusion that it can even make something like...the <a href="http://www.askmen.com/top_10/dating_100/125_dating_list_a.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">First Kiss</span></a> sound insipidly boring. Thou (and me) must confess.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">** Well I wanted to talk about another such fixation - Disillusioned - but don't feel like it now. Don't want to see such a thing overpowering again.<br /><br />** The larger (sole) purpose of this post was to remind you that everything around couldn't be captured in the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >ultimates </span><span style="font-size:78%;">or the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >cynics</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> or any other ideation that rules your line of thought. So remain sensitized about those parasitic terms you are fixed up with promiscuously. What r they by the way?? :)<br /><br />** Image: <a href="http://hownottoactold.wordpress.com/">HNTAC</a>, <a href="http://www.hji.co.uk/">HJI</a>, <a href="http://www.belch.com/">BELCH</a>, <a href="http://www.priorityministry.com/">PM</a>.</span><br /></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-40022893575185235702008-12-03T02:00:00.021+05:302008-12-04T22:38:53.646+05:30Cry Thy Darling City<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >You doubt your writing sense could ever possibly unfold it. There's a bloody fog all around you, all over the place where you can reach or even where you can't, ever. You tend to venture your eyes out but there's absolutely nothing different to fancy. Not any newness in the malignant truth that has girded you stiff, choking you from within and out, like those childhood nightmares of lightening falling on your head as you would scrunch into your night-bed. All your life you've heard in vernacular about guns and gunshots and its distasteful silence just after being fired, but you still feel a lot stranger to it. And it fades and you try to bring back your cynic and sensibility but then you</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >hear even more gunshots, bombs and blood. You again seek to mend those news as part of your life -</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > no, sorry <a href="http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid959009704?bclid=1026280058&bctid=3470713001">someone-else's life</a>, forevermore - still that requires almost an obsessive extent of ignorance and helplessness. But yes don't worry you've become enough of a mundane marionette, hanging from nowhere, to s</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >hunt all your gnawing empathy's into the trash-cans of yesterdays. </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Otherwise, you won't be here - as this city bleeds - or in fact anywhere else.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7_xZMbueJeqon_bqmKe-J0CVkIIyiZDqmYXd79THCWq6Alo9MCI3CT-2huDmqUdJu7yl_HYQGUsvPh8eTBr1wMj5PHqA4952Z_pqcj7gFQ3TbjEQtiocAu-x9Vt1WD0iVBOagh3oJA/s1600-h/Terrorificly-lit.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7_xZMbueJeqon_bqmKe-J0CVkIIyiZDqmYXd79THCWq6Alo9MCI3CT-2huDmqUdJu7yl_HYQGUsvPh8eTBr1wMj5PHqA4952Z_pqcj7gFQ3TbjEQtiocAu-x9Vt1WD0iVBOagh3oJA/s400/Terrorificly-lit.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275299865850283634" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >But those yesterdays still scream with ruthless vividness, because you need some time to forget, you are human. After all. And no doubt you still involuntarily feel sticking to those minacaious moments of thenadays, those 3 days and nights of peril wielded by a handful of gun-laden twenty-something Satans, when you had wished that just everyone, every little being in this damn world could all look up together at the skies, at the sun, hands folded at heart, and ask the sun to gift in a new morning and unwind that f****** day back into nothingness.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxVJv4frrCGvPS_HWLM1SbGMoGPsPut_HShGT6Cem7CMoCC1LKU5AwaP-DPLv-aaMWVYX0Ig5N4-_XZkgdlRpTKIytAEgmoTVoWa__DpSQBwrmtVrE957yFePf3ZtOWqQtewOVJLIApw/s1600-h/m27_17182557.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxVJv4frrCGvPS_HWLM1SbGMoGPsPut_HShGT6Cem7CMoCC1LKU5AwaP-DPLv-aaMWVYX0Ig5N4-_XZkgdlRpTKIytAEgmoTVoWa__DpSQBwrmtVrE957yFePf3ZtOWqQtewOVJLIApw/s400/m27_17182557.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275300859229533746" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >In those moments of vulnerability, it dawned on you that everyt</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >hing, every thought that comes around you could be </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >ominously </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >holed-up into two formless partings - either that of the terrorists or of their absence. Surely no other choice you had. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Like an untamed child has been handed a real gun</span>" - you listened an eyewitness had attributed them. And you wondered how their <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/deborah-orr/this-was-not-terrorism-it-was-nihilism-551600.html">pensive indulgence</a> - in <a href="http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3954">pure nihilism</a> - could ever become so mighty. The imposing irony - that they barged into the city from nothing less but almost through the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-tharoor28-2008nov28,0,6373231.story">Gateway of India</a> seemed as manifested as the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >entrenched </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >mistrust in humanity the terror has presented before you. And you saw a heritage glowing terror-ificly, a legacy smirched ferociously.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4rf15R_9Z847yxEBgSX7jNfBohk5NZMZpjWQXWiZMb2TlbbMdavfPNHLdJxalSbzUNvxb3KC_0nrWwu4zgk7Ck2CaOfVygjMgSqUElNEN5GLKeN-BgTgvGJ1M-MLkNuB3Ofu8lVUw8Q/s1600-h/m15_17187665.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4rf15R_9Z847yxEBgSX7jNfBohk5NZMZpjWQXWiZMb2TlbbMdavfPNHLdJxalSbzUNvxb3KC_0nrWwu4zgk7Ck2CaOfVygjMgSqUElNEN5GLKeN-BgTgvGJ1M-MLkNuB3Ofu8lVUw8Q/s400/m15_17187665.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275301728840768146" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >However, to become more mindless, you casually visited the roads and markets, and noticed the daily faces just as normal as it could ever be...and you wondered was it only you who's been deliberately made conscious by some unholy design. People in this city seem to </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >dispense all their fears within homes</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > and save every whit of their resilience for the outside. Anyways, you boarded the taxis and each driver had his own version to share..."<span style="font-style: italic;">I was in the Taj Area just 15 min before it all begun"</span>. Oh the Areas...you drive close to the station area and somewhere within yourself, you bleakly fear if some hiding gunmen would hurl with his AK-47 towards the milling crowd covering your taxi. Getting home early you made calls and enquired to everyone with the usual bonhomie, "<span style="font-style: italic;">Hi, how are you..."</span>, but you are often overwhelmed with the thoughts "<span style="font-style: italic;">Ok so? How the hell it really matters if (s)he is doing a little bad, when those hostages are...</span>". And you started speaking with a drawl and pretending to listen to those everyones. Why can't you just lose yourself. You feel hollow, like a half-blown trumpet. But even that makes some noise; and you can't.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0tZf-LK_HhNXn54o3jkKorP6banoBvBP74fhDVrMbeH0Qh1B0eKhEjTNQxK5lwZuyTOvrBlko7uxgeKMGKELJ_PcPmfCRfOi4CaqhtkEpEhLg51yb3fvKgxwNnH_UvhuSxKKTCY_P-w/s1600-h/m11_17175269.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0tZf-LK_HhNXn54o3jkKorP6banoBvBP74fhDVrMbeH0Qh1B0eKhEjTNQxK5lwZuyTOvrBlko7uxgeKMGKELJ_PcPmfCRfOi4CaqhtkEpEhLg51yb3fvKgxwNnH_UvhuSxKKTCY_P-w/s400/m11_17175269.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275305560860382818" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >In between you tried to spend some lighter moments around but observed that you often end all your smiles and laughter half-way, as the glum and the senseless guilt would soon plunge you. You walked into the office, saw people working full-throttle - engaged in their spreadsheets and con-calls and rigor logic, subdued by deadlines - and you remained amused just damn how they could do that all when there are flames, commandos and explosions few miles away. You could infer they are so more practical, for they've so effortlessly mastered not to shift their unblinding focus away, come what may. And you felt so out-of-the-place, so less belonging there or anywhere, really. You lingered out with your mates and saw them roistering around, unfazed, saw them mocking at the whole setting, mocking at people who caused it and equally at those who haven't...but you hardly felt sick about their larks, and rather wondered at their (and maybe yours) juvenile innocence...you are overpowered.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdiLoWnXWDmp6l4ub4liuUjrOKRvvoiZmXTRkIoM_lOZy1A0M3376gmQmn5A6zWbPxTdpGqZ7GqmUCtE0zkz3HiO4D5eM_yuvqsGt8YzK8ySHx_GFHTfJusGwwk5hRrgwmvfrQY1PDg/s1600-h/m13_17206065.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdiLoWnXWDmp6l4ub4liuUjrOKRvvoiZmXTRkIoM_lOZy1A0M3376gmQmn5A6zWbPxTdpGqZ7GqmUCtE0zkz3HiO4D5eM_yuvqsGt8YzK8ySHx_GFHTfJusGwwk5hRrgwmvfrQY1PDg/s400/m13_17206065.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275301724100775154" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And you looked away a week back when you and your nation were snuggling in a victorious spree, wiping England out in Cricket. And now you stood bedeviled what to do with Cricket, the wholesome idea of it...And quickly you felt it's perverse even to talk about anything cricket at the moment, let alone the discontinued series. And often the 'cricket' just seemed a stripped down ordinary common noun...like an ocean just bereaved of all its water. Many dimensions of life seemed to have blown away.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wvoGCYIYpeGIsNnxhp_G6hj7sOfLAAZabG6HEaLpavPGmctHk76CINhTz2ZwRvOogB_3BoAmq8ZP2WbgtUFuScpYOrHEeSOu9GabpScn1A_KiWPrVw6CJLdJH8GUucH37rUMUgjRZA/s1600-h/m22_17211945.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wvoGCYIYpeGIsNnxhp_G6hj7sOfLAAZabG6HEaLpavPGmctHk76CINhTz2ZwRvOogB_3BoAmq8ZP2WbgtUFuScpYOrHEeSOu9GabpScn1A_KiWPrVw6CJLdJH8GUucH37rUMUgjRZA/s400/m22_17211945.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275300864123697042" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >At least you were disposed to feel lucky that none of those perished were acquaintances of yours, but soon you learnt your room-mate's friend's friend's friend got a shot near <span style="font-style: italic;">Leopold </span>and is no more...And that he was to be married in 10 days...And now you remained not sure whether to feel being same lucky or not. You felt like all your own worries and torments - yes the life-sum of them all - were so petite dust-like insignificant whiffs before what few most-sinless souls in those hotels are going through, within just a moment's worth of lifelessness. And you didn't feel like asking for help for your own troubles...they can wait, you predict. And you got applauds for things you've been struggling long, but you remained distant and unthankful to yourself.<br />And further soon you watched the specter taking away from this world a lot many children and brothers and wives...the tycoons and the corporate elites...the swish and the marginalized...the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1090887/Pictured-Tears-year-old-boy-trapped-Mumbai-Jewish-centre-parents-murdered.html">Rabbi</a> and the<span style="font-style: italic;">...Faith</span>. You could just wait for his 2-yr-old to grow up and ask his fate the right questions, he is too little now. You also listened about the <a href="http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/04mumterror-taj-the-nri-who-saved-150-lives.htm">champion who saved 150 lives</a>, about the waiter and his <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090570/At-5am-I-bottle-vintage-Cristal-champagne-No-cried-head-waiter-Those-wrong-glasses.html">immaculate service</a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">...and countless more unnerving chronicles, ready to fade soon.</span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >And what stays are the points for (often) pointless discussions, the constant hum of <a href="http://newsonterror.com/fidayeen.html">Fidayeens</a>' gunshots, the new-fangled re-curses on the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/world/asia/01mumbai.html">turgid politicians</a>, the littered <a href="http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/28-some-questions-about-the-terror-attacks.htm">questions</a>, the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >schoolyardy </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >street-corner <a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/suhasinihaidar/218/52966/this-too-shall-not-pass.html">debates</a>, the rants and bilges at tea-stalls, the New Normal...<br /><br />But wait, you remain Sick.<br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" ><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >* I struggled writing this at the time it was all happening. I struggled even now, wish I hadn't. Sorry if it appears too skewed.<br />* All Images: <a href="http://boston.com/">Boston.com</a>. See the collection <a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/mumbai_after_the_smoke_has_cle.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/11/mumbai_under_attack.html">here</a>. Browse in one go, please. They'll tell a story.</span><br /></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-84369284418654143462008-11-01T14:43:00.009+05:302010-08-13T13:44:03.140+05:30...And She Smiled.<div align="justify" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">She isn't brilliant beyond normal, but loves to swoon with innocent thoughts like "<span style="font-style: italic;">Why can't landless farmers in Singur employed to same factories to be setup there?</span>", if I can recall correctly -- from a debate we had in the session. Slim, calm, with that tenth-grader looks -- N now speaks with a deliberate care of someone who has recently realized that her voice can really matter.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But it wasn't so a certain time earlier, the way I had known N of thenadays. When she spoke there was that typical bashfulness in the way she chose her words --with which you would easily jump to stereotype any such a girl --girls of slummy dwellings, with a muted eloquence, a lot less-privileged, belonging to the lesser god, perfectly deprived of all smugness and breathing space any of your child-next-door normally has. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">N carries the same frivolity, but appears quite a less shiftless now. She couldn't have matured a little --at least for the way she doesn't hide her smiles from us :) --if it not were for the efforts of her and S --her personal mentor for now. Hmm but I would prefer to talk here about certain things of more importance than say ten smarmy lines for some consummate efforts.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It's a bit indisputable, but just at the tip when you start reconciling that it's okh for you to e<span style="font-style: italic;">xpect </span>a little good out of the benevolence you've caused to someone, out there everything fall off in a thud. As if you were trying to 'build up' some-thing (-body) that never imagined itself facing even a breeze. And so all the time when N has been responding keenly to some patient efforts; all the time she wouldn't <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>follow the surge of positive thoughts she has been exposed to; all the time she wouldn't show any gasp of indifference, any inkling of intolerance...all the time some faiths could have been restored.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">...Until the time it appeared that apparently N was to be engaged (and maybe married soon) at such a tender age of hers. It wasn't anything like child marriage I must mention, instead N had a secret puppy-love affair with a neighborhood suitor for quite some time --and her drunkard dad and hapless mom saw marriage as a 'viable' way out to dispense with her. That S sussed it out all and that N couldn't stay irritatingly elusive on this any more, seemed to have happened for the good, but who knows for sure. Who knows when to succor when you have never been solicited to "intervene" in someone else's little world. Who knows it's actually not just about helping-out, if understood in the right spirits.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"<span style="font-style: italic;">Would it be okh for you if we can visit N now...</span>" with a concerned precipitation, S called me up, the night when N "might have been" committed for engagement (the boys kins were to turn up then). In a rush we decided to visit N's slum, after having called her and her mom didn't seem to have shaken things up much. N's fuzzy innocence about all this, about all that was just about her and her only - did make her a little less trustworthy, and I could see that on S's careworn face, as we chatted on our way to the place. S has that spark and the rare simple sense of importance and that dominates her youthful demeanor, but it couldn't easily obscure the urgency in her words.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">We made our way through the narrow aisles in the pale night light, taking economical steps in this a-thousand-times shrunk space, as N and her chirpy little sister escorted us. The place appeared exactly the way you, in your complete senses, would like to imagine a slummy ghetto --filling it full with all wearisome clichés you could find for such dwellers of the wretched. N's home, all in all one nicely packed room, was equally lit and dark, as if you could choose what things to sight and what to ignore. Wonder if it was big enough even to properly contain the car that drove us there.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />
In the middle, we were also accompanied by the social worker for 'the place'; and one of N's class teacher, R --a twenty-something girl with a curious vigor, who's accent clearly defied the kind of work she's into now, full-time --after quitting her earlier plush job, and all corporate pop.<br />
<br />
</span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">N's Mamma made us hospitable as we settled on the 'cozy' floor-bed, while her sister quite swiftly moved our footwear to inside of the room, for it maybe stolen being out --which seemed a rather precocious sensibility by her age. Maybe she's been used to it. The Mamma, with her learned helplessness, tried well to skirt away from the whole issue and still gain some close feelings, but remained sensible enough to listen to our spurs of not to commit N for any marriage, for now.<br />
<br />
</span></span></div><div align="justify" style="text-align: justify;"></div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263651283471984146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigozJa6e7w4LsNrI1XKRyqdPCDWsY5Km210Q40UAvIMI8icYFHR5Z8NsR52YSRPfuQg4l6VUt8V1jKoJEgP2xdkY4if3UFWSXRDQk1w4D7rgsV-mJToUwL0gvP4409KAePPBRrXf8MmQ/s400/Light_Drop.jpg" style="display: block; height: 266px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /> <br />
<div align="justify"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"<span style="font-style: italic;">...N must herself decide what's best for her, but you need to provide the necessary emotional support ..."</span> together we constantly kept exhorting Mamma, of course in Hindi.<br />
"<span style="font-style: italic;">Hmm What do you call 'Emotional' in Hindi?"</span> we wondered at each other for the correct version at times, while N's Mom hid her cluelessness from us :)<br />
<br />
And then it was N's turn to be grilled from every corner; sought to speak her heart out again and again, as if you are querying some invisible wind around you whether it can stay still or will drift out soon.<br />
<br />
</span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">S </span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">asserted: </span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"<span style="font-style: italic;">The boy won't let you study and earn on your own. It's clear. And you don't know you are maybe the luckiest girl in this community to have all of us talking this much to you.</span>"</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"<span style="font-style: italic;">Can you control yourself when the Boy continues to keep bothering you.</span>" said R.<br />
<br />
Imagine me remarking "<span style="font-style: italic;">You really don't know boys and how most of them think like. And what they are upto...at this age. Trust me.</span>" Ufff. Sigh.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">N's dad, completely sozzled up outside, occasionally kept howling in public at his fate, for having a girl like N. The scene might seem like a soap-opera type melodrama in the language here. Hmm no dissociate any romanticism visible here...It was all so silent and normal there. Don't know why. Maybe some-things (-people) around can make you feel calm...just by the close affinity. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Still a little restless, we then also summoned the Boy and his Mamma...to peep into things from the otherside of the window. No offense meant, but to my surprise, it was quite funny to see an 'ardent lover' pretending as a servile momma-boy. "<span style="font-style: italic;">I'll ask Ma if N can study while with me or not.</span>" If I am not overplaying my thoughts, is somebody supposed to enact like that in love...You tell me. I am inexperienced :) Boy's Mom, nonetheless, turned out most sensible and forthright of the lot there, and we made sure she won't consent to the words of N's dad on everything.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Moving out I wondered --what S had rightly acknowledged --whether we've done some disservice in being so vehement in N's affair...maybe the Boy was Mr Perfect for N...maybe N's parents are the best provident for her future, in all of theirs gnawingly cocooned world, just as our parents remain correct for us most of the times...maybe we should leave alone - all the Ns (we deal with) and their idiosyncrasies and their fate --with themselves, and become ideal smug fatalists. Maybe.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Hmm but N herself </span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">might want to </span></span><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">contend this now, willingly. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Don't hide it, you look equally beautiful.</span>" --we realized her when she spoke, in her most girlish smile --as we all sat and sipped at the Barista, far from the slum outskirts. 11 at night.</span></span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Image</span>: <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/">stock.xchng</a></span> </div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-63829536071925822432008-10-07T22:18:00.016+05:302008-10-08T20:48:30.616+05:30Association Syndrome...What?<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Imagining against reason. </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sure call it an 'Association Syndrome', but often when I encounter someone/thing, and if right then there's some tunes playing in the background, I quickly tend to identify that person/thing right in the music. And vice-versa too! And whenever either of the strange affinities reoccur to me, I keep wondering how the music is so nicely entrenched with the idiosyncrasies of that entity...it just freaks me out!</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />So Imagine the old man walking across the street, with the cap and the supporting stick - slim like himself; and without those artificial teeth...and then you listen to the recurring echoes from a <a href="http://www.festivaloftheartsboca.org/artist_name.php?id=18"><span style="font-style: italic;">Joshua Bell'</span>s</a> Violin - Hmm remember that tender tune from the vintage Titan Watch Ad? (For the unawares, the Grammy Award-winning Bell is the one of the finest violinist of all times). Is it just a worn-out surreal correlation, sprung out of my (dis)belief - that the old man has got something to do with the obsessive smugness of that tune.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Or Imagine reading in a book about that girl with a curious mirror, primping her short red gown and drifting her lissome legs - and just then the tango music plays in your background...Like the one in that scene from the <a href="http://stylefrizz.com/200809/al-pacinos-tango-from-scent-of-a-woman/">Scent of a Woman</a> - when the blind-but-most-dreamful <span style="font-style: italic;">Al Pachino</span> makes <span style="font-style: italic;">Gabrielle Anwar</span> dance, full to her last surprise. And you wonder.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgftXb7WdbyNfP9_5niafT5ns-xhpzc7aaxaDbvro5agJIjUCGJfeqd_re_yMB14Y7Lb9UXd7tqbiFIjePeKse3HpKsKnjFCZ6FgvhvEXhmrntOqm4AfQb6-MWTkcRdaYXcmXOshBxuDA/s1600-h/DissolvedMusic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgftXb7WdbyNfP9_5niafT5ns-xhpzc7aaxaDbvro5agJIjUCGJfeqd_re_yMB14Y7Lb9UXd7tqbiFIjePeKse3HpKsKnjFCZ6FgvhvEXhmrntOqm4AfQb6-MWTkcRdaYXcmXOshBxuDA/s400/DissolvedMusic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254501039855997218" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Or Imagine ringing up your pal and the caller tune plays the mischievous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malgudi_Days"><span style="font-style: italic;">Malgudi Days</span></a> soundtrack <a href="http://www.indianpad.com/story/48409"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Taanna Nana..."</span></a>, and just then you glance upon a tiny frisky-frolicking squirrel hopping across the wall-side in a scurry. And for a moment's worth of clueless-ness, you rush to theorize why do they seem soooo effortlessly related. Am I being insane here?</span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />Or Imagine getting a hair-cut in the little barber's shop next street - small and rickety, with the only thing clean and shiny there being his mirror. A defunct radio and its dust-full of speakers rests in one corner. And there in the mirror you see two flirtatious faces, conspiring gleefully, riding on the same bicycle on the street behind your seat...And just then out of its whim, that radio plays this chirpy old <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O56NC4OoXsM"><span style="font-style: italic;">Kishore</span></a> melody for the occasion: <span style="font-style: italic;">"Aaj unse pahli mulaakat hogi!..."</span> [<span style="font-style: italic;">This is the first meeting with my date, today!</span>]... What else.<br /><br />Or Imagine </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">you huddle across the pedestrian, unmindful, and your </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">IPod plays these lines from the sensuous hit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_%28song%29"><span style="font-style: italic;">Iris</span></a>, just as you watch some urchins fighting each other on the roadside rubble, for a little of money, for the more of ignorance. The bottled up emotions, the luminous faces still harbouring some dream nevertheless...<br /></span></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">...And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming / Or the moment of truth in your lies;</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">When everything seems like the movies / Yeah you bleed just to know your alive...</span></span></span><br /></div><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >So do you domesticate any musical (blond) moments?...or is it just me.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >Image: PhotoBucket</span></a><br /></div></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-66606880394176906552008-09-20T22:05:00.009+05:302008-09-21T03:01:18.992+05:30The One Where I Was Tagged.<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">So I've <a href="http://wtml.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/lets-play-tag/">been tagged</a> and am required to furnish some answers on the podium. There it goes...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">What do you do when...</span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >-<span style="font-style: italic;"> You see a man (or woman) making a pass (trying to woo/flirt/impress) on a woman (or man) you like?</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I'll successfully cajole him not to commit the mistake that I did :) ...And that is yet to happen. Ha ha.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >- Someone you like, is not attracted to you?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">What's the big deal. Is that something new among we naïve blokes! Go get a life there's so much (and many!) to it, I would say!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >- You are attracted to some one, but both of you are in two different cities?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Poor Boy (Girl): Here goes four line from this <a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2669">overly popular strangely sensuous ballad</a>, </span><span style="font-size:85%;">for you</span><span style="font-size:85%;">: </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >"So close no matter how far,</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >Couldn't be much more from the Heart</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >Forever trusting who you are...</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >And Nothing Else Matters..."</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">With 'Repeat' till they meet and redeem out of the separation :)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >- You are reading a book, and your best friend wants to borrow it and can’t wait for you to finish reading, ‘coz he/she has been looking for it for all their life?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Give it to him/her but with unbreakable promise that (s)he would have to narrate the best out of it back to me at full length...And If it is "she" it would be more fulfilling than reading itself :) And anyway I can't read much :)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >- You help plan his / her career, and then, they go on to achieve it, leaving you behind, alone...</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">That's a harsh, but why to keep high expectations at the first place...Of Course I know it's impossible to have none, but better keep it to bare minimum...Isn't it? Just be cautious :) No one is reponsible for what you 'decide' to feel and react. And let that person fully Know it. And if it's a girl...I kind of always knew that :)</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >- Who am I...</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Now that's the toughest one, after many trials. Let me try out another way. In fact that's all I can do...Is it...</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I am a part time worker...and maybe full time thinker. <span style="font-style: italic;">Not</span> living the twenty-something dream but making sure hard to figure out and what is it all I've got that I could give back around and what would just Click for me. And yes I love the speed of light, the freshness of old times with good people, the smell of the green grass, the smiles on a daring face...and maybe more.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >- Insert (and add) a new question(s) / statement(s)...</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >Question to the Tag Maker...and to the tagged fellows:<br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">~ Frequently, or for once - What is the One thing that brings-in-smile-to-your-face/or pisses-you-off quite </span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">unexpectedly !?!<br /><br /></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >And I Tag: <a href="http://cyzak.blogspot.com/">Cyzak.</a></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-86445140035670080392008-09-16T00:52:00.010+05:302008-09-16T19:41:13.245+05:30A Stolen Incident<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Last few weeks has been a little less than a writing spin for me...(at least by my lazy standards), but I can hardly bring them all here, for it'll appear nearly kitschy given the austere and bordering-to-no-nonsensical taste of this blog...:) Err I mean those content will appear honestly pompous. As if our own </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.tehelka.com/story_main6.asp?filename=hub092504rabbi.asp"><span style="font-style: italic;">Rabbi Shergill</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> - full of him, of his folky sufi tones, is made to sing out loud among the gospel prayer choir nuns. Lol.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Anyway I wanted to (really) bring in some of those essays...So here it is, although a bit stripped down and more narrative. The Essay prompt asked me to discuss something I...I *Like* to do, some Incident of an achievement's worth, something unfathomable, unrelated to classrooms or corporate meeting-rooms but yet swashbuckling-ly valuable in someone's eye...Great they didn't ask me to 'Show' what's in it all...Otherwise they would kill these words...Or me. Sigh. Not really :-)</span><blockquote><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">"You all need intensive rehearsal this much won't do..."</span> announced the choreographer in a clinical monotone, and not after we could breathe ourselves into a stupor for the time-out, he exhorted <span style="font-style: italic;">"I may cancel your item I can't compromise with the standard of MY Show! Better Scrap your thing from it."</span> It felt like hot winds has blown over the desert. We all stood there obscured in night - we careworn moonlighting dancers, full of a day’s worth of work. At least then we sensed we were much more than sum of ourselves - homogenously motivated, committed to capture a piece of timeless art on the stage.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtM4HJswOk8-DffkE2qop6w8ca5SA87apLBKR3nVnJKgEyHHFWId1Lha-nAs_GZvZ39cxhY3azGdLgC33tDar8EfXjNia8-saMfujUnHf7JH5bc_o_1J1oWEg079YA-FJRhJgyvg6tUA/s1600-h/SkeleDance.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 357px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtM4HJswOk8-DffkE2qop6w8ca5SA87apLBKR3nVnJKgEyHHFWId1Lha-nAs_GZvZ39cxhY3azGdLgC33tDar8EfXjNia8-saMfujUnHf7JH5bc_o_1J1oWEg079YA-FJRhJgyvg6tUA/s400/SkeleDance.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246356673995573202" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Our troop was, well to say the least - an eclectic, weird and steeped bunch of idiosyncrasies - living in a collective bender for the moment, detached all from their professional identities. <span style="font-style: italic;">Sales people, Radio Programmers, I-Bankers, IT Programmers, Arts students, Bank Managers, Home-makers, Actors</span> - everyone with a story to tell, everyone living in a collective bender for the moment...Wonder doesn't that resemble typical study groups of the BSchools. We all belong to varying age groups and that matters the least. I have observed that there remains a lot to be learnt from the team itself, from really everyone of it, leave alone one's own enactments - adept colleagues display how to remain unassuming and composed however tough the sequences are and whether they trip or succeed; while more importantly, the less confident or dim ones make you want to be more accountable and enterprising for the co-acts you are performing.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >We used to practice in a rickety school hall...just big enough to fit the widest of the formations, one troop at a time. And if the space still remained hostile, other troops would move to open air quads outisde :) Nights were more pleasant than weekend daylights in those roofless hallway, when dust and sun could really get the last sweat out of ours. It was hard for me to tell whether we were traivailing more or were our Instructors in keeping us onto the toe. It isn't the best of the job I tell you, but maybe has it's own rewards. They store the best of the motions we could hardly contend in all its subtleties, and they store it for the best.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >The show day approached quicker than we could really sense, sense all what we've been doing (read: conspiring). The final stage rehearsals went bad and good and bad. But we did manage to keep our Instructors and Choreographer complacent for brief moments during our acts...and that was enough :) <span style="font-style: italic;">"There's no Style?" "Do your steps in full and clear" "Where's the Attitude!" "Can't see Any waist moment...it's No filmy number." "Identify with the beats" "Lead your partneers Guys..."</span> No more of it our face...For sometime at least!<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Show went ok.</span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Sometimes I wonder Is every piece of art (a big word, if qualified to be considered that) normally driven by some muse, some inspiration, some magical rainmaker that can shake things up for you...or is it just what it is, without a reason...?<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >I had written more on this, just <a href="http://surreal-flavors.blogspot.com/2008/06/shall-we-dan.html">prior to the Show</a>.</span><br /></div></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-58418908315065896572008-08-21T01:28:00.019+05:302008-08-21T06:46:58.778+05:30On Awards, Probably.<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixid9BUgZlHsReaBZLMQkWMTzsTZKri3MnnDOytSfv9U3XTgqNjzCTCdHVKrjVEMINMJLTZWN4ouBu9Nch-KpGlNg5ncm_IwQ7hgvN5kFD0MaIXGKdqmp9WQqQRBZrMkSTRmURAeRHTA/s1600-h/Aw.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 201px; height: 123px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixid9BUgZlHsReaBZLMQkWMTzsTZKri3MnnDOytSfv9U3XTgqNjzCTCdHVKrjVEMINMJLTZWN4ouBu9Nch-KpGlNg5ncm_IwQ7hgvN5kFD0MaIXGKdqmp9WQqQRBZrMkSTRmURAeRHTA/s400/Aw.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236760880665709666" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Cheers Time</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">!<br />Probably (No, Really!) <a href="http://wtml.wordpress.com/">somewhere</a> a faithful friend felt my blog </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">deserved to be among her list of </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">"<span style="font-style: italic;">Brilliante Weblog Premio 2008</span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">" felicitation. Yay! </span></span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Probably not that I wanted it to be a surprise, but it came as a smug </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">surprise yes, hmm like you've been looking at a glossy mirror for </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">something in front of you, and probably suddenly it shines at that nice acute </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">angle, for a moment, that shows the best smiles of yours :)<br />Oops.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Probably I should flinch from being that much metaphorical. No probably I </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">don't want to make it appear isolated and abstract.</span></span><br /></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">But Probably few days back while dozing in the office I thought of </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">deleting this blog, blog which feels passive and not a darling. </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Probably because I realized I m not doing justice to it, not </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">attending to it when it deserved all those moments of communion and </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">intimacy and oneness. Probably moments of momentary stardom, of </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">confection of rich little joys of near two year's worth, of the </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">sorrow slushes that kept me trapped behind. Probably in denial of </span></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >those extreme feelings that makes you want to sense the electric </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >spark in the wires...or crush the stones to meaningless faint </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">powders. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">But Probably I wasn't not trying to be so...</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">On one side trying to make it less of a ho-hum monologue and Probably more of a informative and salutary and Relevant </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">- yes that <span style="font-style: italic;">Relevant </span>with a capital R - to whoever who came here. Probably it was good and bad, </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Probably </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I don't (want to) know.<br />And on the other side Probably it was a struggle to...</span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />It has stayed with me in all these times of my disillusionment for a whole lot </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">of things, but Probably I still lamely ignored it. Probably I don't </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">want to know the future of it where I'll go with this, hmm Probably I </span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">can't keep up with it.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">But Probably I can't <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> write also...</span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">But thank you, Blogger, you have been intoxicating in all consummate ways.</span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Probably</span></span>.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />And Thanks <a href="http://wtml.wordpress.com/">AG</a> for your honor! No, no Probably here. Cut it down :)</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />Now Probably I have to felicitate my fellows...Haven't had many </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">blog friends in all these times, though follow quite a few, and others don't have presence here </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">on the web to be commended, Probably :(. But these two have to be there, any which way:</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://cyzak.blogspot.com/">Cyzak</a>: For his continued interest in reading out the every little meaningful part </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">in all my meaningless posts. Trust me your blog posts make much more 'real' sense. True :)</span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /><a href="http://randombakar.blogspot.com/">F @ The Solitary Reaper</a>: Got onto his blog lately. What to say....there's so much more to him than his this blog. Sorry unintroduced ppl :)</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">**You both need to felicitate another set of co-blogs with this Cachet, and intimate them...don't forget!<br />**Swear won't use Probably again, hmm for maybe next couple of months. Probably ;)</span><br /></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-20761892078731075642008-08-13T00:02:00.014+05:302008-08-13T03:03:25.628+05:30On Flames Staying Alive.<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Hey Lady...</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">You are</span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> so much of something.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Hey Lady...Don't you wonder<br />You've never been down so low.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Didn't the morning sun...once<br />Used to stare at your glow.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Oh Lady...you were to be<br />Dancing full in this spring.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Hey just lift your eyes around,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">And look at little joys floating.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">And think about those of them,<br />That you had created Lady</span>.<br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">About the longing loves<br />Still lying for you awaited.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Didn't you always like Swerving</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Swifter and Higher in these winds</span>.</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpMBfbHE6_b8i9jKunn4bBQKSmkRv63PZWzobuOr1h-4cGdcV4DcvqnPdpaFr3gGITzOZonhho_yusfATUFsmjT0KVXC2gWLovWUaOPF2Fnx6XPEVYIM7uONiS6O9m4Ttxb1CtUDcFA/s1600-h/F.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 226px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpMBfbHE6_b8i9jKunn4bBQKSmkRv63PZWzobuOr1h-4cGdcV4DcvqnPdpaFr3gGITzOZonhho_yusfATUFsmjT0KVXC2gWLovWUaOPF2Fnx6XPEVYIM7uONiS6O9m4Ttxb1CtUDcFA/s400/F.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233742820037067970" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The inconclusive ignorance,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">In Souls the painful voidness;</span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">And crazy sparks within smoke,<br />Flinging right across the numbness</span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The closing storm, And those<br />Wider Skies - A little less higher.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Lady they all await your healing<br />Or kissing, with same old tender</span>.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">But look where </span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">you are now lady,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">You broke, moke; you stormful Stoic.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">With those hush-hush doubts,<br />Those tin cans of disbelief</span>. <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />You swooned before the acme;<br />And fell before sensing your wings</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">And Lady you never wondered that<br />Even Fires within can be so Cathartic...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">A tiny hole in the closed window,<br />Or gliff of dusts unsettling...</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Whatever costs you lady<br />Your own old smile,<br />Or those set of beady eyes,<br />I saw once illuminating...<br />Go win them back it's<br />Been such a long while.<br />Go have a look there's so much<br />Of Life and Spur and Stimulus,<br />Even in those lissome Flames<br />Holding on in the Wind - Confronting.<br /><br /><br />**I am homogeneously clueless why I've written this all, leave alone for whom :) Maybe Someone arbitrary (Is it). Somewhere needful. Someday timeless.<br /></span></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Image: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a></span></span><br /></div><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-66238527001516582472008-07-22T20:19:00.029+05:302013-03-24T17:24:03.135+05:30F For Fear...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A few days back I got to listen to and then broach upon some thoughts on F.e.a.r. It happened that we gave the task of </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> anonymously </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">scribbling</span></span> </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">on a chit </span></span>"</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What do <span style="font-size: small;">you</span> Fear most in Life?...</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">to a bunch of <span style="font-size: small;">teenagers</span>, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">and then mix all the chits--only to be picked up by someone (chosen to do so) randomly. So this conduct allowed the kids to disclose their fears without being mousey about it, since the namelessness is maintained as<span style="font-size: small;"> no<span style="font-size: small;">-</span>one would get to know who's fear w<span style="font-size: small;">as what</span>, hence killing the shyness.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And soon with each anonymou<span style="font-size: small;">s chit being pi<span style="font-size: small;">cked u<span style="font-size: small;">p and read out loud</span></span>, the mood of the entire group harmonized into a collective affection--as </span>one fear after another were divulged...like unfurling petals of a shy flower. Along came some concealed smiles, some unstoppable blushes, some worried faces. Everyone opened up! <span style="font-size: small;">That's hard to do not just with kids but any person I tell you! </span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And as a reaction to<span style="font-size: small;"> the anonymous fe<span style="font-size: small;">ars</span></span>, amazingly all the kids poured in their suggestions </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">themselves for their peers--</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">to overcome that particular fear of someone amongst them. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And since you listen most to your own age-group than any other teacher/ment<span style="font-size: small;">or--this was the most amazing<span style="font-size: small;"> part.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Quite useful the<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>exercise was, for it </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">particularly </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">made every young blood present there to come open and feel little less insecure. Objective achieved!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBgwrzzyndI4DYI_5IiU7500O7uj_Wj16mjsAi537ciJ_j4e94KsyDcj2D_SlZ0z97_I-7n8bt6QIAY1kcRjUrgda7YoCATGczWBw6gJTd5Jf0jeKE387-AAH7OOuefPRureBI7e0EQ/s1600/F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225858937843719842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBgwrzzyndI4DYI_5IiU7500O7uj_Wj16mjsAi537ciJ_j4e94KsyDcj2D_SlZ0z97_I-7n8bt6QIAY1kcRjUrgda7YoCATGczWBw6gJTd5Jf0jeKE387-AAH7OOuefPRureBI7e0EQ/s400/F.jpg" style="height: 307px; margin-top: 0px; width: 220px;" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">However, later this got me thinking...What is it that <i>I</i> Fear most<span style="font-size: small;">?</span> No it's not about that fear of falling, or of being shooed away by the goosebumps in the moonlit nights, or any vicarious practical thoughts when you o<span style="font-size: small;">r you</span>r friend loses his/<span style="font-size: small;">her</span> job, but...</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of becoming too rich to feel lazy picking up a fallen coin. No way that I could ever be ...But STILL.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of being SO slushily cloyingly happy all the time - about the whole bunch of blissful things marshaled around for me, by the fate's design, THAT it makes me ignore about the finer little details of life... glum or gleeful... low or high... black or white. <span style="font-size: small;">I fear of being just happy, rather th<span style="font-size: small;">a</span>n <span style="font-size: small;">bein<span style="font-size: small;">g</span></span> <span style="font-size: small;">happy with<span style="font-size: small;"> a meaning <span style="font-size: small;">t<span style="font-size: small;">o life.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of feeling dull and sloth in the morning sun, when a whole bright day grins at me with the red carpet rolled out in full anticipation.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of my changing point-of-views, twittering as if they would render me groundless on the soil, like a helpless puppet with strings tangle<span style="font-size: small;">d u<span style="font-size: small;">p </span>on a performance floor</span>. Becoming absolutely disillusioned from a whole lotta of beautiful things. There's very few more worse things in this world than the sight of a MAN struggling with his own point-of-view. I don't want to become </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">that </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MAN.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, running out of things to talk to an intimate friend/love, while (s)he still can have some time close to me, and that too after a long time. It feels like a </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">mute </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">stupid coldfish, I tell you.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of my elders not reproving me at wrongdoings-<span style="font-size: small;">-</span>for they remaining snugly secured with the thought that this bloke is a bit grown-up 'now'.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of thinking too much all day and night; and yet feeling sick being deprived of thoughts when my eyes are hunting for one...whacking me off to remind that I am nothing but remain a question in itself.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, looking out of the window, lost in following some unknown streaks of light, when the music close-by would be playing my favorite tunes, that I would miss later for sure. Don't we miss much of things because of this.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of </span><a href="http://surreal-flavors.blogspot.com/2008/01/saying-goodbye-before-hello.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Saying Goodbye... before Hello</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear,<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>of being unable to convince<span style="font-size: small;">, </span>enlighten<span style="font-size: small;">, empower</span> someone about the veritable virtuosity of certain great things in this world, of the intrinsic beauty--irrespective of whether (s)he would love it or not. Love<span style="font-size: small;"> is a choice</span> that comes later many a times Ignorance is bliss, but only ephemerally. Most of the beautiful<span style="font-size: small;"> human creations (<span style="font-size: small;">not just Art)</span></span> in this world need to be felt, rather than just seen. Most of them need your good time to earn your appreciation.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, from the sheer fragility of the words </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"I have to tell you something..."</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> and the way it lands on heart sometimes, like an airplane lands on the </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">terra firma</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, cutting through the cushion of air all around.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, of writing to someone now, for (s)he may not reply. </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It happens and </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I ain't priggish about it. All of my thoughts then make me feel uselessly helpless, like an over burnt cigarette stub, lying sopped in spit for always. </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear, (even) of my ephemeral indulgences and binges, for they might obscure me from the silent smiles awaiting, the novel simplicities that could just spark all my nerves, the one snapped flash that makes one want to be smarter, the smell of the green grasses, the dappled monsoon sky...</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I Fear...</span></span></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Why did I stop so early in the list. Perhaps I Fear, that...</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What all do you fear of, really?</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: orange;">PS: That day when I did the activity on fear, I also chanced to meet and know an amazing person in life ever, as she came there for the first time -- S.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: orange;">:)</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-size: 78%;">Image: <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.flickr.com">Flickr</a></span> </span></div>
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Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-16531811724652007702008-06-02T23:49:00.025+05:302008-06-05T00:43:00.843+05:30Shall We Dan...?<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Isn't it a wonder that some really good people inherently despise some really good things. Its so</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > much interesting then to hear some slick words of hatred emanating out from those hearts...They seem to be so appealing :P</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> Here's a <a href="http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=41">piece of gem</a> from <span style="font-style: italic;">Stephen Fry</span>, that I am talking about:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I hate dancing more than I can possibly explain. I hate doing it myself, which I can’t anyway, but I loathe and resent the necessity to try. I hate watching other people do it. I hate the way it breaks up conversation. I hate the slovenly mixture of sexual exhibitionism, strutting contempt and repellent narcissism that it involves. I hate it when it is formless, meaningless bopping and I hate it (if anything even more) when it is formal and choreographed into genres like ballroom or schooled disco. Those cavortings are so embarrassing and dreadful as to </span><span style="font-size:85%;">force my hand to my mouth...<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1NNV0bJTvct_1gX3x0zA-Y_VPa_PmdgKMY1fMPjogcMmTD46oT-cSjEfUrukJ8Ib8ZAPG0M7vJ2NfvENX1GXxK9yge3-NMI7S7n-LsgC6xujHacb9KNHKtMffbGKchLUnp2VJwBmu0w/s1600-h/pilobolus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1NNV0bJTvct_1gX3x0zA-Y_VPa_PmdgKMY1fMPjogcMmTD46oT-cSjEfUrukJ8Ib8ZAPG0M7vJ2NfvENX1GXxK9yge3-NMI7S7n-LsgC6xujHacb9KNHKtMffbGKchLUnp2VJwBmu0w/s400/pilobolus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207748985032545106" border="0" /></a></blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Wow that's something mouthful. For the unintroduced, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.stephenfry.com">Stephen Fry</a> is an <span style="font-style: italic;">English comedian, actor, filmmaker, humorist, writer, </span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic;">novelist, poet, columnist, television personality</span> and a</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <span style="font-style: italic;">technophile</span>. And a good hater (shouldn't we add?) </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">When someone mentions things like <span style="font-style: italic;">'necessity to try'</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">'hate doing it myself, which I can't anyway</span>'...it appears so sickly, </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">depressing and hopeless you won't even like to sympathize for...like those pale eyes of a starving black cat just about to die.</span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">However what I like about the excerpt is that it questions the basic idea of loving and detesting everything around us...isn't it? It's </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">very modish for the irrational self within us to crush any piece of Art down onto plain matter-of-factness, to enslave it as a puppet </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">of our whimsical afterthoughts. And again it's very easy to label some opus as 'remarkable', with a tittering acceptance, while still </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">being stupidly ignorant about its beauty.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />But then I wonder again: 'Do we need an occasional rational lens to look through everything...and is that all, is that the end of the </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">story.' Of course not.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkbvuKt5igLA_BxyXv7ejTG8PkcN1mNPVT8aDlQp86RoyNjVgY0jDe8reRBZww9WUo6u9A2dyhd_5BGc815GqIxe7ZLbzUg6reHvTLroykUygn1KkZ8KVsZG3YHLgu1lc2HFHaAOA0Rg/s1600-h/hateFo.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 52px; height: 52px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkbvuKt5igLA_BxyXv7ejTG8PkcN1mNPVT8aDlQp86RoyNjVgY0jDe8reRBZww9WUo6u9A2dyhd_5BGc815GqIxe7ZLbzUg6reHvTLroykUygn1KkZ8KVsZG3YHLgu1lc2HFHaAOA0Rg/s400/hateFo.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207736117310526162" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Lets try to hate something, probably with an Alien's eye, and then see. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">What is it that they call as <a href="http://blog.sportscolumn.com/story/2006/4/3/93827/11408"><span style="font-style: italic;">Soccer</span></a> - a bunch of hooligans running so mindlessly behind a round rolling useless object, kicking out of </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">their mundane frustration and shouting the shit out of themselves, just to defend a pretentious flagpost and invade that of the </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">enemy?...What a waste of aggression and creative energy...Huh. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Lets rip <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><a href="http://kotaku.com/gaming/cricket/wii-dont-like-cricket-oh-no-we-love-it-232739.php"><span style="font-style: italic;">Cricket</span></a> for that matter. 22 men trying strangely hard to both love and punish the round little thing, turn by turn...for no </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">real reason. Catch it, throw it, smash it, aim with it...it's still round, tough and silent. Why so much fuss and drama happening at the </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">pitch...Why these maddening acts of self -flagellation on the green grasses. What are they really trying to prove with those flings - </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">that they have better eyesight for the little thing...or that their 11 men can torment any milita with those wooden cudgels?</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />I'll pause to be ridiculously cynical and cheesy about the above things...I haven't had that bad day today. There are no </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">extremes of loving and hating something actually.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNWTt7AwiaP60BWcCbLVjXpw-xEv3oja4rusUkGKuO9PVtx1u1pEeX8mAf9tIcyRjoD2FKRODc8CED1Eo0fZ8lZIhTB0Dpm_EsM_6tNF9JJNI48WcU2gLbvNrJ97VnHlkUsIHPO2Pn5g/s1600-h/movements.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNWTt7AwiaP60BWcCbLVjXpw-xEv3oja4rusUkGKuO9PVtx1u1pEeX8mAf9tIcyRjoD2FKRODc8CED1Eo0fZ8lZIhTB0Dpm_EsM_6tNF9JJNI48WcU2gLbvNrJ97VnHlkUsIHPO2Pn5g/s400/movements.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207747967125295922" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Lets come back to the Dance again then - a performance art we humans started probably even before we had the name for it. If you </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">allow me talk lofty then I would probably say, with a sophisticated smile: That those rhythmic movements of the body, those </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">alignment to the recurring beats, those consummately controlled movements...all help to connect with the inner self, to the natural </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">design, to our subconscious expressions...Stop thats enough!</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiucjJ6rOHsdeOk8IpnnCeokoEfUg3NkDRyJkI6qumIt0kVi-9vGWEFRdX6hqOaWKVJ8xshbijPRZ6CmXG9RO-V6jc3ecGT9-Oe-nHKK39XGx8SL5ORYSgcZlLFwWtGw9vn8pvXynrIAg/s1600-h/Airs.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiucjJ6rOHsdeOk8IpnnCeokoEfUg3NkDRyJkI6qumIt0kVi-9vGWEFRdX6hqOaWKVJ8xshbijPRZ6CmXG9RO-V6jc3ecGT9-Oe-nHKK39XGx8SL5ORYSgcZlLFwWtGw9vn8pvXynrIAg/s400/Airs.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207745136741847842" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sincerely speaking, any good piece of Art - as someone has rightly said - offers more than it admits...and it shines on its own. Dance, </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">with its umpteen performance styles, evokes feelings possibly inexpressible in the language. It showcases abstract movement dynamics, </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">and connects to the viewer with its own encrypted alphabets and refined vocabulary. It is governed by <a href="http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/g-gollin/dance/dance_physics.html">the same Physics</a> of the Worlds as is </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">any other motion</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQGoHk6P3VKVg_sTSw5pvhz2am7sbP6FVf-uadiqUbm7P4p8WVDjlAiQViaGWiStrBO1jLZTR8493uiXGEyKgCeJvGRDtivj-FcAjkL7-mm4c3ykIzuvqrEf__QG0Z7VdX45ouANh1bw/s1600-h/spins.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQGoHk6P3VKVg_sTSw5pvhz2am7sbP6FVf-uadiqUbm7P4p8WVDjlAiQViaGWiStrBO1jLZTR8493uiXGEyKgCeJvGRDtivj-FcAjkL7-mm4c3ykIzuvqrEf__QG0Z7VdX45ouANh1bw/s400/spins.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207747971420263234" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">From the melting tenderness of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_Waltz">Viennese Waltz</a>, to the fabulous stamping of </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.argentina-tango.com">Argentinian Tango</a>, </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">to the characteristic formations of <a href="http://eaasdc.de/history/sheindex.htm">American Square</a>, </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">to the</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> supple torsos and entwining waist movements of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/salsa.htm">Latin Salsa</a>, to the articulate </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">thumps and </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">perfect-angle jerks of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakdance">Break </a></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakdance">Dance</a>, to the evocative ground movements of <a href="http://www.chennaibest.com/discoverchennai/artandculture/musicanddance/barathanatyam.asp">Kathak/BharatNatayam</a>, to the lifted windmilling legs of <a href="http://www.ballet.org.uk/">Italian Ballet</a>... Dance stimulates </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">innumerable potent images of human expression.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> Those frozen moves, those mesmerizing body flows and impulses - steal every possible representational figure our body can exude. </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">T</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">he overwhelming soundscape and </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">the instinctive beats make the legs fluid.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Dance has a liberating effect. We see a spinning lady and her subtle expressions, and we quickly feel affiliated to her silent control over</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> the sheer fear of executing just a superficial bodily </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">ostentation; over </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">appearing </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">staid and restless; over the vulnerability of nervousness; </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">over her unfailing trust on the supporting partner...<br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoh6Cutw5Dhb95w3Cr5kbO85r6x6JShl_20kFWOOD4UtvlhnetPvvTNFTNb3H6hI2qQMDMoHAxu8tL7An1EWVHcIWcH1D-u68eM7vRgqEvLsXUppK1CFJur_X-X8JGjbzvZgC9X8Whtw/s1600-h/taps.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 278px; height: 163px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoh6Cutw5Dhb95w3Cr5kbO85r6x6JShl_20kFWOOD4UtvlhnetPvvTNFTNb3H6hI2qQMDMoHAxu8tL7An1EWVHcIWcH1D-u68eM7vRgqEvLsXUppK1CFJur_X-X8JGjbzvZgC9X8Whtw/s400/taps.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207736108720591554" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I would never doubt that Dance brings in a different dimension of self-realization, as I've observed the class acts closely now. Outside, it appears downright chic, heavily entertaining, </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">flashy glamorous</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> and melodic... but on-stage, to the performer, it's again a delicate balance in the midst of his/her ego and attitude, her composure, her hidden unsettled anger, her love for freedom, her fear of appearing flimsy and detached to the onlooker, her creative quotient, her...<br />Much of our life remains a delicate balance...isn't it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">** I love Soccer and Cricket as much as Dance, but mostly I can play the former two in my mind only.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />** I have a Group Stage Performance in the next couple of days, </span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">courtesy <a href="http://rahulsaxenna.com/">RSDC</a></span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">...it's pretty big Show actually<a href="http://rahulsaxenna.com/"></a>. Hope my body allows me. Wish me Luck...</span></span></span><br /></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-40946302806614583292008-05-06T23:09:00.020+05:302008-06-02T23:49:10.829+05:30Seven WEIRDest Things About...Me.<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >It's very easy to bump onto <a href="http://www.ragamuffinn.co.uk/?p=281">something</a> around <a href="http://www.helenparocha.com/awasalarmed/?p=728">the net</a>, that you <a href="http://www.isthatevenlegal.com/2008/01/17/7-weird-things-about-me/">can't not</a> think less about, and that just stipples across your freaky self libido. There is this "</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >7 Weird Things About Me...</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >" meme that stuck me and mercilessly stole away my sleep last night - Yeah even my slumber fingers are feeling dreadful now as it continues with this incessant key-tapping.</span></div><div> </div><div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Anyway at last the weird self within me has been gracefully weird enough to recall these weird set of things that relates to me, unfailingly:</span> </div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio7i2A3GKoXp18Z1yjqskzNALnFrrhaaDiCnfjCEZprXtCKGu8m6G8Z9wM9GtyaDvD_eBasXJZbY2yXBZeM_yRJKNfTAsvOof2qZmBtk-ilerjcD3tpoMmRYXvdi4u3nYdFsniNk6M1g/s1600-h/Coloring.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 163px; height: 122px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio7i2A3GKoXp18Z1yjqskzNALnFrrhaaDiCnfjCEZprXtCKGu8m6G8Z9wM9GtyaDvD_eBasXJZbY2yXBZeM_yRJKNfTAsvOof2qZmBtk-ilerjcD3tpoMmRYXvdi4u3nYdFsniNk6M1g/s400/Coloring.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197689462763750018" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >+</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> I spend most of th</span><span style="font-size:85%;">e times formatting any soft document than reading inside it - maybe close to nineties in percent. Because I can't get whats cribbed IN</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> there! Those ugly creepy words.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Last week I had to finish up this Excel sheet which hardly contained more than 400 words - A ten-something list of some software rules that would closely resemble, in its contextual simplicity - the DO's and DONT'S of public toilet system. I spent seven sober days religiously staring 'around' that Excel. But yeah at last it turned out very colorful, with all non-flashy color grids that could settle any artist's aesthetic urge...<br />Other than this, I also tend to scream inside me when I see something like...sspeling miss-takes, or a space between a comma and its preceding word - that's blasphemy! - a comma must follow the word immediately and urgently.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBn6lGB2WKBG-Wi5OmRSj03_eepOwLzkIZroFNwg3AxKTnaRjx9HmLhNlglGEerrK39SvtMFFy1LPQy2_xq85eh6v5NE-wZzQ8GMQzdTCiB135Ii88tMeF4Z2oNXLz5E-DY6A4OndTg/s1600-h/monyeymug.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBn6lGB2WKBG-Wi5OmRSj03_eepOwLzkIZroFNwg3AxKTnaRjx9HmLhNlglGEerrK39SvtMFFy1LPQy2_xq85eh6v5NE-wZzQ8GMQzdTCiB135Ii88tMeF4Z2oNXLz5E-DY6A4OndTg/s400/monyeymug.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197680808404648562" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">+</span> If there's something for me that's just slightly less tougher and quirky to understand than the Theory of Relativity, then it would be my Salary Structure - all its bits and components and exactly why I am getting what. I should admit I'm grossly promiscuous about money and probably among the most generous taxpayer to our Fin Min. And did I miss anything about Credit Cards? If my lender has only 1000 loose canon customers just like me then it would've made fortunes out of the magnanimous interests I pay to them. I've decided I'll soon tore my cards away into nothingness.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZgHU7QoSQey8ovCRKEjFfZTr4WIGfpZpuPOqM5NGidgdYN9f1TrPqjuxKSPflLdurOoszxbFKEaF8rnhMZtc6OjRJUJfPLz16UGfuwJCGkrHKd4ZaLgON2R0ZmKluxOENnvfjE4rJMg/s1600-h/Garfield-Thinking.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 185px; height: 109px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZgHU7QoSQey8ovCRKEjFfZTr4WIGfpZpuPOqM5NGidgdYN9f1TrPqjuxKSPflLdurOoszxbFKEaF8rnhMZtc6OjRJUJfPLz16UGfuwJCGkrHKd4ZaLgON2R0ZmKluxOENnvfjE4rJMg/s400/Garfield-Thinking.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197689471353684626" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">+</span> I like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware">Spywares</a> when they hunt my system, just becau</span><span style="font-size:85%;">se of their innocuous begging to seek my attention, and I feeling dignified enough in ignoring them. Yes it's that pride you would feel being a playboy ignoring all the flirting chicks around you - Nah! none of them are good. I like spywares, because of the inherent weakness in their spiteful design. I like the flashiness in their evil stare at me and the same intensity of indifference I return to them. Few of them ran into my system sometime back. I did nothing, I didn't panic. They have disappeard by now, and I don't know how...there's no cruel Anti-Virus sentinel on my system, I'm too lazy to install one.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDQReWEwMu7cuKX65t4zZCjmhShCmYSqbGKFVkqR16yLGfk4Vh1llc1Jzj9EhF_XSVv2CXBsuSosnzA06gNn_m3a4Qyr1WNTxhhcn4zjdV45Iv1n8SBSRha1zkcSeXh6xokOPKjYnIuA/s1600-h/Directions.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDQReWEwMu7cuKX65t4zZCjmhShCmYSqbGKFVkqR16yLGfk4Vh1llc1Jzj9EhF_XSVv2CXBsuSosnzA06gNn_m3a4Qyr1WNTxhhcn4zjdV45Iv1n8SBSRha1zkcSeXh6xokOPKjYnIuA/s400/Directions.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197680799814713922" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">+</span> There's something called 'changing directions' people remain unsure about, then the 'lonely directions' one has to toil in darkness, and then this '<span style="font-style: italic;">sense of direction</span>' - which I've been deprived of all (since birth?). Like <a href="http://www.kellyjanetorrance.com/archives/2006_01.html">they say</a>: <span style="font-style: italic;">"A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses...</span>” Where did I lost mine!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">A terrible Example: During my past commute to the workplace, I used to get lost <span style="font-style: italic;">On The Way</span> to office & back home, more too often - all through the six months I existed there. Heck! there were too many mindless criss-cross fucking streets I can't just catch hold of. A faithful friend made me remember the simplest path all through the maze...By the way, would you believe, I also get confused of the <span style="font-style: italic;">'Left'</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">'Right</span>', the <span style="font-style: italic;">'East' </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">'West'</span> etc around me, and pretty often have to think few moments to correct things.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKpMyqgdntTe4ux6SJWh4ib74vyK0rPEW2XmAJ3J0VQrRl19zFQjuKtxnISAQi2i4IAWTWxYVCRaSn5OuLCMC3CjWofeWc_6uw1IG6n704Bt-cuL0JyJsNXcVQIp4nKELUnJJBqaqSEA/s1600-h/S-boys.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKpMyqgdntTe4ux6SJWh4ib74vyK0rPEW2XmAJ3J0VQrRl19zFQjuKtxnISAQi2i4IAWTWxYVCRaSn5OuLCMC3CjWofeWc_6uw1IG6n704Bt-cuL0JyJsNXcVQIp4nKELUnJJBqaqSEA/s400/S-boys.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197680808404648546" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">+</span> For quite sometime now I've been in pursuit of mentoring <a href="http://www.akanksha.org/">few young guns</a>, who more often come out to be more mature and sensible than me :) Result is: You</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> remain surrounded by novelty of thoughts which closely test every bit of assumptions you've weaved of the world around you. It tempts you to start things all over again from the first baby step on the ground you took in life, but again you realize in a moment vulnerability - that you are now big brother to somebody, who inadvertently would look up to you.<br />And as for these 'somebody' (kids), they seem to construct, out of their sizzling imagination, a spunky world thousand miles away from the 'real' one that we have weakly assumed to exist around us - the world so infirm, jaded and impaired.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvst0gj8RNF4AXPXIC8W-Sdg3RSALePsLJANWsTBj7iwysFVqHzxDCA1KkZNmdv8alpPmCc1LH6drE4kdoklTgpxGYS2xHEH-hfdUyjoX7_bqgd-Z30QZKclhCBDDPX3ICVfVf-ef3ng/s1600-h/LT.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 203px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvst0gj8RNF4AXPXIC8W-Sdg3RSALePsLJANWsTBj7iwysFVqHzxDCA1KkZNmdv8alpPmCc1LH6drE4kdoklTgpxGYS2xHEH-hfdUyjoX7_bqgd-Z30QZKclhCBDDPX3ICVfVf-ef3ng/s400/LT.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197680804109681234" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">+</span> I always thought of people half-hanging in the Mumbai local trains as of Daredevil stunt-men. I mean, for the novice, can there be less hand-clutching heart-pounding moment than to ride at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_Suburban_Railway">85-100 Kmph</a> with half his (her) body mass out into the screeching airs. Do they had such a bad time at home last night? 'Hang' and feel fucking free isn't it?...You know people 'Fight' to get a place at the edge. Living on the edge - exactly. Anyway the weird part here is, now I also feel comfortable doing the same. Standing</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> IN there. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">(Why? Ask My Maker.)</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4lPBcrO1sRZtQkgehPg1q6C8f-xlranyNKzygz9vNb-_PPbij4qeu9JKkNzwbkkF3riGrwyDXjnJtQJyY6uVuEsJ0qxcPotowwc_y8HaOBntKFztdhDevJYTTnfFehP43ioSJZ_cwyA/s1600-h/StudyReally.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4lPBcrO1sRZtQkgehPg1q6C8f-xlranyNKzygz9vNb-_PPbij4qeu9JKkNzwbkkF3riGrwyDXjnJtQJyY6uVuEsJ0qxcPotowwc_y8HaOBntKFztdhDevJYTTnfFehP43ioSJZ_cwyA/s400/StudyReally.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197692250197525154" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">+</span> I've a habit of getting admits for higher studies abroad from good places, And of not going finally :). Because it's <span style="font-style: italic;">exactly </span>after all the fire fighting and getting a coveted call, that I come to realize I'm not at all suited for further studies. Perhaps the point of return is a guiding intution that remain a bit lazy in its job. 1, 2, 3...And counting. And yes I don't seek pleasure in boasting about them. I'll pause to let you construct your own sensible joke out of this.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />That's all...I don't have anyone to tag to on this post...:( what about you?<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Image Courtesy: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>, <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/">stock.xchng</a> & <a href="http://www.everystockphoto.com/">everystockphoto</a>. ]</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:78%;">No Exaggeration PUKED, Anywhere. You see, I Love Facts. ]<br /></span></span></div></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-8070865783252462502008-04-08T22:45:00.022+05:302008-04-17T19:41:43.305+05:30Of Thousands Unwritten Images...<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >...The same ticking clock-angles, the same straight en routes in the morning sun, the same fussy bustle on the <a href="http://www.dancewithshadows.com/travel/mumbai-trains.asp">rails</a>, the same confining corridors at the workplace, the same settling seats, the same unmindful faces, the same boss-beating, the same placid ring-tones, the same hardened emotions, the s</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >ame longing of walking past forever, the same looking out of the </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >confining </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >cubicle, the same...</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >But yet so different. Each day to the office and back is SO different, of such an inconclusive complexity. I pity for those [and for me also occasionally :)] who remain stuck in the monotonous overtones of every day's plane regularity.</span><br /></div><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >In most usual sense when you make the movement home-to-office everyday, you get absorbed in mindless fuzzy images breezing past you every moment - on the streets outside or the corporate board rooms inside. And all but once in a while you try hard not to look at them. It's like your vision keeps overpowering you, and your eyes remain in constant confusion. Yet you savor some delightful snaps, of every day's splendor, of ordinary uniqueness that still brings occasional smile to your face. </span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >But I relish the millions of images I capture everyday - of few finer things, of the new normal in the changing lives, much like a photographer gone berserk doing mindless shots of every next moment. And they keep me in the amusement. It's like sleep-walking through the fearful 'routine-job' yet finding enough stimulants of our taste of novelty. </span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Here are some snaps that have stayed frozen within me, and the undying thoughts that they'll carry for me, forevermore...</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_PHiCWLQEONaiAbwiBrQqzOlhN3MzArG0It_qOum0ZvGteq4s0cUPyY4FXysAl3xEQThh9RAE-k7OfdUNnV8mLcc6mVcew48ft3YRcUKDIHOSBZUdJ-IGhyphenhyphenMrLJK-4sn1efJl0eqYZA/s1600-h/Sprinkles.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 285px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_PHiCWLQEONaiAbwiBrQqzOlhN3MzArG0It_qOum0ZvGteq4s0cUPyY4FXysAl3xEQThh9RAE-k7OfdUNnV8mLcc6mVcew48ft3YRcUKDIHOSBZUdJ-IGhyphenhyphenMrLJK-4sn1efJl0eqYZA/s400/Sprinkles.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186937727465863330" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >+ Of the tiniest water drops whoozing in full blow like a free spirit, out of the sprinklers in my office garden - Drops shining in the full heat of sunlight, yet so frigid that the mere sight of their journey out through the nozzle till kissing the thirsty grass - lets you feel you've had a bath of life. And it seems that in all through their life-journey of few seconds, they have lived an eternity.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >+ Of that little girl playing in front of the gates everyday - children of the dust, children of the mills. Her mother is working for the building construction next to my place. They sit down together in the dust and shadow for their lunch, as I cross past for a post-lunch walk. She has bare minimum clothes, but wears a big smile normally, and I've never seen her crying. So happy playing with sticks and dust. I think of bringing her chocolate everyday, but I forget. I easily forget good small things now.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOdol1nQnfA1tzh4Jcin_tL4erSS2UqOcwhQSbqdpJpCby9xTCW4V7a_ZtAWAeXQuU4MPu2v4YTRIrqizj-jXmipTEd2HO9TfR159iWuTUQQUgFSPl8c3Ocy4fGt1mRFruJUKZ8zBmg/s1600-h/Leaf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOdol1nQnfA1tzh4Jcin_tL4erSS2UqOcwhQSbqdpJpCby9xTCW4V7a_ZtAWAeXQuU4MPu2v4YTRIrqizj-jXmipTEd2HO9TfR159iWuTUQQUgFSPl8c3Ocy4fGt1mRFruJUKZ8zBmg/s400/Leaf.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186940154122385634" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >+ Of the broken leaves that fell casually on my hand - </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >from the trees in my premises, </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >retired from their branches after full years of service. They were pale, but relieved. I never knew why they came to me, probably wanted a safe quiet place to rest after a hanging life all throughout hitherto. But my hands aren't that safe and steady as of now. And I lost them.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >+ Of that lady at the station pouring out all her tiffin into an old women's beggar-bowl. And I wonder she does it everyday? Maybe not, but the withered hands of old women would be longing for it everyday. Maybe she would make it a feast for her little girl lingering in the dirt close to their bedspread. There are hundreds of beggars like the old women that I come across the platforms, waiting for the feast one good day.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-1-IrSVYT8GzMZf31WpOMrYFqDeFd00_ixqFE90x3VYbs_c4bjPjM4or91zp7yvQOdR9XgmQ6_jA0n45P8bjESKCoExzTToe7qk3ch93kXAwR7ngRJQ30wXEeWHc-jURd08FJ9eUSg/s1600-h/Smoked.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-1-IrSVYT8GzMZf31WpOMrYFqDeFd00_ixqFE90x3VYbs_c4bjPjM4or91zp7yvQOdR9XgmQ6_jA0n45P8bjESKCoExzTToe7qk3ch93kXAwR7ngRJQ30wXEeWHc-jURd08FJ9eUSg/s400/Smoked.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186950384734484754" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >+ Of the smokes evolving out of the traffic...into nothing. It knew never - from wh</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >ere it came from and where it'll end up. It just is - floating in full inebriety, rising up and melting into air...accepting an end. It also manifests in another form - the smoke of doubt, of skepticism that pollutes the air incessantly. And I sense it all as I commute - the hush-hush doubts in the eyes of most of the commuters. No, not commuters, but only strangers pretending to be more strange. As if they've been cursed on these hell-streets. </span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuth9z6pHlosfxsRec2LwRiTMRCv02c3QNxEn6GYJI6ov_hIfSP2jsl0slPkO0DOqhPWzRgMA8-byk32m7PHkySWAG0Gt4kwoSb8ShttFqtl5ZXFce7mmSgci1txkKkQ_zP8dnX8548g/s1600-h/Faces.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 227px; height: 202px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuth9z6pHlosfxsRec2LwRiTMRCv02c3QNxEn6GYJI6ov_hIfSP2jsl0slPkO0DOqhPWzRgMA8-byk32m7PHkySWAG0Gt4kwoSb8ShttFqtl5ZXFce7mmSgci1txkKkQ_zP8dnX8548g/s400/Faces.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186940167007287554" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >+ Of yet unlimited smiles across the faces I get to witness everyday...Smiles of a confession for a mistaken nudge on the side, by the fellow commuter; Smiles back in acknowledgment of a Smile; </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Smiles in a dying anticipation of a signal from the beautiful out-of-the-place face in the crowd; Smiles carried miles across on the cellphone while sitting in the train; </span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Smiles for just the thought of finishing out the messed up journey; Smiles out of a blush on a maiden's face - of feeling gorgeous to have dressed up primly in her favorite outfit; Smiles for...just having walked a bright sunny day.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >+ Of my firm's logo that stays into fixation...as a cachet. It's a weird symbol like those you find in Maya characters, but it whispers a story every time someone walks by it. Story of successes it has witnessed and legacy it symbolizes; Stories of silent proud hearts, the load of which it carries every moment, of a collective conscience that it drives - for the hundred thousand workers</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >...But the worker within me doesn't feel the comfort, staying there in his seats, he should confess.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >There's more - endless images and umpteen thoughts; but they require zillions of words. And I want to keep this post long till readable, so I should leave. </span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Would you mind sharing your snaps...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">**All images used here are courtesy <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/">stock.xchng</a> and <a href="http://www.everystockphoto.com/">everystockphoto.com.</a> I really didn't have any camera other than my eyes and glasses, I swear.</span><br /></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-13745512394738330532008-03-31T20:47:00.013+05:302008-04-05T15:59:10.617+05:30Surely, He's Joking!<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDmrI15OMBUcNBr9NygKatQJzNWWMZ00FHk6lvUabwSzRO5HJGRixKl4Wdy1IswojPeZAo-cX9I_9PgCoO8d1yDjZr0blDokb5U1yis7OtK9ywXH9_oL74df0Eu_XNwIGNcClzZ4MuQ/s1600-h/Badge.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDmrI15OMBUcNBr9NygKatQJzNWWMZ00FHk6lvUabwSzRO5HJGRixKl4Wdy1IswojPeZAo-cX9I_9PgCoO8d1yDjZr0blDokb5U1yis7OtK9ywXH9_oL74df0Eu_XNwIGNcClzZ4MuQ/s400/Badge.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183953193346578562" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Richard Phillips Feynman: "The Outrageous World Of World's Most Outspoken Nobel-Prize Winning Scientist..."</span> so reads his <a href="http://tal.forum2.org/feynman">anecdotal autobiography</a>, which also flashes his life size image in a backdrop of </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">equation-laiden blackboard - after all how else can we expect a Physicist to be featured on his book. A wide smile fits tight across his face, but that wideness is insufficient to capture any limit of the </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">intelligence that this man is synonymous of. A free-wheeling pursuer of his own freaking curiosity, Feynman was known to follow unconnected different paths in life - and that too to great many extents:</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">- ...And so what if he once went out to play the Bongo Drums (Percussion) in an orchestra.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">- Naah. He was better being trained and dance for samba competition in a Rio <span style="font-family:verdana;">Carnival.</span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> </span></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br />- Oh No! he also got a commission to paint a naked female Toreador & Playboy Playmates. In fact he was drawn in towards the brush strokes by his fellow artist, and had enough devotion to become a <a href="http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=11501">proud amateur painter</a>. His </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >friend, in turn of this splendid exchange of professions, was never able to understand Physics that Feynman taught him. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">:)</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />- In between he had already become an evangelist of Physics (regarded as one of the best Teacher) and his opus "</span></span><a href="http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">The Feynman Lectures on Physics</span></span></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">" is probably the most popular closest-to-textbook thing on the subject. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />- .<span style="font-style: italic;">..And before all this he had already broken the safe combination locks that guarded some of the most secrets documents while he worked for the <a href="http://ram3.chem.sunysb.edu/nucwww/info/whos_who.shtml">Manhattan project</a> for World War II Atomic Bomb. "I always </span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">had a thing about military guys, in such wonderful uniforms." - He quipped once. It required systematic study of safe-cracker books on how these locks worked. After one and a half years of playing with locks he became really </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">good at it and developed a reputation at Los Alamos as a <a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/142884">safe-breaker</a>.</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />- And if the list is not enough I should mention he also had his hand through in Biology, Maya hieroglyph and...</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />- ...A Nobel Prize in Physics in <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html">1965</a>, for his work on Quantum Electrodynamics. In fact he had drawn the squiggly lines of his famous self-invented "<a href="http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/FeynmanDiagram.html">Feynman Diagrams</a>" all over his <a href="http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/feynman.htm">travelling van</a>.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilWEgM3o6pbDs62nJavrFuYRUqLBJKPdlCLT9BtEIXPpqrdMeb-6gKfj_Hr2QB4vK8NtXhlc6QsLaX5OYCqxuXk0B8-82LQ7OWb372wqhqwMvT_McKQuZooFlZEN5bt3WPFaQeJ8m_Tg/s1600-h/Drummer.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilWEgM3o6pbDs62nJavrFuYRUqLBJKPdlCLT9BtEIXPpqrdMeb-6gKfj_Hr2QB4vK8NtXhlc6QsLaX5OYCqxuXk0B8-82LQ7OWb372wqhqwMvT_McKQuZooFlZEN5bt3WPFaQeJ8m_Tg/s400/Drummer.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183954245613566098" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Feynman was no doubt an eccentric and a free spirit. What draws me here nevertheless was a piece of text in his book that showcases his views on Social Equality. It was during a conference on "T<span style="font-style: italic;">he Ethics of </span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Equality</span>" when some Head of the Theology society argued about the big differences in the welfare of various countries -that leads to jealousy, conflicts, atomic weapons and eventually wars. The Head contemplated and spoke passionately about the <span style="font-style: italic;">RIGHT </span>way out </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">to strive for peace - by making sure there are no great differences from one place to another, such as the inequality in US itself. And so he avered that the rich nations should give up nearly everything to the other </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">countries until we're all even - and start all over again. Everyone followed his words closely and was filled to brim with sacrificial feelings, except Feynman who reflected back only to find some uneasiness in the whole </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">setting...</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">In fact Feynman finally felt grated, because no gentle chap in the conference understood his point, because he realized all of them </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">seemed to suffer from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhea">Logorrhea</a>, evocatively describing their own viewpoint like a bumper sticker (which is of no worth to </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">mention individually here) without listening to each other. These many (not all, by any claim) "<span style="font-style: italic;">pompous fools</span>" belonged to the bunch of the fields: <span style="font-style: italic;">Historians, Rabbis, Jesuits, Theologians, Philosophers</span> bla bla bla. And the conference, according to Feynman, turned out to be a "<span style="font-style: italic;">pointless inkblot</span>".</span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Feynman </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">essentially thought of the whole concept - of distributing everything evenly - as inherently flawed, because it is based on the misleading premise that there's only X amount of stuff in the world, that somehow rich countries </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">ALWAYS took it away from the poorer countries in the first place, and therefore they should give it back to the poor lot. This concept doesn't consider the real reason for the differences between countries in </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">the new age - that is - "<span style="font-style: italic;">the development of new techniques for growing food, the development of machinery to grow food and to do other things, and the fact that all this machinery requires the </span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Concentration Of Capital</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">. </span><span style="font-style: italic;">It isn't the <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Stuff</span>, but the <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Power</span> to make the Stuff, that is important.</span>" <span style="font-size:78%;">[Chapter: "<span style="font-style: italic;">Is Electricity Fire?</span>" Highlights by me.]</span></span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />This is something I completely drive for - And that this "<span style="font-style: italic;">Concentration of Capital</span>" for social prosperity is something people don't normally understand. These people behave like Equality Purists who view Money as source of all evil. We don't need any hard-headed Capitalist here, but yes for major development we do need large chunks of capital in small group of hands. And if that is attributed to Inequality then that is unfair, and gross misunderstanding which unfortunately drives powerful tug from our "Socialist" folks. It's like the desperation of itching that the fat richness of money make them do...And on a different note, it's also not that hard to weave consensus among people of different walks of life, only if they can come out of their fucking cocooned shell, of their closed circular viewpoints, </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Wouldn't you agree?</span></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;">** The Autobiography I talked about is the bestseller: "<a href="http://tal.forum2.org/feynman">Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! [Adventures of a Curious Character]</a>". And if ever you thought that this book is only for Science geeks then go wash your face in some dirty mud. </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Otherwise if you've even the slightest spark of self-intuition left within you, read the book <a href="http://www.vidyaonline.org/arvindgupta/surelyjoking.pdf">here</a> or buy it <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Surely-Youre-Joking-Mr-Feynman/Richard-Phillips-Feynman/e/9780393316049/">here</a>.</span></span></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-73313009544754398392008-03-15T23:49:00.008+05:302008-03-16T00:39:25.383+05:30Discovering Used Things...<div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Of late I've been doing a lot of writing, but unfortunately I can't bring them out here, which might explain rather less frequent set of posts here (but at least they are not just a mere passer-by hyperlink collection set to some other wisdom)...Anyways on a serious note, I feel Writing is a process of silent evolution, or any field of Art IS in fact the same for that matter...much like the streams of an undying river are in a constant effort to weather out the rocks, into unfailingly smooth pebbles</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;">...<br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">This is a small piece I've written about someone on some life experiences. Its on writing, but written in first person with his bit of teenager-like brashness, so bear for the clichéd language :)</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-size:85%;" ><i>"Some creative accidents happen for the good in life, for as they dug out few hidden talent of ours, we are left in that delicate balance zone of whimsy and comfort. And when they are accompanied by a usual transition from despising something to loving it by heart - it’s no less than some sort of a religious experience.</i></span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-size:85%;" ><i> </i></span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">On some bright day during college, I fortunately did meet this kind of accident, when some helpless friends of mine forced me to do something that I always assumed I wouldn’t do until I was tortured for the same - "intentionally" writing a creative piece - for the college magazine in this case. I mean, for whenever I was asked to complete an essay or answer a lengthy literature question, I used to treat it like fuzzy ugly stupid thing: “Oh! One Last Time...”, and I never took writing seriously - or what we call as putting the heart out into doing something worthwhile, with a robotic will. It had always been a big sticking pain for me - and I unfailingly dreaded it every time.</span></i><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">And so this time too, I felt a big mountain on my shoulders. I decided that scripting a poem would be easier, but again feared that I would bungle it out as some hogwash set of words. I doubted it’ll turn out as another cookie-cutter set of lines - like those we have in cliché-laden nursery rhymes. So I shifted to writing an article instead.</span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHaZGkYdIzTLF2k2zdlvDX8RSavu4UbSCDiVcx-eTOc5Gx7uffzjSRFThyphenhyphenadzFXLNjcwJwFUJ4wlh-mm-dUWuEtU9jfBqrkT-KqVWwYi6rKy0DyFPsFfje8b6igpOckdtYWFz6l2_dGQ/s1600-h/549944_peeking.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 158px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHaZGkYdIzTLF2k2zdlvDX8RSavu4UbSCDiVcx-eTOc5Gx7uffzjSRFThyphenhyphenadzFXLNjcwJwFUJ4wlh-mm-dUWuEtU9jfBqrkT-KqVWwYi6rKy0DyFPsFfje8b6igpOckdtYWFz6l2_dGQ/s400/549944_peeking.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178036202705653922" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">However I always had an innocent sense of feeling that every piece of art is normally driven by some inspiration, like some magical rainmaker stands up there to shake things up for you. And so I started out looking for some flashes of motivation - and they are never far by if we set out for them - just lurking behind into shadows of our otherwise entangled mind! And when it comes, it feels as relishing as first tinge of taste of a chocolate candy just propped in. I was all charged up with my newly discovered sense of intuition and then words just flowed in, metaphors kept tumbling around, as I scripted my first piece of "Own" writing...on the interesting analogy of one of my subject in the coursework to the mundane world, which was much appreciated by others – I was quite sure of that. I realized that the nature around has ample of inspiration for all of the souls it nurtures..."</span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-size:85%;" >Writing since then has been a second life for him. As it comes out, it has helped him rip off that “<a href="http://youblog.typepad.com/the_youblog/2007/01/blinding_flash_.html"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;color:blue;" >blinding flash of the obvious</span></i></a>” of the used-to monotones of our grown up vision, and now he tends to experience all things around with an ever-searching eye of a child, driven by that ‘chocolate-box’ passion, looking out to fill up his rekindled trove in every little way...and he see a different world then, as I can make that out looking into him. Isn't writing beautifully mysterious? I think it is supposed to be mysterious, but not complex - as is often horribly interpreted, thanks to the <a href="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/writsamp0.htm">made-up complexity</a> of made-up esoteric writing, that leaves nothing but some sharp admonitions of those forgetful and fuzzy dark letters that patronizingly whooshes out past our mental ear.<br /></span></p>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-19251765673327790612008-03-06T00:53:00.014+05:302008-03-06T23:20:45.234+05:30On 'The Lives of Others'.<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">East Germany Cold War-Era was really 'Cold', so confining in the sense that even people with artistic pursuits were trenchantly settled with a feeling: "<span style="font-style: italic;">They decide what we play, who is to act, and who is to direct</span>" - as the leading lady <span style="font-style: italic;">Crista Maria Sieland</span> remarks for the Stasi (E. Germany’s Secret Police), in one of the intense moments of the political flick: '<span style="font-style: italic;">The Lives of Others</span>' - a film about blatant repression in the former GDR where our playwright-hero (<span style="font-style: italic;">Georg Dreyman</span>) is put under fashion-of-those-days surveillance for potential subversive anti-socialist tendencies, by a hardened Stasi agent (<span style="font-style: italic;">Gerd Wiesler</span>) - our Protagonist.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vevzl_U_78G2ZEs6d5X1Z4oHnYyjHwe4nuoRpEs-AT4BEh0IaZ0r_uD3HrgGbSHmgCmO1mJzPxkIH8cLIXmU3j3xeEUODTVfLZobgVMIN9cvDolWFKJ1dPTiP-ZBDF4nJqnl-WcTnA/s1600-h/photo_09.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vevzl_U_78G2ZEs6d5X1Z4oHnYyjHwe4nuoRpEs-AT4BEh0IaZ0r_uD3HrgGbSHmgCmO1mJzPxkIH8cLIXmU3j3xeEUODTVfLZobgVMIN9cvDolWFKJ1dPTiP-ZBDF4nJqnl-WcTnA/s400/photo_09.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174348953607260258" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">But the movie is not that typical drama with made-to-be-unpredictable twists and turns, of heart-pounding climaxes, or of brutal imagery of social holocaust crimes. Instead its a stirring slow-moving story that stays persuasive without really meaning to be, drenches you in the emotional smugness of its lead characters, nudges you by the side in a sign of unintentional seduction...and leaves you without feeling manipulated by a feigned piece of cinema art.<br /><br />Movies that center around character transformations are majorly successful (say our household-familiar flick <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.imdb.com/title/tt0104561/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Jo Jita Wohi Sikander</span></a>, or like in '<a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www2.warnerbros.com/walktoremember/main.html">A Walk To Remember</a>' - haven't watched it but heard highly about it), but that also requires powerful screenplay and sound plot - which must appear far detached from sugar-coated and dream-come-true fantasy.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Our protagonist (</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Wiesler</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">) - a cold-fish, dispassionate character is a master interrogator who has lived and breathed every moment in the Socialists ideologies, is fucking good at his job and his passion reflects in his ever-staring unblinking eyes. The plot really kicks in when he is made (by his own doubting mind & the state minister's lascivious intentions) to rig through, to the very detail of every intimate moments, our playwright's life - the life of an ardent lover who allows some space of mistrust from his celebrity lady-love (<span style="font-style: italic;">Crista</span>); of a silent radical who conspires with the 'West' world to pitch in anti-Stasi rehotric, and of a good-at-heart human being trying to live a life of purpose. This all is enough for </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Wiesler</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">'s hardened heart to melt and his enlightened morality pushes him down to even save playwright's subversive acts. But the plot is taken towards a poignant tough end with our leading lady...(no I shouldn't play the spoiler - Go Watch It!)</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />This is where the screenplay comes out strong - we don't see any mawkish scene where the </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Wiesler </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">weeps out loud with a sudden transformation of heart, instead the script fondles carefully with the sentiments, such as the scene when </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Wiesler </span><span>stays</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">slept, holding hand together as in a hug, as he hears on headphone the love of the couple (<span style="font-style: italic;">Dreyman-Crista</span>) in the same position. Time to time we also witness the sheer power of the Stasi and the cower German citizens. A sense of paleness covers the film throughout, as it showcasts a dull stasis of Cold War-era psychology, of old crumbling architectures secretly surrounded by spy police eavesdroppers.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbrfGbGtWDyVgjoHeIuXXkH9waibKkdkUQdT7DDwyhltmV7tDn6aoiraNp11h_XUAjqNIXReDlnY1FIfzgU8-asztxRiSglDUsX81PnEs8MrXc4Rq2rM52KfNlWRuEijvo-qWTUY6OkA/s1600-h/Baldie.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbrfGbGtWDyVgjoHeIuXXkH9waibKkdkUQdT7DDwyhltmV7tDn6aoiraNp11h_XUAjqNIXReDlnY1FIfzgU8-asztxRiSglDUsX81PnEs8MrXc4Rq2rM52KfNlWRuEijvo-qWTUY6OkA/s400/Baldie.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174348219167852626" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">However on top of all this, the narrative is successful in putting the Protagonist on the center-stage - a life's worth of a man who lived listening and gathering the secrets of others, of his heroics in saving a breaking-up love relationship, of his dig at his own ideologies that has defied him later...At the end when he is trodding dutifully down the street dragging his trolley and <span style="font-style: italic;">Dreyman </span>not deciding to meet him to thank for the life he owed to him, or when we notice a slightest hint of smile on his face (for the first time) as he replies "<span style="font-style: italic;">Its for me</span>" to the shopkeeper, for the book <span style="font-style: italic;">Dreyman </span>dedicates to him...there's something wistful that stays within us audience even as the screen light fades...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">*This German movie (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Leben der Anderen, Das</span></a>) won Best Foreign Film Oscar, 2006.</span><br /></span></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-841095292156824675.post-43214299498628685892008-02-07T22:02:00.000+05:302008-02-07T23:39:27.591+05:30About Some Passions & Patient Capitalism<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So as I talked about some learnt wisdom in the last post, here's some record of the talk that inspired me to the same. It's about </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/89">Jacqueline Novogratz</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> and her out-of-the-box philanthropy efforts, which emphasizes sustainable bottom-up solutions over traditional top-down aids. I quote her - "</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Investing 20,000,000 to create 20,000 jobs</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">" - an accomplishment that seems like a consummate example of created "Wealth Of Nation" for an underdeveloped country in Africa.<br /><br />She has just redefined the way we approach to drown out poverty all around - with a sustainable model of charity. She has founded the </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://blog.acumenfund.org/">Acumen Fund</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">, which is more than just a VC - offering not just money, but also infrastructure and management expertise, by investing in fledgling companies and organizations that bring critical products and services to the world’s poor.<br /><br /></span></span></div><div face="verdana" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgHaSH7H2GT-VYa99OHQXyZ-vFEe7wXTHEWnni4wE3omLeFJP4VgadZNRDWR9eP9NwP7C8xH9gQ3GjbXjWyhBcUY9No_c_Y0GdW7fLlkELueCkk1rdzKJby3L11UvR3Hp6FXxk9f-cQ/s1600-h/AF.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 305px; height: 245px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgHaSH7H2GT-VYa99OHQXyZ-vFEe7wXTHEWnni4wE3omLeFJP4VgadZNRDWR9eP9NwP7C8xH9gQ3GjbXjWyhBcUY9No_c_Y0GdW7fLlkELueCkk1rdzKJby3L11UvR3Hp6FXxk9f-cQ/s400/AF.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5164286722036690626" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >How Acumen Fund works.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="newssmall"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="font-size:78%;">Photo courtesy of Acumen Fund</span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;">Her idea is not just about how to distribute wealth, it's about how to empower, and provide the wherewithal to the less-privileged to our comrades in the developing countries. It's about sprouting up novel opportunities for their future, instead of throwing goods and money in their general direction. In this TED presentation she walked along with the following message:<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">That dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">That when people earn dignity they gain choices - something fundamental to any beings prosperity.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">That Traditional charity and aid are not going to solve the problems of poverty.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">That the markets alone also cannot solve the problems of poverty. (Someone is needed for new market access and contacts, strategic decisions, philanthropic management roles etc)</span></span></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;">She spent few years of her life in the deep ghetto of Western Africa, starting out among few African prostitutes who were at the mercy of some uncertain charity business of selling donuts to earn their livelihood 50 cents a day. Jacqueline instead encouraged an independent business for these women, setting example by selling donuts and chips herself - which with some struggle soon brought the realization among the women too to start selling their own and they started listening to the marketplace - it was them who really knew their community best. They came out with new products and a real bakery and soon started earning 3-4 times than the national average...And thus was the obliteration of poverty from within the mindsets of these Kenyan women.<br /><br />An old adage states that material poverty can't easily be eliminated without first reducing spiritual poverty, by increasing hope. One successful project in their own backyard gives people the hope to build up the courage to try something different. Acumen's endeavors ranges from <a href="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/10/the-economics-1.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">malaria-preventing bed nets in Tanzania</span></a> to <a href="http://acumenfundpakistan.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">a low-cost mortgage program in Pakistan</span></a> to <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://socialedge.org/blogs/global-x/archive/2007/03/26/jacqueline-novogratz/">harnessing<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>drip-irrigation systems</a> <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0705/feature_novogratz.html">in India</a></span><a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0705/feature_novogratz.html">...</a><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> </span>offering new frontiers of opportunity that reflects strong cultural sensitivity. Its about, in her own words "<span style="font-style: italic;">the humility to start listening to the people</span>"...<br /></span></div><!--cut and paste--><p align="center"><br /><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="VE_Player" align="middle" height="285" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf"><param name="FlashVars" value="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/JACQUELINENOVOGRATZ-2007G_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="scale" value="noscale"><param name="wmode" value="window"><embed src="http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf" flashvars="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/JACQUELINENOVOGRATZ-2007G_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" scale="noscale" wmode="window" name="VE_Player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" height="285" width="320"></embed></object></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Have a look at her <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/157">TED presentation</a> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">above </span><span style="font-size:85%;">yourself. Someday I wish to be a part of at least a trifle order of social change of this sort...</span><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="VE_Player" align="middle" height="285" width="320"></object></div>Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556451439508138272noreply@blogger.com2