The happy place

I see so many articles listing the "top ten happy places to live". Some are surprising (sweden? Really? Land of non existent sunshine??) and most are not..

But all the lists ignore the happiest place.. The place we all like to reminisce about.. Yeah, I am talking about "the past". Childhood in particular.

Human brain is amazing.

:)

As they say time does fly, or so it seems now. It's been more than 5 months and it seems like just yesterday. We call him Tanmay, one who is engrossed. I'll tell you what, he sure keeps us engrossed. All the time :)

Babies have incredible power over people. Let me ask you a question, a puzzle of sorts. There are some people standing at a bust and, waiting for the bus. There is an old man, a youngish businessman, a college going girl and a mother with a baby. Now the question is, who is the first one to start the conversation. And the answer is, the baby. Everybody wants to talk to the baby. Babies are conversation magnets.

It is true. I have made more friends/ acquaintances in the past few months than anytime before. :)

On becoming parents

No one is ever quite ready; everyone is always caught off guard. Parenthood chooses you. And you open your eyes, look at what you've got, say "Oh, my gosh".

- Marisa de los Santos

The best you can do is to conjure courage and develop a really really strong sense of humor. 

You will observe your lives go topsy turvy and wouldnt want to do anything about it. Basic comforts of life like a good nights sleep and showering will become luxuries(that will elude you for a long long time). You would (be forced to) become champions of multitasking. Stuff like poop, pee and spitup will stop grossing you out. So much so that if need arises you could leave your dinner in between, change a diaper, clean the baby, and resume your meal without batting an eyelid. Google will become your best friend (okay okay, strongly tied for best friend fine?) and will help you out of tough situations like "How to get my baby like the baby sling", "what is the correct way to put on a shirt on my baby", "how to get baby pee off my laptops keyboard". You would watch beautiful baby gear get wasted unused because your baby has outgrown them. You would only watch TV shows with sub titles because then you could put the tv on mute and still watch it. But dont get me wrong, you would truly and absolutely love each and every moment. 

A baby enriches your life in ways you couldn't have thought possible. You will finally be able to truly appreciate your parents (I wonder how my parents raised us with so little help). 

A baby will make you want to be a good human being. Even though it is a lot of work. And your priorities would change, maybe forever. 

The ultimate energizer

I have often said that K and I are complementary in a lot of ways. One of the more prominent ways is how we organize and clean. In a way that he organizes and I don’t. And then, I clean and he doesn’t. We have a good team J

In fact cleaning is the ultimate cathartic activity for me. Give me rags, brushes and cleaning products and I can happily spend hours with them.  It is such a mood lifting activity. The problem with it, however, is that people have very very weak memories. People notice filth, but not the lack of filth. That’s just normal. Nobody has the ability to juxtapose “before”/”after” pictures in their heads. So the results aren’t visible really.

Doesn’t matter so much, cleaning makes me happy. So here are some of my cleaning tips..

·         Lemon wedges clean most of the grime from counter tops, take smell off from old bottles and the microwave and when mixed with hot water, can clean oil containers like magic.

·         Fabric bleach cleans off any salt deposits from tiles

·         Mr. Muscle is better for preparing diluted solutions that you can use to clean counters every day, but for stubborn grime (like exhaust/ window sills etc.) cif is the only solution.

·         For cleaning marks off of doors (any painted surface), don’t scrub, it will damage the paint. Just use some nail paint remover and rub gently with cotton.

·         A wash with a weak solution of liquid utensil soap and baking soda will get rid of small mites from the house plants.

·         While dusting, use two rags. One completely dry synthetic one to attract the dust. And other cotton one to wipe off the surface with colin.

·         Use sellotape to pick up dust from hard to reach corners.

·         If your vacuum cleaner does not have a “blow” setting, you can use the hair dryer.

·         Water marks can be cleaned off of wooden surfaces by hair dryer. It doesn’t seem like coming off at first. But after about 10 minutes you’ll see the difference. Remember to wipe off with some light oil afterwards. But not too much.

Random

So, it has been really long and yada yada..

I "took care" of a pigeon the other day. "took care" not in the traditional sense or the lovely mobster sense.

Poor bird had somehow managed to enter our bathroom (maybe through the exhaust) and single-handedly (wingedly??) managed to wreck all of it. By the time it was discovered (when I reached home) i guess it had already spent all its precious birdie energy and was cowering over the geyser like an innocent lamb. Innocent or not, the bird sure was stupid. Trust me, I had to practically poke it with a broom to get out. "bird brain" is very very apt.

Anyways, now that the weather is getting better (finally!) the ambient happiness quotient has gone up significantly. Now we can begin with the great shopping marathon. Yay..

So time flies, some things change, most remain the same. We grow up, not realizing it a little bit. We struggle with some changes and we resist others. And we look forward to some. But most of the times we are really really clueless about the real meaning of any of this. In fact, the less we ponder over things, the more we truly enjoy them. But we think and we plan. And then we see that planning is a little futile. It just gives you some temporary peace of mind. So you replan. And attain some more temporary peace. Which gives us some temporary happiness. A succession of which turns into long term happiness. So we should keep on planning. Even knowing that its futile. Because not planning means giving up on life. And thats just stupid.

How to prepare for an accidental time travel in the past

Of course, the useful of all this depends on the time where (when ?) one ends up landing in.

Helpful skills:

• ·         Excellent physical fitness
• ·         Ability to run quickly, jump without hesitation and climb rocks and trees
• ·         Immunity good enough to survive without soap/ disinfectant
• ·         Basic knowledge of hand to hand combat
• ·         Enough common sense to build basic tools and weapons
• ·         Idea of what plants/roots/seeds/fruits are edible
• ·         Some basic skill that you can use for mingling in a community, like pottery, sewing, farming, accountancy etc. (providing that you encounter any human colonies at all)

There's a rainbow in my sky

And I love it...

Let me take this opportunity to officially welcome monsoon too ( I am a little late though. It has been raining since last week). But then who doesn't like a welcome, or welcome a welcome..

So anyways, the rains have succeeded in prettifying everything in sight, specially the trees.. oh oh and the sky too.

Hmm and now its time for random updates..

I have moved up in the corporate ladder.. Figuratively at least. :P I now work at the top most floor at my office.. And my new desk has a view to kill for. 


And I have had the privilege of crossing out another item from my "Must visit in this life" list. Yes, the valley of flowers.. It was everything I had imagined and more.. Oh so beautiful. *sigh*

Oh and another first.. I slipped and fell on a glacier.

arid versus sultry

If i had a choice, i would always, always choose sultry.

Now that that's settled, lets move on to more realistic topics.

This 6th of june is the last chance for us (and i mean all of us, unless they are planning to live forever) to see venus passing by the sun. Dont miss it.

Human beings like to be in contact. We are happy when we know everything about everybody. In my opinion the fourth ego state in addition to the Parent, Adult and Child, is the Stalker. Dormant in most, but very much there. (yeah go ahead, deny it. You know its true).

What is the optimum sanity level to keep one happy forever? When does sanity start bordering boring? How does one keep tab of it? Has there been a study seeking correlation between incredibly sane and extremely boring?

In praise of romantic idleness

As I have always maintained, I regard Gulzaar as one of the finest artists that God ever blessed us with. In addition to producing some timeless gems, he has also touched upon works of previous maestros and somehow made them more beautiful. Let us delve in two such examples:

Amir Khusro, is regarded as THE pioneer poet of khadi boli. Every kid, at least in the northern part of India, is familiar with his timeless riddle, “ek thaal moti se bhara…”. His series of “kyon sakhi saajan, nahi ____” riddles are a fine example of utilizing the internal syllabic rhythm of language to highlight the playfulness of the two protagonists in these riddles. But that is for another post.

It turns out that Khusro was much more than a Hindi (khadi boli) poet.  Behold an excerpt from one of his poems:

Zehal-e miskin makun taghaful, duraye naina banaye batiyan;

ki taab-e hijran nadaram ay jaan, na leho kaahe lagaye chhatiyan.

Source

This is a masterpiece in its own accord. Apart from the obvious beauty of rhyme, the true brilliance of this poem is that it has been composed in two different languages. The first half of each line is Persian, or Faarsi, while the second half has been composed in Braj bhasha.

Taking the initial phrase out this poem of Khusro’s, Gulzaar has created a different couplet, somehow preserving the original idea of interweaving two languages as well as the emotion of romantic anguish. Here it is:

zihaal-e-miskeen mukon ba-ranjish,

bahaal-e-hijra bechara dil hai

(A song from movie Ghulaami)

Now this is called inspiration. It’s like a true artist paying homage to another true artist. Legend saluting legend. Brilliant.

Let’s look at another such example. This ghazal composed by Ghalib is in praise of romantic idleness..

jee dhoondhtaa hai phir wohee fursat,

ke raat din baithe rahein tasavvur-e-jaanaa kiye huye

                                                           

Gulzar borrowed the ghazal, re-punctuated and changed the meaning a little and added some more lines beautifully illustrating his idea.

Dil dhoondta hai, phir wohi fursat ke raat din,

Baithe rahein tasavvur-e-jaanaa kiye huye…

Jaadon ki narm dhoop aur aangan mein let kar

Aankhon pe kheench kar tere daaman ke saaye ko

Aundhe pade rahe kabhi karwat liye hue…

Gulzar somehow made the verse more romantic, by singing about the times of enjoying the elation arising out of oblivion, being satisfied with the nothingness and cherishing every moment of it, being aware of your surroundings but not bothering to notice anything in particular…

(Disclaimer: I am no expert on ghazals or any form of poetry. I can barely recollect a couple of them. I am just a common admirer. And this is only admiration.)

In search of a starry night

I have very vivid memories of surreal summers spent in my quaint old village. We spend thousands of rupees now to recreate that same charm, to look at green fields which spread from your feet to the horizon, to get to eat some fresh fruit right from the tree, to breath in that pure air, to experience the silence, and the deep peace that creeps in inadvertently in such surroundings. But the one things i have been craving for quite some time now and haven't been able to get is that of being able to look at the stars. Now dont get me wrong, we have stars here. But its just not the same. In this bright city lights, many souls get lost, let alone these stars.
A starry night is the closest us normal mortals can get to experiencing the vast infinitude of the universe. Looking at the night sky, figuring out the stars from the elusive planets, trying to spot a shooting star or even a satellite slowly orbiting across the sky, waking up at the middle of the night to the delight to spotting the milky way and then staying awake just to look at the wonders above, is the most humbling and profound experience.
Makes one laugh at those skeptics who doubt the existence of God.

Over the years it has the single most toughest challenge for me to even try to comprehend the vastness of universe, the endless space, the nothingness and things beyond that. How come there are bodies which are not yet seen but have since ceased to exist and are certain to effect us in a distant distant future. What does one have to do to cultivate an understanding of such mind boggling theories.

Well, as i said, its humbling.

Surely monkeys will laugh at it

Solid statistics collected for over two decades, validate the observation that I must belong to the top 95 percentile of population when it comes to the ability to come up with good jokes. (And I figure somewhere in the 50 percentile range on the parameter of modesty)

Anyways, so the thing is, my jokes usually get at least three laughs on an average. That is the usual trend. However, my last joke was not very appreciated. In fact, Ksh proceeded to laugh at it, instead of laughing because of its high humor quotient. It was obvious that I feel offended. So the thing goes like this:

It has been said that given sufficient amount of time, an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters can reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare (Infinite Monkey Theorem). So the question is – this theorem is in violation of which law of physics?

.

.

.

.

The answer is – The second law of Thermodynamics.

Let me explain. A monkey on a typewriter punching random keys will produce garbage. Garbage has a tendency to remain garbage even if its constituents are reassembled. Hence, it has high randomness and thus high entropy. On the contrary, any piece of work by Shakespeare is very unique in its specifications. Any changes shall result in ruining the entire thing. So it has no randomness at all and thus very low entropy. Now, the second law implies that over time, systems tend to go from low entropy to high. Hence, the law kind of says that contrary to the infinite monkey theorem, given sufficient amount of time, a number of Shakespeare clones will produce large amounts of garbage. 

QED

things to do while waiting for cake

drool

citrus glow

My first ever trial in the art of candle making - the humble orange peel candle. Inspired from pinterest.

The steps are really simple.

Step 1: Find an orange.

Step 2: Cut it neatly along its diameter. Take out the pulp. It comes out really easily.

Step 3: Level out the bottom of one of the halves, so that it stands steadily. This would be your base.

Step 4: Hollow the roof of the other half. Save the disc that comes out.

Step 5: Make a small incision in the center of the disc. Push the wick through it so that it will hold. Place the disc in the center of the base half. Now the wick shall stay in place.

Step 6: Pour molten wax in the bottom half. Be careful.

Step 7: To add some extra zing, you may add tiny bits of orange peel in the wax.

Step 8: Wait for the wax to set. Have some orange juice :). And viola, your candle is ready.

Step 9 : Light the candle and place the roof on the bottom half.

Step 10: Enjoy a lovely aromatic evening.

Note: Alternatively, you could also just put one of those small candles inside a hollowed out oranges. But its just not so much fun.

Warning: People with an aversion to my weird sense of humour should stop reading after the beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeep.....
An alternate name of this candle could be "the somewhat democratic orange" since it is "orange, in the orange, for the orange". (Ok fine, thats absurd. In my defense, i did give a warning.)

knocking down walls

Recently they broke a wall near the driveway at my office. As usual, the work took about two days. Imagine two days of having to drive through rubble and dust. And that too to work !! It was natural that I grumbled :|

The work got finished today. They replaced the wall with a pretty low fence kind of thing. And suddenly I was able to see a rose garden. It is sooooo beautiful. Especially at this time of the year. All this time, it was hidden behind that stupid white wall. 

Roses as big as my face. In every colour imaginable. 

Ha.. Finally an incentive to come to work everyday..

For a change, I could also marvel at another meaning of this episode. All these years I had been looking at that wall almost everyday. And never really wondered what was behind it. That stupid wall was not really significant for me in any way. It was a part of my everyday just by the virtue of being there.

And yet, it bothered me when they started breaking it. I got perturbed by the dust and rubble. Unable to imagine that this change could bring anything good.

And this is what keeps happening with us in life. We get attached to useless things just because they have been there for so long. We grumble when we to adjust to the slightest of discomfort brought about in the course of change. 

And more often than not, after all the rubble and dust has settled, we find a beautiful rose garden.

Thought of the day

Faith rewards beyond logic.

to beautiful happy days

yesterday, today and tomorrow

to beautiful and (possibly) drunk ants

to beautiful sunsets and pretty starry nights

 to cheerful cheer spreading birds

and life in general

post vacation lows

Are among the best kind of lows among all. A close second is finishing up on an awesome dinner. The sad thing about vacations is that they almost always come to an end. And leave you with this lost disoriented feeling.
One of the remedies that is actually effective for this is planning your next trip. And then waiting for it.

aaahh hmmmm

My dreams are pretty blurry in general. I always remember dreaming but rarely remember the dream.


But a couple of days ago, i woke up with distinct image of a creature with the body of a fish, some foliage on its torso (?) and a number of quick feet. It was scurrying around like a rat. And had a hard and pretty shiny shell like a snail. Somewhat like the picture i drew above.


And today after an inexcusable period of time, we finally got our marriage registered. yay..

End of year musings

are mostly blank.. Not a lull kind of blank though. More like peaceful blank. Moments of crazy broken by bouts of peace kind of blank. blanks which are not blank at all. And there I eat my own words. rather sentences. Only one. Just had breakfast. Eating is fun in winters. Its fun all the time. Not so much fun to eat all the time. The world would have been an immensely better place if we tasted what we talk about. If a person started to talk vile, they would immediately taste scum. If they talked sweet, they would taste milkmaid. I mean the kind that comes in a jar. And is legal. I love that.

pfffiiiishhhttt

“overwhelmed” The stupid word itself scares me. Even pronouncing it is difficult. I don’t like when my mouth makes the “whelm” sound. I don’t like it.

Now technically I don’t have anything to complain about. Things are as good as they can get. Bu sometimes, just sometimes, I realize I am having troubles getting myself together. Like I am running and not getting anywhere. Why am I doing what I am doing? Did I want this?

I guess all I wanted was for us to be able to sip some nice tea quietly while admiring the view from our balcony. Now the tea is not the problem. Tea is fine, there are a variety of teas to choose from. And I like all of them. Its just the “our balcony” part which has got us in this stupid vicious circle. On one hand, we take pride in the fact that we can do this. But then, it’s easy to plan. Planning does not stop us from doing anything. It’s only greed which makes it all so difficult. Greed of making this whole process of having to live like hermits a little shorter. Its like the diagram shown below:

However, the overwhelming is not the result of this stupid circus. I just need some time for myself. To sort myself out. Having to do absolutely nothing for a while. And no, an evening off or a weekend off will not do it. And I have no clue what will.