I wonder !!!

I wonder ...

why in relationships, after some time, there is a full stop .... or
a comma...and never dot dot dot !!!

- borrowed from someone !!!

Hai Ram, Log Kya Kahenge !!!

Since long I have felt that whenever an Indian returns from abroad, after spending a couple of years there. The mind state in which he returns is usually the one in which he had left. It may have been updated with the Bollywood releases, but for a person who has hailed from the middle class back ground, he will usually ignore them to be for the rich and famous. During my flight back home, I came across an article by Shobha De titles "Dancing Queens" featured in The Week, she has talked about a lady from the British Land unable to understand why a Bride's Mother will do a solo dance on the now famous "Kajra Re". To me, still it sounds as pretty far-sighted in my circle, where it may still be a couple of more years away. The NRI lady, who is now baffled about the family traditional values which she has kept so close to her heart and guarded with near jealousy so that she wont be branded with a No-Longer Indian tag.

The question immediately pops up in our mind is that why, in India, we are drifted slowly but steadily towards the western culture and are including them in our rituals, whilst for people living outside the Indian sub-continent, try to be stagnant or worse move backwards and adopt the purer form of our traditions. Trying not to forget our roots and trying to be in touch with the present going trends, our minds are always drawn to that dilemma in making a that all so necessary choice of choosing between what we really want and what our traditions say.

The NRI Lady, in the article, has come up with arguments that are so true and reasonable. Taking one example of the Lady asking the whether it was acceptable conduct coming out of the Bridegroom's future mother-in-law. Go back a few years, I assure you, it would have been a tabboo.

Does walking in pace with time, means to change yourself over time so that it suits the people around you rather than you? There is always an external force that requires us to change. It usually is in the forms of our friends and relatives and that hidden competition between themselves. The fight to always proves who is better. And then the billion dollar question is, what is better. Better can be not forgetting what our elders told us, playing by the rules or better can be not leaving the grip of time and beating it to its pace.

I wonder in which context "Hai Ram, Log kya kahenge" will apply now.

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary
To one without faith, no explanation is possible !!
St. Thomas Aquinas

Hai Ram, Log kya kahenge, hum abhi tak pichdi duniya ke hain or
Hai Ram, Log kya kahenge, hamari sanskriti kahan gayi !!

For us its always been what we are thought of in the society rather than what we are thought of in our mind ourselves. The decisions are usually made by thinking not what we feel is right, but what the general perception of being right is.And that general perception changes with the place you live and the company you keep.

Home Cooked !!

Well I have done funny things in life. I remember during school times, the chemistry lab was something different from me. There was one particular incident which I don't forget. During the study of AgCl3, I brought the solution home once. I don't remember what I was thinking !!!. Playing with the solution, I don't know what I intended to do. I did spill some of the solution on myself, specifically on the hands.

Lazy as I am, I didn't bother to clean, because anyhow I was to head for the chemistry lab itself. ( I was a strict non-follower of the Lab Rules ) With some of the Liquid in my hand, I rushed down to reach my labs. During the walk in the sun, I realized my hands had magically turned black. It did not strike me immediately what had happened.!!

But for full 3 days, people were frightened, whenever I drew out my hand for a shake, to such and extend that they would jump and pull back there hands and would not shake it !!

Well that story is just a by-product. The main story is, in another experiment, I produced a lot of ammonia. And I went on to smell huge amounts of it for some time. I later realized that ammonia affect the outer layer of your nose's inside. This resulted in many side-effects including the leaking of my nose very frequently, cold or no cold.

Now past few weeks, and previously also I noted, I have not been able to smell things. To the extend that smell of burn whiles I am at the stove is not noticeable to me. I wonder whether it is temporarily or long term. But it sure has inhibited the amount of pleasure I could and should derive from eating various foods.

Mahesh Dattani in his article "Home-Cooked Love" (featured in The Week) points out that, it is the combination of the senses from touch, smell, and taste because of which we Indians will never be able to recluse the Home-Cooked feeling.Whatever we say, and wherever we eat, the best cooked food has always been and will be, for us Indians the food cooked by Ma !!! 90 % of the strong billion people will agree with me.

I always used to wonder, that japenese will never get that feel, as cooking is not part of there daily routine and agenda. But right now I am desperate to have that feeling. And finally after almost a year, it will come again tonite !!

To end, I will quote from Maheshs article
" I regret that I was never a part of the process of making food, but I am eternally grateful that I was at the receiving end "

I think it Sums it up in the best possible way !!!

The Wind like the Small

The Wind like the Small

The wind like the small
Never lets the sea smile
Whenever awake
Troubles her for a while
Moving here and there
and the water behind
Its like a mother
after her child

And when the child tires
he stops and sleeps
The mother calms down
and takes a sigh of relief.

-dedicated to my mother

Insecurity ... or is it ??

I came across a Garfield Strip recently and I have added it here also (though without asking there permission !!)

John wants to ask Liz for a stroll in the park, which he does ask. Liz replies very casually she would. So far so good. An expression of joy. But then what makes John ask the next question, Can I come along ?What was he thinking when he asked the question in the first place.

I am sure, most of us would have come across simillar situations. It may not be between a guy asking a girl out, it may not be of you being a third-person watching the conversation like Garfield. Rather I believe all of us would have met people who would come repetitively to you and ask you the same question again and again by simply re-phrasing it. Or so it may seem.

I have particular interest in this strip, because I can relate to it to an extend and I could make out in very probable terms what was going in John's mind.

We all would have prepared ourselves in our lifetime for a goal which would have come to us in a manner easier than expected. I believe John would have half expected Liz to turn down the offer. And with a very casual answer and utter of joy, John's mind would have questioned, can this be right, is this possible. No, there has got to be a misunderstanding. Probably the only weaklink he would have found and confirmed it whether he was part of the subject which they were discussing. Something which we all do, when we book tickets of our journey, or when we deposit cash into bank accounts, or when we fill any general but important forms. We all try to be dead sure, to leave no room for misunderstandings. To confirm things in the way we understood it to be. Many of us rely on things to be understood implicitly which are not important, but things which are important, we try to double check.

For some this instance may not be that important, that you need to double check. But when you are waiting for something to happen for quite long, and then when it happens, you feel like double checking. I have done it. Other people may term it insecurity of the person. I am not sure whether it is appropriate to say if it is insecurity, because I don't exactly understand the meaning of the term insecurity. Insecure of what, that you may fail, I thought it was called pessimism. But rather the script has described beautifully the few things which we all deal in our life, which are different for each person, no matter how close you are with them. There priorities and their expectations. It also briefly touches the concept of pessimism and of observers in a conversation, who try to draw conclusions without understanding the emotions and the needs of the two people involved in the conversation.

We all admit that each person has his own priorities in life, his own expectations of life, his own goals in life. But almost all of us fail to understand that each person has his right to choose the way he lives his own life. The freedom to choose choices which others may not think of at all. The freedom to make decisions. And with this freedom, you might want to double check things which others may think of as naive and unlogical.

You are not as dumb as you look !!

While I was coming to work, something just shot into my mind from the memory lanes.
There was a cricket match between the Sri Lankans and Zimbabweans at the Harare Sports Club. Looking back hard I remember it was a Test Match. I was part of the Sports Club guys who had some duties assigned. One of them was the checking the right people are entering in the tobbacco stands, which were meant for the few privileged. There were tickets which were had a certain stamp. People with those tickets were only allowed inside.

The problem was, some of the clever ones, were passing on the same ticket to their friends, once they entered inside the stands from the sides. So we had to come with some thing that would do away with these kind of things. I simply blurted out, we can tear that stamped portion and keep it with us. It was the most obvious thing to me as well as the first thing that came to my mind. It actually was a good idea also.

And pat came the reply:

"Good Idea, You are not dumb as you look !!"

Its hard to say GoodBye !!!

Is it hard to Say GoodBye ??

It is harder for the person who is staying behind then compared for the person who is leaving. No doubt the person who is leaving, does feel the pain of parting, but the pain is subdued by the fact that there is something else for which he is leaving. There is something else which is going to replace what he had present. Though the replacement may not fill the shoes completely, but atleast there is something else to look forward to. There is always that anticipation, which occupies the mind of the person. The 'What's in store' clouds the mind.

But for the person who is staying behind, for the person, who has to continue as if nothing happened, it may not be the same story. There is nothing more added only removed. There are no reasons for the anticipation to be driven, there are no next stops. Usually the person feels a void which is left after someone leaves, which is not present in the first case. It has been filled temporary with the feeling of going on to the next stop. That euphoria, which arises when you move to some place new, to some place afresh, to some you have been looking forward to.

The Festival of Colors --> Life !!!

Its Holi soon, the festival of colors and
God must be a Painter, why else he would have so many colors in life !!
( A Beautiful Mind )

So enjoy every color in the spectrum, and choose your favorite color to wear. The Rainbow is an interesting thing, it is not tangiable, but we all can see it. It shows all the colors in the spectrum, so that you can choose yours and also it allows you to find out the reason behind the choice.

Don't let the pollution spoil your rainbow, so that your rainbow is only a few colors, because pollution makes things grow black and gray. And certainly you don't want your rainbow to show you shades of gray!!

Well life is about doing many things, and doing things which you like, because its too short to do things which you don't like (duh!! everyone knows that ).
But it doesn't mean that you decide things you don't like, without giving it a fair chance. Life is not about being happy, its about not having any regrets. Happiness and Sorrow are all part of life which make it so wonderful. Infact, you need sorrow in life to appreciate how valuable happiness is.

So wish you a very bright, colorful and joyous Holi, and that you celebrate Holi, in your own special way each day !!

Wishes for the Festival of Holi to You and Your Family !!

And yes I hope you Dance !!

Being Judgemental !!

Its something interesting. Suddenly I am noticing it is everywhere. Before we go into a shop, take our meal, start work or infact start our day itself. The very time we think of something, there is this flow of imagination that is already taking place, and it leads to, no matter how hard we try, we have already perceived in our state of half knowledge, whats it gonna be like.

Approaching a problem, with a pre-meditated mind, results in conclusions based on half knowledge. Allowing us to take a partial view of events around us, just because there is already a mental picture, of how things should or should not be.

The same kind of impression we carry about group of people also. I recently came across an article echoing the same thoughts, though it does goes deep into the whys and becauses. Just because if one has done it, it is suddenly thought which will follow will do the same. Life would be so easy, won't it, if it were so predictable ?? Specially the fact that, once we hear of an African, either sympathy or fear clouds our minds. We expect either the fellow will be a thug or that his life, childhood is so full of hardships that he not deserves our sympathy, but has a right to it.

These sentiments, which we develop wantingly or unwantingly, do have there polarizing affects.

Diet Coke ??

Well since childhood, I have like the taste of Diet Coke compared to the normal Coca-Cola. I was never able to explain why !! Even when we all would go out somewhere, and every one would order the normal drinks (including the gals) and would settle for the normal stuff, I will always give a try for the Diet one. Whenever I have returned with the Diet, I have been given curious looks, implying.. Weight Conscious ??
I have never been able to put a counter statement to it.. and soon I stopped even replying to it.. just the normal grin of mine.

Every one knows, my taste buds drool over strong coffee, with strong smell as well as bitter chocolates, not the regular cocoa less ones available normally. Black Espresso Coffee, Irish Coffee (without alcohol obviously in India) and 60+ % cocoa content chocolates.

After much looking up on the internet, I realized, it was not these things in particular that intrigued me, but the Caffeine content. Though ofcourse, the smell of Strong Coffee is still the best !!!

Diet Coke contains more Caffeine compared to the Normal Coca-Cola !!

I guess this would be the same probable reason why we prefer Thums-Up (its Thums -Up not Thumbs-Up !! ) over Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola over Pepsi