On Maya

Now that I have mastered the art of blissfully ignoring the necessity of being continuously worried about too much work/ too little time to enjoy, i feel a lot better (The fact that i actually have less work now certainly helps ;) , as does my acceptance in the HR course in MDI.. but.. whatever :) )..

I finished this book "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson just a couple of days ago.. Its about a teen outcast Melinda Sordino, who has just started high school.... The book is narrated by this tormented girl who is going through the anguish of not being able to tell the tale of what really happened to her. She chooses to be selectively mute, and transforms from a bubbly and intelligent student to a below average one.... really good. I wonder why it isnt in the Oprah book club.
The book talks about an african american woman "Maya Angelou". Now Maya, as i learnt, had to go through a lot in her childhood too. I went through some of her quotes, and she strikes me as a wonderfully strong woman. have a look at some of them :

"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise. "

"People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel. "

"My life has been one great big joke
A dance that's walked
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke
When I think about myself"

"The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder— in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever."

It wouldnt hurt to have her pic in my closet too :)

On dancing

"Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances. "
- Maya Angelou

Ever danced when you thought no one was looking ? Danced for yourself and yourself alone?I do that sometimes when I am not getting late for work. It is a wonderful feeling. Much more happifying (whats the word for the verb which stands for "make happy" ??) than gym. Puts a smile on my face for the whole day, I feel wonderfull and more importantly, i feel beautiful(I have a pretty high opinion of myself).
That is how i save the money which would have otherwise gone to a shrink...

Color me rainbow :)

Some time ago while talking to a friend I had promised to send him rainbow colored smilies....

Like this...

:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Even maintained the VIBGYOR seq.... And i loved the effect it had on me.

It is true that colors have an effect on how u feel and think.

Came across this site today : http://www.crayola.com/coloring_application/
Good one.. I wonder how they have coded it.
I would have loved to make one.

A new day

I wrote a poem today..

The nautanki gang didnt think much of it.... but i really liked it.


I woke up with a smile today,
Because of a dream i dont remember.
M not sure if it had flowers in it,
Or a chocolate stuffed chamber.

And then i realised, with a start,
What a night it had been..
I was in a spaceship (a very big one )
Was hiding, trying not to be seen.

A chance escape, was a great fall,
That somehow i fell into,
I had struggled to wake up,from a nightmare,
Away from a place I had never been to.

Then why the smile, and happy thoughts,
That came to me in the morning,
Its not the heat, not work for sure,
Then why was it all so charming?

The answer came, as I write this,
It came with more blissfull peace,
Every morning is a miracle, a great new one,
With a chance to love, laugh and be merry,
With a chance to live life.

Back to work....

I had a fantastic weekend....
It was like a month worth of fun squeezed in 2 days. And i really felt connected with old friends after quite a long time.:)

They say u see what u feel.. (well... they also say you are what u eat.. but I dont believe it. I am not a chicken . And yes, i know its a PJ). I have started seeing things in a better light now....

I watched 3 movies this time.. Namaste London(ok ok , bollywood drama once watchable type.....), Provoked (Nice one.. Wanted to know more about the real Kiran Ahluwalia though) and 300 (not a typical epic war movie.. it has more bloodshed than any other ever. setting up the whole movie in sepis tone was a bright move indeed. the movie would have been a red blur otherwise... And really good visual effects coupled with a good background score. watch it if the sight of severed heads, corpses pinned on trees and eyes poked out with swords doesnt make u wanna puke..)

Shattered is a mild term!

Just found out that I havent made it to SPJain. :(

Arthur Dent

Lately I have taken to Douglas Adams..
I did "The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy" and now "Life, The Universe and Everything"
Nothing short of genious, this guy has succeeded in combining sheer non sense with some intellectual garbage with a dash of sadistic pleasure in it.. and topped it all up with lots of humor.. in fact lots and lots of it.

If somebody asked me , I would rank him with the PG Woodhouse's of the era....

:)

A song and a sketch

I was really happy last night.

The weather was so nice.. A perfect breeze (funny how it improved the day we got a cooler....cosmic joker..listening?)
After the regular dose of gossip that we get everyday in our PG, I did something i had forgotten I could do. I listened to music, and sketched... yeah. nothing special, and not with the intention of creating a masterpiece... but just for the sheer joy of sketching. i loved it.

And I discovered that life is good.... Its upto me to discover how good it can get :)

A bit happier

Hmm the reason why i started writing this blog is not very clear to me..

I was playing on the net.. browsing wiki.. and somehow i came across the april fool jokes by google... its wonderfull..

Look at some of them..

PigeonRank: http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

look at all this wonderfull data..

I discovered some new emoticons on some wiki persons page too.. have a look..

¯\(º_o)/¯
shrugging, confusion, doubt

(`ヘ´)
annoyed
（´・ω・｀）
deflated

（　ﾟДﾟ）
surprised, or loudmouthed

\(^o^)/
very excited (raising hands)

Very cute.. hai na..

ohh...i cant think of a title...

oops........Its already March..
This year should be called "The speedoYear"..naah.. m not endorsing any brands here...

it has been passing so fast... it feels like it was just last week when i was celebrating the new year(at home....eating chicken)...and my bday was just a couple of days back.. and one fourth of the year has almost passed.. Oh my God.. what about my resolutions.. when do i start working on those..?

my work load had increased a lot in office.. I hardly get any time now to read or for music.... I feel lucky if i go home on time.... And I dont like it.. One thing I have discoverd is that i am not a workaholic.. i dont enjoy long hours.(yeah.. ok.. so nobody enjoys that..)

M waiting this month to end.. I feel somehow all my worries and problems will come to an end with this month.. I certainly hope so. I ahve become so irritable.. I shout at people for apparently no reasons.. and i keep ranting on and on..(like i am doing now). ohh if this goes on like this i might lose some friends.....

God please help me....

Ha ha haiku :)

These are some new ones i came across....
I didnt really try to understand them . They just sounded nice.

crystalline purple moons
bathed stranger ice tough
stray dog purple ice

devil hill feeding
save Basie morphine kid
caterpillars lollipop

poems treasure autumn
rent thorns opulent rich
stretched-out lost

schizophrenic hide gallows
bourbon deprivation tub deceptive
sleeping slave

The one with all that movies(and an interview)

If somebody asked me what i did yesterday.. I would say i watched movies.... two and a half movies..:)
(I also went through a B School interview about which i absolutely have no idea how it went....)

Hmm... so about the movies again.
The first one I watched was : The greatest game ever played. Beautiful movie actually. I couldnt decide till the end, which one i favoured more : the pro Vardon or the amateur Ouimet.... (Both of them look absolutely smashing).

The other movie was The Illusionist .. A different knid of movie altogether. Held on to the mystery till the end.... Now I wont say more about it or I might give away the very secret of the movie. I liked the lead actor in this one too( Never seen him before. ) . Kind of that lost yet passionate look in his eyes. mmmm...

And the movie which I havent finished till now is the Keanu Reeves starer Devil's Advocate. Seems to be good. I am gonna finish it as soon as I get back from work.. (yeah yeah working on a sunday. :( )

I plan to go for this new filck "Honeymoon Travels" too. Though the newpaper has given it only two stars( ** ), my friends told me its a good watch.. And anyway, it has been quite long since i went for a watchable movie.

Its my Bday :)

Yeah...
I turn 23 today :)
23 sounds too much.. doesnt it? I dont look like 23....I definitely dont feel like 23!!

But I m very happy right now....
I know that I am loved. And i feel so lucky. It feels so good to know that you are important for people.. and that they care for you.. specially the ones you love.. My people wrote things for me today. It was touching. More than that.... It made me laugh out of happiness..
I got plenty of surprise wishes.. One long lost friend wished.. We hadnt talked for such a long time.It was a short message..but it said so much :)
People at work wished me..Even those I dont know.

I am having a good day....:)

Thank you Bhagwanji.

Quotes from Hellen

I came across wikiQuotes today....
A great collection, I should say.. Douglas Adams, Richard Feynman, Hellen Keller and of course The Little Prince... I am delighted.. :)

Here are some from Hellen..

Security is mostly a superstition... Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.

Another one..

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It's what sunflowers do.

Things I found out:

> It is possible for 9 ppl(and a driver) to get into a Tavera and have the time of their lives....
> The best moments are always unplanned.
> Dancing under the stars at mid night is more fun if u r on the road.(It might not be making sense. I know)
> It is not possible to wash off the sand from ur clothes in the sea. However it is worth the try :).
> We are much more alive than we think we are.
> I love sock puppeting. And m pretty good at it.
> Some things just cant be written about(at least by me :)).
> Heaven is where ur friends are......

A day to remember??

Whats your idea of a day well spent?
How do you rate ur day..?
The number of minutes you spend laughing, the time spent sleeping(yeah it matters for some!!), the number of genuine compliments you get, number of people who made you smile, number of people whom you made smile, minutes spent talking to a friend, the number of ppl you met, a new friend made, an old enimity resolved, a good movie or just quiet time spent in thinking goodie good stuff(I spend roughly 60 minutes everyday thinking about saving the world from giant tarantulas and about my superb karate skills)....

I dont know how I do that.

Over and done with :)

That is till next year.....

But I am satisfied....well almost.

And yes, I have learned to brace failures..... One good thing that came out of it.

The one with scribbler stuff

In the middle of usual antics of a regular office day I discovered some wonderful things ..(thank you tushar for that :) )

The first one is the stumble upon add on from Mozilla....its wonderful. I got two very intresting links from there today. One online radio[ http://musicovery.com/index.php?ct=us ] which is a bit better than Pandora.. Plays wonderful songs..and you can choose the moods too.

The other one is even more colorful..

Its a scribble pad. You draw something.. A simple stick figure for instance...and then ask it to scribble....and watch ur stick figure develop into a sophisticated sketch(yeah.). I wonder how it was programmed..

Some of my scribblings from today..

This one came out to be good....

I really like it.

I really really like it .....:)

The chill drill

The chill is decreasing now
:)
No more pretend smoke rings.
No more dressing up in 3 kg of clothes.
No more shivering while touching water in the morning(the afternoon and night...).
The fog is here to stay though....(thank you smoke and tiny dirt pollutants for that :) )

This one was(is?) my first winter in Delhi. I had heard a lot of things about the famed "delhi ki sardi"..Cant say i was dissappointed.

My childhood was spent in Ahmedabad..Winters are very cozy there.. I dont remember wearing more than one sweater ever..We used to sit out in the veranda in the sun just for the sake of it.. Ahh.. how i loved those winter breaks back then...Mom usually used to be busy with one sweater or another.The half yearly exams just over.. (no studies !!).not a worry in the world..... It was beautiful.
The winter here(and now) is totally different. Its so damn foggy with the sun plays truant almost all the time. Even after the umpteenth cup of tea laden with the quintessential 'adrak' and 'pepper powder'(yes..black pepper) my neck hurts(the chill factor) and my tummy aches(too much pepper...).
Its not that I am complaining.... There are brighter sides too.. But I just cant remember them right now.
I have spent some time in Assam too.. The winters there were terrible.. It was almost always raining.. And so much wind.... The rickety windows of my classroom did not provide much protection... The only respite was the picturesque scenery.. The roadsides were queued with trees laden with red(tesu) and white(palash) flowers.. There were those jumbo 'semul' flowers too which the school kids used to throw at each other..
During my college days spent in Jaipur winters meant only one thing..."missing the first lecture" :).. Its quite understandable too. The LPG water heater installed in our girls hostel was prone to break down almost every other day.. With no warm water and so little time , it was impossible to reach on time. And then what about the time needed to gulp down the glass of "chai" and the plate of "poha" from the canteen..
I can go on and on with these stupid memories.....A friend of mine asked me recently that how was it to have so many memories.... I didnt know what to say. I guess I dont have more memories than anybody else.. Its just that i choose to share them.

And it makes me very happy.
:)

The one with Nothing in it

yeah :)
I have been cribbing about the work in office for a while.. Its like I have a lot of work, and it is supposed to be good too.. I dont hate it as such but its getting boring now. Nothing new to be done. Nothing intelligent ....u know. I am planning to take up my old long lost hobby again.. painting. but I m afraid I wont find much time for it. Will try though :).