Principles…

So many phrases that we hear some howconfuse me…let me mention a couple of phrases…

1. Elders say this all the time, kanna try hard and do your best…this is just an exam, do not get scared by it, but the moment they find that the child is not the topper in the class all hell brakes loose. They say this is your life, why couldnt you have taken this more seriously?? hmm point to be noticed…not trying to sound sarcastic..what is required by the child?? is whether he/she should try his best or always get excellent marks and top the class… imagine if Bill Gates/Mitchael Dell had’nt dropped out of high school, where would be Microsoft or Dell

2. Do not compare youself with any body, try to be youself…well unless and untill u try to compare and see how other people have done for themselves, how do you try and better yourself and grow in todays hard world…

3. Money does not matter, all that matters is that all relatives etc are together, though it is nice to hear that money is not important, but clearly in todays world where mobile, computer, TV etc have become a necessity, isnt money a lil important…dont u think money does matter a lil bit??

Some points to be pondered, some to be thought over and left as it is??? what do you think..any other phrases that you want to share???

Family Tree…

In todays world, e-mail is something like a necessity and internet usage, inclusive of surfing (using google etc) is very common… but today i am about to talk about people who are a part of my family, who are my parents/their mamas/grand parents etc and at an age when most elders retire and take rest, they have decided to connect with their cousins with whom they had lost touch …

Most of these relatives, the mamas, my grand father and even my parents worked in an era (i would like to put it that way), when paper work was more and internet was unheard of. They are the people who religiously used to wish each other using either post cards or in-land letters. Writing to each other on all ocassions, to share each others’ joy and pains… Till i got married, my mom and dad used to ask me to type out letter to my cousins in US. They used to find it difficult to use the computer…

But recently about an year back, one of my mothers mama’s came up with an idea to form a Yahoo group to reconnect with everybody and form a family tree. There started the massive job of explaining to the elders the meaning of yahoo group and the use of yahoo to  send mails. It took some time, but now four generations are connected through this group (most of the ground work was done by the elders of my family). Now mails are exchanged, birthdays and anniversary wishes are sent out. Lot of thought provoking discussions also happen on- religion, politics, sports, culture and language… Family tree has been built and continues to grow as more and more cousins come in contact…

The best thing about the whole thing is that all the generations are scattered around the world. People who were forgotten have come in contact and new relationships have been built.  Most of the groups active members are mamas, parents and grand parents, who untill some years back were not aware on how to use a computer…

My salute to each one of them..wonder whether I would like them be able to embrace a new technology at the age of 55+ and actively use it in my day to day life..

One Lifetime???

The other day i was watching this series called ‘France Week’ , and saw so many beautiful places. Every time i see such a programme about far away place, i wonder when there are so many beautiful places in this world and so little time (between all the house and office work), will i be able to see and enjoy all of them in this life time….

will i be able to see Rome, Scotland, Venice, Bali, Mexico etc etc… and all similar beautiful places??

will i be able to go and watch live action of FI @ Monaco, Tennis @ Wimbledon or for the matter of fact the French Open, Soccer /  football finals (FIFA cup), NBA match, Olympics and list goes on…

will i be able to go to the Antartics or the Artics and see penguins or the polar bears in their natural habitat, will i be able to  see blue whales swim, kangaroos hop and see the grizzly bears catch fish…hold an anaconda in my hand…

Ski on snowy mountains far away, swim in the carribean sea, float on the dead sea, go parasailing, go sea diving nearAndamans…trek to see a volcano erupt, take a dip in a pond formed by the hot springs….

      

experiment with different types of food and drinks…colours… dances sing with Ash Bhonsle /  MLTR, act in a movie made by Mani Rathnam… (too big a wish list right?? )

may be may be not… but two things that i wanted to do, which unfortunately i cant are travelling by the Concorde and  watch a live concert of MS…

Hopefully some of the above dreams get fulfilled and my feet takes me to wonderful places to see/touch/smell unknown things… who knows, only time will tell…

Chutti…Chutti…

Recently, one of our Ex PM, Mr. Chandrasekhar passed away and the State Government declared holiday for most of the goverment offices, schools, banks etc. Well the reason why I  am mentioning this is becoz, this brought out an interesting xpression in the face of the kids going to school from my apartment… 

Well this is how, early in the morning, all the children got ready to go to schools, the children all holding their parents’ hands were waiting for the school buses to arrive and pick them up and thats when after reading the newspaper, most of them come to know about this holiday…

Immediately there was a joyous shout from the kids..each one of them eager to go home, leave their bags; shrug their uniforms and go to play…they just ran..Chutti!!! from school and free time to play, get dirty or zimbly sleep!!!

There have been so many days during my school days, that i have wished for it to rain (unnecessarily in some odd non-monsoon month), especially when we have submissions, for the Government to declare holiday for no reason at all, just to get one days leave… the best part about these holidays was that we never had to go to school on a sunday just to compensate the loss of one day…

How we used to enjoy, all the kids of the society used to gather and play for the whole day. We never bothered about time, eating lunch or snacks, getting dirty…just full time playing..most of the time i think, our parents used to get tired of running behind us to get us inside the house…

After seeing the happy faces of  the kids i felt…Woh din ab bhi hain..waise waqt ab bhi hain..woh bachpan ki yadein ab bhi aise hi taaza hoti reheti hain…

Hats uff…

Some 25 of us decided to have fun by watching a movie..the idea was to have pure fun, laugh to the heart’s content…so what did we do, we went to watch ‘Aap Ka Suroor’.  Himesh Reshamiya’s pet project, introducing Hansika Motwani (the girl from serials such as ‘des mein nikla hoga chaand or kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi) and himself in a very challenging role…

Wah!!! kya movie tha…we couldnt believe…his tattered hats, clothes and worst of all their acting or lets say the lack of it…

first of all let me introduce the charectors…1. Himesh Reshamia alias HR 2. Hansika Motwani alias zimbly barbiesh herione….

So the plot being HR, the Indian rockstar trying to get out of a murder (which he is falsely accused of) whilst trying to instill indian traditional values before marrying his lady love… Does’nt the plot sound familiar..yup but this movie is different…it is shot in Germany…  

In the movie, HR with his nasal singing decides to show us that he can sing bhajans as well and the heroine (alas the abla naari) keeps smiling and crying and then smiles and then cries….not to miss out is the sudden presence of autos on german roads…yes do not be astonished…autos..phew… the movie has no story line, the actors try really hard to act… and put up a show….

Please guys do not watch it unless u want to have fun at thier cost…

Given all this…let me say that we as a group really had fun..we whistled..and had funnnn

My space…

There have been times when i have mentioned this to my friends but they do not seem to understand that everybody needs space… some time for oneself…i think that concept does not exist in our culture…they just draw a blank when i say time for myself…

Me… i always the feel the need for some time…for myself..a time which is spent by me for me… there could be different ways that i choose to spend time all alone…

sometimes i just sit in the balcony of my apartment and stare blankly at the sky..no thoughts, no connection to reality..blankly staring at sky…many a times i loose track of time by doing this…

One of the other things that i love to do is sleep with all the curtains drawn and the doors locked so that no light or sound could disturb me… basically go to the beauty parlour..pamper myself with a lovely facial and head massage, come home and then sleeeeeep…

                                

or may be go for a walk by myself..feel the cool breeze on my face… smell the flowers in the park, see the butterflies, kids playing…mothers running behind them…….

another option could be cooking, being a foodie by nature i love to sit on the floor and relish the food….

go to the nearby temple and sit..i always get a great sense of peace…generally tend to ignore all the others coming there and sit…

 The list could go on and on…but after all this i usually feel relaxed…something which gives me strength and the ability to cope with the complexities of day to day life…

At any given point of time in our life we are surrounded by people…some are family and some are friends…and we ensure that we spend time with each and every one of them…so should we not spend time for ourselves…and relax for some time…

dreamz unlimited…

Dreamz…what would i dream of??

would i dream of the clean, fresh smell of the morning air at Tenkasi..or would i dream of the beautiful falls of Courtallam….

will it be of the various places that i have visited during my childhood, those experiences in udaipur or would it be the scenes in the temples of south india and the time spent with grandparents…

the innocence of a child in a tuli i have so often seen from the train or would it be the labourers in the paddy fields…or will it be the thought of places yet to be travelled…

will i dream of the colours of the sun during the sunset or will it be the darkness of the night…

sunshine or twinkling lights, will it be choclates or ice creams, may be…. i know not…

will it be the candle figures of nainital or will it be the flowers of ooty…which will it be to mesmerize me…keep me engrossed  till the signal ticks to green…

everytime i m stuck in a traffic jam in Bangalore…i dream of far away things and scenes and smells…things which brighten my spirit…every other day…

Wimbledon is here…

Yey!!! another round of wimbledon is here..of all the other tennis tournaments, somehow wimbledon holds special memories… i have watched many exciting matches.

For me, Sampras is the king of tennis… i simply am in awe of his his shots, volley, serve etc etc..i could go on..and the as for the match, remember matches between Agassi and Sampras..simply awesome..

So who is your favourite player?? any interesting match that you could think which kept you engrossed till the end??

Letter…

Some time back when i visited my parents in Baroda, my mother came up to me and handed me a letter. This was the letter that i had written to my parents after staying in a hostel (first year of engg) at Morbi. I had successfully completed a week away from home…

One week and i had enjoyed each and every moment of my stay at the hostel. I had made new friends and was on my own. This letter ran upto almost 3 pages (both front and back)…hehe can’t believe how much i had written. Each day that i had spent on my own..written to the minutest detail.. I was the only new comer (thats what they used to call the new students) in my hostel room, i had 3 seniors sharing the room with me… one session of ragging had been completed… had already sampled the local dish..and the horrible hostel food… had written everything…

I have since then spent a lot of time in hostel, written many letters; but this letter in cursive writing still holds special memories for my mother…

My mother to this date has this letter with her…and every time she reads it, there is a smile on her face..when asked as to why this letter holds such a special place…she said that “after reading this letter she felt that her daughter had flown out of the house and was on her own, ready to face the world”…

Sandese…

Ten years have passed since the Upahaar Cinema Tragedy (June 13, 1997), around 59 people passed away while watching the hindi movie ’Border’. It would be very difficult for any of us to understand how their families feel and live with their loss…

We can just hope that such tragedies don’t happen again … Justice prevailed…

ek  sandesa un logon ke naam,  jo apne ghar walon ko chod chale… ek pyaara sa sandesa un bachon ke liye jinki hasi hamesha ke liye ked hain unke ghrawalon ke dil mein…